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Mike
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Blessing
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Mike
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Blessing
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Mike
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Blessing
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Mike
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Blessing
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Mike
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Blessing
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Mike
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Blessing
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Greg
Join Rocket Money now at rocketmoney.com kindafunny head to factorymeals.com kindafunny 50 off and use code kinda funny 50 off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box. Use promo code kindafunny@auraframes.com for 25 off the Carver map frame. If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows go
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to patreon.com kindafunny Today's gaming news stories include Take 2 CEO talks, GTA 6 expectations. Does GTA 6 need to cost $80? And Asha Sharma is making more big changes at Xbox. We'll have all this more because this is kind of funny games daily. Yo, what's up? Welcome to kind of funny Games Daily for Tuesday, May 5, 2026. May the 5th be with you. I'm one of your hosts, BLESSING Addie Oye Jr joining me is the master of hype, snowbike Mike.
Mike
Bless. So good to see you. Of course. Happy Tuesday morning. Great to be doing kind of funny games daily with you.
Blessing
Of course.
Mike
Welcome back from magicon Las Vegas.
Blessing
Come on, dud. Come on. I'm sad you weren't there.
Mike
I'm heartbroken I couldn't come with you. I'm happy you got to represent kind of funny and yourself out in the magic world. Saw some photos.
Blessing
Yeah, Big smile, dude.
Mike
I big smile.
Blessing
So bad at taking pictures. I'm trying to do a better job of taking pictures. But even this weekend, you took one
Mike
photo with the white jean jacket I saw you.
Blessing
Oh, you like that? Okay, okay. I'm glad. I'm glad.
Mike
You looked great now.
Blessing
I'm glad that worked. But yeah, Magic on Vegas. Excellent time. Of course. This is my third magicon.
Mike
Killing it.
Blessing
My first one in Vegas. Conventions in Vegas, let me tell you. Might be too much for me. Might be too much. Overstimulating is the word I'd use to describe because you go to the convention during the day, you're hanging out with people. I had more kind of funny listeners, kind of funny best friends come up, talk to me, introduce themselves, say what's up at this convention. I think more so than any other convention, really, it's amazing. I think it happened more at magic on than it did at the last pax. I was at Magic. Really surprised by how many people who play magic or how many people in our audience that play magic and love it. So shout out to everybody who's out there.
Mike
Three full days. Yep. What were some Highlights. Who you meet, what did you play? What did you see?
Blessing
Highlights. I did a kind of funny community, little limited sealed thing. Wasn't official. I just blasted out on Blue Sky. I was like, hey, I'm going to be at this place at this time. I brought two boxes, an Avatar set and a Laurewin set, and I created a new format.
Mike
Mike, you just jammed them together.
Blessing
I created a new format where separated them out into two pods. We had, like, 12 people, so we did two pods of six. I gave one of them avatar. I gave the other one Lorwin. They did their drafts in separate pods, and then once they were done deck building, we all came together and played together.
Mike
Look at you.
Blessing
Yeah. Really fun time.
Mike
That's dope.
Blessing
Honestly, I want to. I want to figure out how to, like, do a bigger official thing, because after that one, that was fun. Shout out everybody who came to that. Short notice, very informal. I put together a particle. That's how informal it was. But that was a really fun time. On a different day, I went to a. You know how they have these ticketed events where you sign up online and then you go and you play one of the ticketed events? I need to look it up because I actually am not super familiar with the channel. One of my friends who I was there with is a big fan. I think it's called Bronze to Mythic.
Mike
Okay.
Blessing
They're a big fan of Bronze to Mythic, I think is either the name of their channel or the name of the event. But there were, like, two YouTubers that were hosting it that play a lot of magic arena. But basically, we went. They put us all in a room, and it was basically an event hosted by these YouTubers, and we just did their fun, like, draft things.
Mike
Nice.
Blessing
And I was doing that, and I was like, me and Mike got to do this, man.
Mike
Okay.
Blessing
Me and Mike got to do.
Mike
We're getting closer. You win again. You had fun. Bless them. So glad.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
Did you buy anything?
Blessing
Oh, I. Oh, thank you so much, Kevin, for bringing this up. Yeah. So this is the Bronson Mythic channel, and the dudes were there. It's so funny. Again, I don't. I'm not familiar with them.
Mike
Yeah.
Blessing
And so when I first get there, I'm trying to figure out what to do. I look at one of the guys who I didn't know was one of the guys. I was like, yo, am I supposed to pick up a box? Like, what's good? And he's like, I don't know, dude. Ask one of the people And I'm like, aren't you one of the people? And then, like, the event starts and he starts hosting, and I'm like, oh, he's one of the people. One of the people. He's one of the YouTubers. Oh, hell, yeah. I think it was him, actually. But, yeah, that was a really, really fun event. So. Shout out. Shout out. Bronze to Mythic. What's good? And then I forget, did you buy stuff? Oh, I. What did I buy? I didn't buy enough. I didn't buy enough.
Mike
You never could buy enough.
Blessing
Yeah, I did buy a secret lair Fallout TV show set. I didn't know they. Yeah, they did the Fallout TV show secret layer thing. So if you don't know what secret layers, basically they're like a small pack of, like, exclusive, exclusive cards that you have to, like, buy separately. And so I paid, like, 45 bucks to get the. The Fallout TV show cards with Lucy on them and all that stuff and Maximus and stuff.
Mike
That's cool.
Blessing
Yeah, bought that. But I didn't buy nearly enough. I should have bought a deck box. I need a new deck box.
Mike
New deck box.
Blessing
Yeah. Okay. I honestly, I didn't spend enough time on the show floor because I was spending so much time just playing magic.
Mike
That was the goal.
Blessing
Playing commander.
Mike
Had to play.
Blessing
Having a good time, meeting people. Shout out to everybody.
Mike
That was good.
Blessing
Really.
Mike
Well, I'm glad that you had fun. I want to tell you quick thing that I had fun with last night. You went to go see Mortal Kombat. You shared on social media.
Blessing
I did.
Mike
I played Tekken 8 campaign.
Blessing
No, you.
Mike
For the first time ever.
Blessing
No, you didn't.
Mike
And had the most hype experience of my entire life.
Blessing
People underrate the Tekken 8 campaign. It's a really fun time.
Mike
Plus, it's a 12 out of 10 get hype moment. It's so much fun. That was a blast. Bless.
Blessing
Yes.
Mike
Loved it.
Blessing
I love that for you. How you. How was it getting into the controls? Did you use the easy control?
Mike
I think I used the. I used the easy controls the whole time, so it was easy to get through. Couple of fights held me up. But nothing could compare to all the cinematics, all the back and forth with the characters. I was in it from the jump. Bless. So cool.
Blessing
Who's your favorite character?
Mike
I like Jy, of course. He's the main character that you'll learn about. He's got the devil's blood. It was pretty awesome.
Blessing
He does have the devil's blood.
Mike
I'm a big. I'm A big fan of King. Of course. I didn't know he was a luchador. Super. Yeah. He's a wrestler.
Blessing
You're new to Tekken.
Mike
Very new.
Blessing
Wow.
Mike
Yeah. This is all very new to me. So there's a bear out there. I forget the girl's name, but she's definitely got the demon's blood. She's Heachi's granddaughter or daughter.
Blessing
No, not June. Reina. Reina.
Mike
Love her.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
Love that she's new.
Blessing
She's new to Tekken 8. One of my favorite characters.
Mike
Let me tell you what. Totally a great time. Also shout out to them doing something a little bit different. There's a part towards the middle to end where they go from one on ones to kind of like a almost dynasty warriors beat them up. And I'm okay with that.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
Right. It was a little odd at first. But it's like. You know what I mean? I would take this over 10 more 1v1 fights. Like this is fine with me.
Blessing
What if I told you if you go back you'll find so many more Tekken campaigns to have fun with. Tekken 7 had another story mode. Not as great as the Tekken 8 story mode. It's fun. And then if you like to beat the weird beat em up stuff. Tekken. Tekken has a history of doing that type of shit. Like I think there was a whole campaign that was essentially just kind of like that. I think if you go back to play Tekken force for Tekken 5, Tekken 4. I forget which one. But yeah, there's a lot of that. Really fun.
Mike
It was awesome. I am very close to maybe jumping back tonight and doing the DLC story. We'll see.
Blessing
You'll. You'll have fun with the tight. With the DLC story. This is what I'll say. This is what. Because we got the Mortal Kombat movie. Mortal Kombat 2. I watched it last night. We're gonna have our in review sometime this week. Street Fighter movies coming up. I think it's time we need a new Tekken movie. Oh I think. I think you've experienced it now. So you know the characters. You know how ridiculous it is. I think a Tekken movie could be pretty fun.
Mike
Plus I'm all in.
Blessing
Let's.
Mike
Let's get into the news. Plus I'm pumped up.
Blessing
Remember if you're watching live, you can be a part of the show by super chatting in over on YouTube.com kind of funny games. Remember we couldn't do this with our producers over on patreon.com kind of funny. So thank you to Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining for now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. It's time for some news. We have five stories today. Bakers Desert, starting with our number one, take two CEO says Grand Theft Auto 6 expectations are terrifying I'm pulling from Jason Schreier at Bloomberg, and this is sort of a roundup of a bunch of comments and a bunch of the speaking he did at I believe Icon. But there's like three stories in one. And so I just picked up the whole Jason Schreier article just for the nice little roundup here. Strauss Zelnick, the chief executive officer of video game publisher Take Two, has overseen a lot of big releases in nearly two decades on the job, but none have been as massive as Grand Theft Auto 6, which is expected to be one of Take 2. One of the Take 2 CEO hold on, let me say this again. Which is expected to be one of Take two CEO says okay, there's something
Mike
that got a lot going.
Blessing
There's something that got cut off of this, of this paragraph that's probably on me, but probably is, I imagine, saying one of the biggest launches of all time. Let's see. Take two CEO no, that's the just the headline. All right, jumping forward, anything less than an earth shatter, earth shaking blockbuster will be seen as a disappointment by analysts and investors. So the stakes are high for the crime title developed by Take 2's Rockstar Games subsidiary. The company has already delayed the release twice from its originally scheduled debut last year. Quote I think here our goal is to deliver to consumers something that's never been seen, something that's never been experienced before, zoning said in an interview with Bloomberg News last week and at the Industries I Industries Interactive Innovation Conference in Las Vegas. Quote Being on the sidelines but pretty close to the front of the sidelines is very, very exciting and terrifying because the expectations are so high, end quote. Some analysts have forecasted that the new Grand Theft Auto will sell upwards of 25 million units on day one. That means that selling 10 million units, a miraculous figure for most of Grand Theft Auto 6's competitors, would be considered disastrous for this game, which is insane.
Mike
Insane.
Blessing
Bless Quote At a lower level, that's true of Take Two's entire business plan on the console side, zelnick said. Development costs have gone up and up and we really do aim to deliver the highest quality entertainment on Earth, and that is costly and AI influence is not withstanding. We haven't seen those costs decline yet. Maybe we will, maybe we won't. End quote Take two strategies to make blockbuster games. According to Zelnick, to do that, the company has to spend more freely than rivals who may be targeting a much lower number of units sold. Quote that's a high stakes game for big boys only. I'm cool with it. We never claim success before it occurs, said Zelnick. We have the most amazing creative teams. We not only encourage them to pursue their passions, we insist that they do it. We try to give them unlimited financial creative human resources and then aim to deliver perfection. End quote when asked whether Grand Theft Auto 6 really had unlimited funds, Zelnick joked that his son is getting married in June and we and quote we gave him an unlimited budget and he exceeded it. End quote Unlike most competitors, GTA 6 will be released only on the PlayStation and Xbox consoles, although it is expected to offer a version for personal computers later, following the pattern of Rockstar's previous games. This may be a risk for Take Two, given the PC's outsized share of the game's market today. When he started at take two in 2007, Zelnick said a release for PCs would make up perhaps 5% of sales for their basketball series NBA 2K. Quote now with regard to a big title, PC can be 45, 50% of sales, he said. Why then isn't Grand Theft Auto 6 coming to PC immediately? QUOTE Rockstar always starts on console because I think with regard to a release like like that you're judged by serving the core, zonic said. Like really serving the core consumer. If your core consumer isn't there, if they're not served first and best, you kind of don't hit your other your other consumers. End quote. Zonk said the window of console exclusivity was not related to the company's marketing deal with PlayStation maker Sony. QUOTE no, he said. I mean historically Rockstar has gone to console first and Quote a bunch.
Mike
You had a lot there.
Blessing
Bless a bunch of just tiny tidbits.
Mike
Where do you want to roll back up to? Where do you want to start? Because yeah, I want to talk a lot about this article. There's a lot to talk about.
Blessing
I mean I want to know where you want to start, but like let's do 25 million.
Mike
Okay, that's 25 million for day one is a lofty goal.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
An insane goal.
Blessing
Is it insane for GTA?
Mike
Let me take you back 2013, the Guinness World Book of Records. I did a little research on this, had Grand Theft Auto 5 as the top selling video game in 24 hour period at 11 million copies sold and of course went on to 225 million. So that's a lot. But like 11 million day one we're going to add another 14 onto that.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
Does that sound logical 10 years later? Feasible?
Blessing
Feasible, yes. Logical, I don't know. But feasible, yes, for sure.
Mike
Feels extreme.
Blessing
It feels insane.
Mike
You hear it. But like when we talk about Rockstar, we talk about a different beast. We talk about Grand Theft Auto, it's a different beast. We'll get into pricing. I see a lot of the audience want talk about the pricing later on but when you talk about Grand Theft Auto and this property, everything is out the window. Anything is on the table. 25 million day one seems insane, but it could definitely happen.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
Do I think it will happen? I don't know.
Blessing
I mean it'll have to be the fastest selling video game ever, which this will be the fastest selling.
Mike
Years ago it was.
Blessing
This will be the fastest selling video game ever. And so like I guess that's not even the conversation we're, we're having, right? Yeah, yeah. Like that's the thing is you're talking about. What was that number again? 11 million.
Mike
11 million in 24 hours.
Blessing
24 hours. Oh yeah. Then yeah, 25 million for sure. We're talking about a decade, nearly a decade and a half of anticipation. You're talking about an install base that is so high for that video game right now. When you're talking about GTA 5, the amount of people that became fans of GTA via GTA 5. Like not even just fans obsessive over GTA. Right. Like I honestly we might be hitting 30 million, we might be hitting 35 million on launch week. I think those are the numbers that we're, that we're probably working with here for them.
Mike
No old gen, just series X and S, PlayStation 5, those sales, yeah that, that could hold it back. But also like we're here pretty deep into the life cycle. You would think most people are ready for this and of course they'll go out and buy consoles for this. I think 25 is a pretty solid little target to try to hit. I think we see that and probably break that within seven days for sure. I think a week after launch we'll be talking about some insane.
Blessing
Oh yeah. Where the numbers are going to be, going to be ridiculous. There's a lot of factors that come into it. Come into it as well. One of those factors being price. I think price is a Big point of how many units are you getting out the door? Day one, which will lead us into story number two and that will lead
Mike
us into story number two. Before we get to that, then let's talk about the idea of not coming to PC because I do think that's interesting. Right. We talk about Strauss Eldnick there. When he started PC sales were like 5% of the 2K interactive kind of sales. Right now he's looking at like NBA 2K selling 50% on PC. Is it interesting that they are still not going day and date with PC?
Blessing
I think that makes sense. Did you see me and Tim talked about the leaks? Remember the hat there was the hack from a few weeks ago where they put out all the info and the info actually boosted their stock price because it was all boding well for how many units GTA 5 is still pushing and how much money it's still generating for them. In that breakdown you see the portion of how much revenue comes from PC and compared to every other console. PC is so small for them.
Mike
Yes. And I.
Blessing
There are probably multiple factors in it. Probably one of those factors I imagine is pirating games.
Mike
I also think role playing. I think role playing is a big one. Like you're not buying shark cards in the role playing world from my understanding. Right. That is blessing server. And sure you might be selling stuff but like you are the one modding and changing the world.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
I don't think Mike is spending hundreds of dollars changing what I bring into your modded world. You know.
Blessing
Exactly.
Mike
I do think we'll see sales different on that. But yes, when we circle back to last week and those numbers plus insanity to see what what was selling on PlayStation. Old generations on Xbox and PlayStation. Yes, of course the core audience is there, but this is also 13 years later, whatever the number is. We are living in a different world now of like hey, it is interesting that we're not going PC day and date when we know there is such a large audience there. But of course if I'm 2k saying like our core audience to serve is console. Yeah, very interesting stuff.
Blessing
I think that lines up right, like this is. This has been your strategy as Rockstar forever. You're going to console first and then you're coming to PC later. I also think launching on console first allows you to kind of understand the inner workings of the game now that it's out in the hands of the audience. Right. See what people mess with, see who you are desiring, update it, make sure it's rock solid before it gets to the PC. Because once it gets to PC, all, all bets are off as far as what's happening in that video game. You know what I mean? People are going to get their hands on it. People are going to do the roleplay servers, people are going to mod it, people are going to go crazy with it. So I think you, you want maybe that extra year or so to see how the game performs in the hands of the people and get those updates in, make sure it's rock solid and then launch the PC later when you know people are going to fucking break it wide open.
Mike
Totally true. And a big one here. Of course, we'll talk about shareholders and the idea of like having that 25 million, 24 hours in the tale for this video game is going to be one of the longest tales and sales of all video games, right? Like it will go up there with the charts of like, you will have your consoles, you will then have PC, then you're going to have microtransactions online and then it's just going to sell forever, like it always does into eternity, which will be wild to see. If we could fast forward 10 years from now, you and I talking about
Blessing
this game, I mean, there's a bigger conversation we can have around that because a lot of that does depend on the success of online. We automatically assume that GTA 6 online is going to be successful because GTA 5 online was extremely successful and is the cause for that long tail of sales. Now we're talking about how many 100
Mike
million M we had. 225 million.
Blessing
I, I can't believe it when you say that number out loud.
Mike
You know, I don't believe it either.
Blessing
That is the power of all of GTA Online right there. Can GTA 6 Online replicate that success? I think it can. Will it?
Mike
I mean, of course we go back to story number one here, right? That expectation from players, right? Having this feeling of like, you have to be perfect and there is no cost, there is no budget now that will prevent us from doing that, right? Like as video games start to balloon and the process of the budget and creating these games start to go up and up, Grand Theft Auto and Take Two are spending even more money than anyone around them to make sure that this title at launch and beyond is the very best it could ever be, right? And it's like, yeah, it's his son's getting married and there was no budget, but he still blew the budget. This game blew the budget by a long shot.
Blessing
Oh, for sure.
Mike
Whatever. The budget was way past that.
Blessing
Yeah, I can't wait. I wonder if they're going to do previews. I imagine that maybe not. I.
Mike
You know what? Bless. That's a fun conversation we've had before about how do you do previews. What is the preview?
Blessing
GTA 5 even have previews.
Mike
You know that was long before I. I would know. Bless.
Blessing
Chat. Remind me for. For everybody that was there. If you can go back and find. Did we have you get Greg. Yeah, get Greg.
Mike
I think another interesting one while he gets Greg. I think here our goal is to deliver to consumers something that's never been experienced before. What does that mean? I've experienced a Grand Theft Auto game. What are you really bringing that I've never experienced.
Blessing
I'm very interested because like this is marketing speech.
Mike
Like one of those like I hear that. I'm like he's just saying dude, I don't know about that.
Blessing
It's. It's going to be a more expensive looking grand auto. Like you're not going to give us anything we've not experienced before. But I get. You know what though? We know we've not seen a game of this budget before. So. Okay, that's something if I want to give him any credit there. But no, this is marketing speak.
Mike
That is very true. We're going to get Greg here on the line to talk about Grand Theft Auto 5 previews. But anything else from this part one of story number one. I mean we talked about PC and console sales. 25 million, 24 hours. That's a lofty expectation there that we think they'll hit.
Blessing
He said it did. It did have previous. Okay, okay, okay.
Mike
I would expect to have previews. I think this will have a normal rollout.
Blessing
I mean I don't think they need it though.
Mike
Well, we've talked about that. They don't need.
Blessing
You don't like if I'm rock star, I'm like, no, let's go radio silent.
Mike
Of course. I don't want a single person to diminish the shine.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
I don't want anyone to come out of the preview go, hey, it was more of this or like you know, I had any small problem. It's like, no, no, no.
Blessing
I might do maybe like one preview. Like one. Like one. As in one big outlet to one outlet.
Mike
Okay.
Blessing
One big outlet and that's it. Yeah. Just to be clear, we are open to be that outlet. We excited. Well, here's the thing. I don't care because Andy won the episode of. Of kind of Feudi. So Andy would be the one to play it for us about that. So like choose Giant Bomb Rockstar. You know, I just want you to know if Giant Bomb gets chosen for this, I'm mad at you. You know who will really be mad at me is Andy. Well, you know who will really be mad at me is Tim and Greg if I fumble our exclusive GTX GTA 6 preview Mike let's talk about cost with story number two. Rockstar should raise GTA 6's price for for the good of the entire industry, says bank of America. Yeah, I don't yeah, this is Andy Robinson at Video Games Chronicle Rockstar should raise the price of GTA 6 to $80 for the benefit of the entire games industry, according to bank of America analyst as blockbuster video games continue to become more expensive to make, securities stock analyst Omar Daksuki argues that selling the much anticipated GTA sequel for the now standard $70 price point could negatively impact other games looking to raise their own prices to become more sustainable. As pointed out in a note published by bank of America around the recent Icon event In Las Vegas, Take Two executives did not endorse an $80 price tag, but noted that considering inflation, the price of video games has fallen over time. Quote we also heard from attendees that the industry, which is perceived as struggling, would have would have difficulty selling games for $80 if GTA 6 came out at 70, Datsuki wrote. Quote we think it's take two self interest as a publisher and partner to many developers to raise the price point for the entire industry, end quote. It's not the first time that a higher price point has been predicted for GTA 6. Last year, analyst Matthew Ball of appealion no, I got that. Apelion claimed that there was hope among figures in the Games industry that GTA 6 could cost up to $100 so that other companies could raise their default prices as well amid global inflation and swelling AAA development costs. Michael Pachter, the managing director of equity research at Wedbush securities, later wrote. Quote we think the company has plans to sell the game at a previously unheard of price point and suspect that management can offer consumers an incentive to pay $100 or more per unit by rewarding them with a large amount of in game currency to be spent in GTA online, end quote Notably, Rockstar parent Take Two was the first major publisher to raise game prices to $70 at the start of the current console generation, a stance that many other publishers soon followed followed on PS5 and Xbox Series X. Speaking at Icon Strauss, Zelnick addressed the issue of GTA 6's price point saying, quote, consumers pay for the value that you bring bring to them. And our job is to charge way, way, way less of the value delivery. How do you feel about something you buy or how you feel about something you buy is the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for. Consumers need to feel like the thing itself is amazing. And the price point they were charged. They were charged was fair for what they got, end quote.
Mike
I like that. Yeah, I, I like those two quotes right there from him. I'm, I'm impressed by that. I like that a lot.
Blessing
So what do you stand on bank of America saying?
Mike
So the bank of America 1 is interesting, right? Because at first you take it, at first glance you go, okay, bank of America, you don't tell, you don't tell me what to do here. I don't need you getting involved in video games. But it's very much of like, hey, looking around the industry, right? GTA and Rockstar, what they decide to do will change how others do this, right? We've talked about Nintendo raising their game prices, right? And Nintendo can do their own thing, but GTA and Rockstar will dictate the rest of the video game industry right here.
Blessing
You don't think Outer Worlds 2 is dictating the rest of the industry?
Mike
Absolutely not. Less is correct.
Blessing
Right.
Mike
As Strauss says, this is a high stakes game for big boys only, right?
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
Rockstar is the head of the table. Grand Theft Auto 6 is the tribal chief, the big dog here. And whatever they set their price point to will dictate the rest of the market.
Blessing
Right.
Mike
If they come in and say, hey, we're standing at the standard, that means you as Outer worlds cannot be doing some Bullshit, going to $90 next time, right? Like they are going to dictate this and the bank of America to bring it back is like they're saying, hey, others in some really bad ways, right? They need more money, they need more of a budget. They need to sell their games higher to hit these ballooning budgets. If Grand Theft Auto was to do that, it would benefit them.
Blessing
Yeah, right.
Mike
That's what it's getting at.
Blessing
Okay, first of all, timber 21 in chat blessing with a jab at Xbox. What a tool. What are we, what are we doing? Why are you defending out of roads two originally coming out at $80, that
Mike
was a bad call.
Blessing
We all agree that was insane, right? And we all want games to remain affordable, right? $80, I think is insane.
Mike
Go back to the right here, how you feel about something you buy is the intersection of the thing itself and what you pay for. Consumers need to feel like the thing itself is amazing and the price they were charged was fair for what they got.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
You're going to look at us, right? You're going to look at Blessing and Mike and say Outer Worlds 2 for $80 made you feel that way. That's insane.
Blessing
You know, I know. I'm with that guy in chat. Outer Worlds to ship at $100 for what that game offered. Like I. So this is an interesting one, right, because we've been having the debate. Debate back and forth. I know Tim and Greg talked about it last week. As far as will it. Will GTA 6 come out at $80? Will it come out at $70? I. I am not confident one way or another. But I, I lean toward the $70 side because I think GTA 6, I think their prime directive is, is to get that game into people's hands because the more units are out there, the more you can sell them on the microtransaction, the more you can sell them on the Shark cards, the more people that are active in the GT online ecosystem, the better for them. Of course, I know that $80 for GTA 6 might be the difference between 25 million on. On launch versus 23 million, but I think you don't want to fuck up that bag at all.
Mike
They don't want to.
Blessing
They're not going to fuck up the bag no matter what. But you want to. You want as many units out there as possible. I think you care about units a lot.
Mike
I think we talk about active users, engagement of users. Right. Like that is a big one to keep them in. Especially knowing the tale of this is to be, hey, there's the initial sales that we want. There will be PC sales and then we're going to move to online, which will be microtransactions. And we want as many people in there as possible. Right. And so we will see what that looks like. Bless. But whatever Rockstar does, they're allowed. They will be the ones to dictate it.
Blessing
Right.
Mike
$100. No one here will bat an eye at that. We will all go, yep, give us that. We're totally.
Blessing
You think nobody will bat an eye at $100?
Mike
They will complain, but they will do it. We all know that. Yeah, right now, GTA 6 came out tomorrow and they said, the game's $100. We're all going to do this. We're going to nod and say, hell yeah, let's get it right now. They can do whatever they want with online in game currency because that's just funny money to them, right? They can go, hey, it's $100, but bless, you're going to get $4 million in shark cards. You don't know what that actually comes out to. It doesn't matter what it is. But that makes me the consumer go, okay, well, at least I'm getting some added value here. Right? But like we will find when it comes to the finish line what they do, but they will dictate the rest of the market. That's what this story is.
Blessing
I definitely just. I just, I can't. Yeah, I think $100. I think you're right that me and you and the people watching and listening are going to buy it. However, I don't think you need that unnecessary bad press. I don't think. I think for them, GTA 6 is such a golden goose, right? It is such a. Like it is. You are not really dealing with much bad press around GTA 6 at all. I think that $100 price point will be walking to the store, but we will be. Will be grumbling, yeah, fucking buy take on my $100 bill. Hand this to the cashier. Give me back GTA. We playing GJ6 angry, right?
Mike
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Blessing
I don't think they, they want that especially because I don't think they have to do that.
Mike
Of course.
Blessing
I think the A$70 standard price and notice how I'm saying standard. I think you're going to have special editions of the game that are going to sell crazy. You're going to have $120 edition of the game, maybe even more. That's going to fly off the shelves. Right. I think that's what balances this out plus the microtransactions. I think you have so many ways to go about pricing this game in ways that don't also just piss off your entire audience.
Mike
I mean, that's the goal, right? Consumers pay for the value that you bring them. Our job is to charge way, way less for the value delivery. I mean, I'm all on board. I think they stay at $70 plus. I agree with you. Right. There's no need to sour the story.
Blessing
The.
Mike
There's no need to change any of this, especially because, you know, if the target goal is 25 million, 24 hours in, we know we're going to go way past that seven days a month, a year from now. Right? And then we're going to hit the tail of the microtransactions. They're totally fine. But with this story, it will dictate what the rest of the audience does or the rest of the marketplace. Because there's no way if GTA comes out at $70 from that point forward, you're going to be looked at as crazy for going above that.
Blessing
Yeah, I agree with that. Now, one, the one more point on this one I want to ask, based off of bank of America, do they need to go to $80? Are we in a player? And maybe this is like a call, call up Matt Piscatella type thing and have a whole games cast about it, right? Like, is the video games industry in trouble if we don't make an $80 standard?
Mike
I mean, that is now a different conversation, like you said, right? It's like that's what this bank of America story is telling you. It's like, hey, they're clearly interfacing with developers and publishers in a different way than the consumer is and they're maybe seeing a different story. And that's what Matt Piscatella would tell you is like, hey, with the ballooning costs of development time and how long it takes and how much money we're putting into it, this $70 price tag is clearly not working. Right. And so like back to the story. If GTA was to charge more, that would allow. The door would be open for Mike and blessings. Next game. To be 75. To be $80 without souring the milk, without hopefully allowing more, without consumers saying, we're not buying that. Right. Like they might need more money. We don't know what Grand Theft Auto's 6's budget is. We assume it's gigantic. Of course. Right? So it's like, is $70 enough to pay for that budget at the end of the day, will they make it all back? Of course.
Blessing
$70 enough to satisfy their shareholders with the amount of revenue that you're getting is the real. Is the real question. Right?
Mike
Great call.
Blessing
And that's, it's just a, it's a tough thing to balance because when I think of, let's say we go to an 80, $80 standard across the board for new AAA video games, I find it tough to think that people will buy more games. I think that, I mean, I think just by property of that, right, we just people, the consumers start buying less.
Mike
I mean, you buy less bad, you start to look for value. With Xbox game pass like we've talked about, I just can't keep doing this at this price point. And it's interesting when you see the bank of America title on this, right? I think a lot of people go, oh, bank of America is talking about me. Someone that's like living paycheck to paycheck or someone that is struggling to pay for groceries, rent in this economy and is like hoping that GTA won't up the price. Right? Because the video games industry as a awesome enthusiast hobby is already a lot of money and is pricing people out of this, right? Yeah, we're hoping that doesn't happen. And so it's like one of those, like you read that first title, it's like bank of America saying what? Like you see the, you see all the credit card statements help us out.
Blessing
But it's a. Yeah, they're speaking to the, to the business of it, right? And like we're seeing it I think across the board in the talks that we see from these quarterly earnings where you're talking about, I think it was PlayStation that said that says we got to focus on monetizing our own audience. You know, embrace her talking about we got to exploit Lord of the Rings. Like everybody is trying to lock in and find the avenue that is going to continue that upward trajectory for your sales. And a lot of that I think for, for a lot of these companies is looking at all right, who does have money where, where the whales at? Like, who are the people that are going to overspend and get us that revenue that we're talking about? And if we got to say fuck the people that are in the middle and lower than that, we got to say fuck the people that aren't able to buy as many games or whatever. Hey, at least we're getting money from the people that are making high, high of six figures, right? Like, and that's going to suck for most of us. And I don't think that's sustainable long term. That might help you out for a second. I don't think that's sustainable for the health of the industry, which is where I look at this and go, I hope it's not $80. I hope we stay, I hope we stick at 70, like 7. I don't think we can surpass that standard and have this be a healthy industry for the mass vast majority of people.
Mike
If we stick at 70, does that mean the next generation as we move on sticks at 70? How long until we see another price increase?
Blessing
It'll happen.
Mike
Yeah. Will it be one offs? Nintendo will do their own thing. We don't conclude Nintendo, but we talk about the next PlayStation game. PlayStation would be the next people who have Juggernaut video Games that clearly sell
Blessing
Last was part three for PlayStation 6,
Mike
Spider Man 3, whatever it is, right? Like the banger PlayStation game. Would they be the next ones to say, hey, whatever GTA did, we don't care, we're coming out at 85.
Blessing
I ain't paying no $80 for Spider Man 3. I'll wait for a sale. Fuck that shit.
Mike
I think most people would say that.
Blessing
Yeah. No, I'm not doing it. I'll just play Spider Man 2. Like how? Sure, I'll watch the story on YouTube and then keep playing Spider Man 2. I ain't paying $80. Yeah, I gotta save this so I can buy God of War Ragnarok too, you know?
Mike
You know what? As we near towards November, it is more and more fun to think about gta because I'll be honest with you, Bless GTA hasn't been on my radar for a while. Enjoyed the last week's story with the numbers. Right? But like, I haven't had the fun of us talking about will it be a hundred dollars in quite some time?
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
And when we get closer and closer, this conversation will only ramp up and tighten even more. We'll have so many more conversations.
Blessing
We're gonna have so many conversations about it, Mike. Let's have a conversation about Xbox and Asha Sharma. But before we do, let's have a conversation about patreon.com kindafunny and YouTube.com kind of funny games where you can go and get the kind of funny membership which allows you to get shows ad free. Speaking of ads, let us tell you about our sponsors.
Greg
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Blessing
And we're back. I actually want to hop into some super chats. A lot of chatter going on. Let's do it Mob Axy says. I love how publishers say we need $80 games. Go was made with less than $100 million. Why the can't AAA games have a lower budget like that. Oh wait, we need mega sales.
Mike
Yeah.
Blessing
I mean this conversation we've been having right. Over the course of the last however many years, six years, whatever, it's been of like, video game budgets seem insane. And like, I think it's a balance of what does the audience ask for? Because on one hand I'm with you, Mob X, you, I want more smaller, smaller scale AAA games. I love playing a game like Lost Legacy or Miles Morales or you know, you mentioned Ghost of Yote or Returnal. But even, even these games are still high budget games. You know what I mean? But then you jump to a God of war, Ragnarok, an Elden ring, a whatever, and we're, we hail these games as masterpieces.
Mike
Yeah.
Blessing
We look at these games and we give them tons of sales.
Mike
They are console sales.
Blessing
They'll console.
Mike
Yep. Uhhuh.
Blessing
And so like I think there's a balance to that conversation. I don't know where the, where the balance is. Is that. Because I think that's a very deep conversation of when we look at budget, when we look at the desire of players, what do players really care about? Because I agree that I look at the numbers and I go, this is not sustainable. And we are overworking people. And the games are being delayed forever. And it's been a whole generation. I've not played a new Naughty Dog game. But then you get one and it's like, damn. All right. Hell yeah. Game of the year. 10 out of 10 and we rewarded.
Mike
Yeah, yeah, yep.
Blessing
And so I don't know what to do about that.
Mike
No, Bless, that is the balance that we will walk, especially for the video game industry right now at this moment, with so many layoff studio closures, you are going to see publishers, big owners and the stakes of all this, the balance will be key for the next 10 years of can this be sustainable? How do you make sure your audience is being served? Your, of course shareholders are being served in this perfect balance that is a tightrope to walk.
Blessing
Yeah, we got one that just came in from Rob. Base junior says, sorry fellas, but no one is buying base version of GTA 6 at $100. I say the base needs to be $70, while a higher priced version of $100 perhaps should come with a three to five day early access and a steel bookcase.
Mike
Rob, I mean, me and Bless are on board for the $70 price. Yeah, we want that. But to say no one would buy that game for $100. I apologize to you, Rob, you have egg on your face. Because all of us will be buying that game at $100 and they will have a $22 million. 20. 22 million units sold in 24 hours. Like it will happen. Yeah, this game is going to do that.
Blessing
Casual Vader says we don't need to pay more for games. We need to pay executives less. Which I 100% agree with you there. That's what I'm saying about. With the. With the shareholders and the people at the.
Mike
Power to the people, baby. Let's rise up. Let's stop this.
Blessing
I hear you, Mike. Let's go. Let's do it. Only special feature says my crazy idea. That won't happen. But I wish would happen. The game is 60 bucks. You charge less to sell more copies and you appear as the hero to gamers. Here's what I'll say in the dream world. Oh, man, that'll be so sick. That'll never happen. That'll make in $10 less per copy. No GTA. Do you know how many millions of dollars you're leaving on the floor?
Mike
That's not in the budget. That's. That's not the money.
Blessing
When. When Strauss Zelnick says that we told. I told my son that he can. That he can have unlimited budget or whatever for his wedding and they still went over budget. I butchered that. But like, no, that game is gonna cost at least full price for you. Yeah, but I hear you there. I mean, Jam Van writes in with a similar thing. GTA 6 should come out at $50 and cause a massive industry panic. The idea that anyone but GTA could get away with $80 is crazed. Didn't Nintendo get away with it though?
Mike
They did get away with it.
Blessing
Nintendo got away with it.
Mike
We all happily bought that game. Not happily, but we did buy that game.
Blessing
Striking news. Writes in and says birthday tax for yesterday. Going through lambing season on my farm in Iceland.
Mike
Wow, that's awesome.
Blessing
And you guys are keeping me sane through sleepless nights. Shout out to Mike and any other fellow May babies out there.
Mike
Hey, shout out to all the May babies out there. Birthday coming up. Very excited and thanks for watching and listening to us. Thanks for allowing us to be part of your day lambing season. Yeah, I would assume that means birthing season. It's time for the babies to come.
Blessing
Kevin, has it pulled up here? Lemming season primarily occurs in late winter to early spring, lasting about six weeks as ewes give birth after a five month gestation. Damn. Nailed it. Holy wow.
Mike
Time to get out. That's going to be some hard work going to be a lot of lambs crying, a lot of screaming.
Blessing
Got to get them the bottle. You got to get nerd into bed.
Mike
I'd like to do it one day in my life. I'd do it one day.
Blessing
That's the most white privileged thing you ever said.
Mike
Thank you.
Blessing
I'll get my hands dirty for one day. Are you a celebrity?
Mike
I don't want to go through lambing season. I just want to do one day of lambing season.
Blessing
I'll work at a grocery store for a day as we talking on a video game podcast. God. And then we'll do one more. We'll do one more. Mike, like, music writes in and says, if y' all could play any game that's released in this very moment, what would it be and why? We can play a game that's been released right now.
Mike
That's been released or coming.
Blessing
Okay, that is. That's a really. That's released.
Mike
That's. Oh, then I could just stop right now and just, like, stop.
Blessing
Stop right now. Play the video game, man.
Mike
I have so many. Dude, I'd like to play Soros if I could stop everything right now. Pragmata was up there, but for real, the game that I want to play right now, this moment is Heroes of Might Magic. Okay, number four, new, new game just came out. Wow. It's, like, low on my list of, like, priorities because there's so much things to do. That's the game I want to. I want to stop the world and say, let Mike play this.
Blessing
If I could play any game. I mean, you had me wanting to play Tekken Blessing. You only want me to go when you go back to Tekken. I mean, that's my game of the year. That's my main.
Mike
I know.
Blessing
Victor's. Dude, I've been going crazy. Oh, listen, if you want to do a fighting game stream, like, just say the word. All right. Invincible versus is out right now.
Mike
What is. What's a. What's a game right now? That's, like, in your busy season, as we juggle all these reviews, is there any game that you're like, I missed this, Mike, and I wish I could just pause time.
Blessing
I missed this, and I want to get back to it. Yeah. Life is Strange reunion. Oh, I missed it. I'm a big Life of Strange fan, and, like, I want to make time for it, but I'm scared that I'm not going to be able to aphelion. That's the one from don't speak of live streams. That's the one that don't nod.
Mike
Yeah. Yeah.
Blessing
This game had like middling reviews but I saw a couple reviews that were like, no, no, no. This is amazing.
Mike
Okay.
Blessing
Kate Sanchez at But why though? Reviewed it, gave it a 9.5 out of 10 and is glowing about it. Yeah. And so that's definitely on the list. And then Titanium Court, I have that on my Steam deck. I played it, I booted it up on the way to Vegas and then I fell asleep on the plane because I always fall asleep on planes. But that game seems neat. Game seems, seems really, really cool.
Mike
I like that. So many games.
Blessing
Story number three, bless. That's like a 45 minute flight.
Mike
Dude. Let me tell you what, I was on a plane ride to la. Yeah, of course. The normal you get on the plane, hey, sorry everybody. It's going to be another 45 minutes. Hate that.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
Blessing. I started, I started nodding off, phone in my hand, dropped it in front of the people in front of me. Oh. I was like, oh, I'm so embarrassed. But I can feel myself passing out in front of them.
Blessing
The thing, Kevin, is it's like being rocked like a baby for me.
Mike
That's how it is.
Blessing
Bl yeah, it's just so. No, I'm sorry. I'm the exact same way. Yeah, dude.
Mike
It's like you and me at lambing season.
Blessing
Somebody photoshopped me and Mike as lambs being rocked asleep. Story number three Microsoft's new Xbox shakeup is all about platform changes this is Tom Warren at the Verge. Microsoft's new Xbox chief, Asha Sharma has spent the past couple of months making her mark on the Xbox organization. After focusing on highly requested Xbox console features, reducing the price of Game Pass and moving Microsoft Gaming back to Xbox, Sharma is now reorganizing the Xbox Platform team at Microsoft. Today. The changes will see some veterans depart, promotions and new faces with more technical expertise to help the Xbox Platform team. Jared Palmer, who used to work with Sharma in Microsoft's core AI division, is joining Xbox as VP of Engineering and Technical advisor to Sharma. In a memo to Xbox employees, Sharma says that Palmer will work, quote, directly with me on our most complex product and engineering problems with a focus on developer tooling, taste and infrastructure. End quote. Tim Allen, former Microsoft Core AI VP of Design and GitHub's Senior VP of Design and Research, is also joining Xbox to lead design. Sharma says Allen's appointment is the first time bringing together product design, design, engineering, research and creative with a fan first focus. Jonathan McKay, former head of growth at Microsoft's core AI division, is also joining Xbox to lead its growth, data, platform and analytics. Evan Shockey, a former general manager in Core AI, is joining a new team in Xbox to, quote, lead a forward deployed engineering group focused on removing repetitive work, simplifying development and improving how we operate, end quote. That's a lot of folks from Microsoft's core AI team, and it seems like Sharma is bringing over her former colleagues to give the Xbox organization a little more technical expertise for platforms and experience with things like growth and data. It's also a lot of AI experience which is bound to sound the alarms with with some Xbox fans. But looking at the appointments, there's no clear AI push for Xbox here. These leadership changes at Xbox largely affect the platform teams under Xbox president Sarah Bond. Microsoft originally announced Bond's departure in February and she has remained in a place as remained in place as special advisor to Sharma to help with the leadership transition. Many had expected Bond would be named Xbox Chief, but Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella decided to shake up Xbox leadership with an outsider as part of this new Xbox shakeup. Roanne Sones, corporate vice president of Xbox Devices and Ecosystem, will be taking a leave of absence after this summer and will be staying on as an advisor. Stones previously reported to Bond and helped lead the launch of Xbox Ally Devices. Kevin Gammell, corporate vice president of Xbox User Experience, is also stepping down after nearly 20 years at Microsoft. Quote, he's dedicated more than 15 years to Xbox and will support the transition, says Sharma. I'm grateful for his leadership and everything he has built here. Jason Ronald, vice president of Next Gen, is also getting a promotion as part of these changes. Quote, on hardware, we're elevating Jason Ronald accountable for Project Helix and our platform, says Sharma. It's not clear what Ronald's new title is, though. Jason Beaumont will lead the product and serve as interim head of engineering as part of these changes. This is an important time for Xbox, says Sharma. Quote, our goal with this change is simple. Build a platform that is affordable, personal and open by staying close to the work and people we serve. We'll continue to add the capabilities needed to get there. And whoa, Mike, this broke right before we went live.
Mike
A lot going on there.
Blessing
I got to see your reaction live when I said there's some new Asha Xbox news. You're like, exciting. And I said, everybody's been. I said, core AI people are being brought to lead the ship here.
Mike
Mood kind of shifted a little bit. But you know what, you talked me into it. Bless. Because she's bringing on her team.
Blessing
Yes, right.
Mike
And that's the big deal of this, of course. Want to kick off. Roanne and Kevin, congratulations, Like, thank you for your service. That's an amazing amount of time to spend at Xbox and Microsoft. Like, best of luck to you wherever you go. Please enjoy some time off. And, like, thanks so much for everything you've done. Like, that's crazy. That's wild to say. I can spend that much time at a company and look back on my career. Jason, congratulations. Big dog. Another promotion. We'll see what that is. Let's talk about her, though. Bless. The audience heard you talk and you could see it in the chat. Oh, yeah. Or AI People immediately don't feel good about that. They do not like the word AI right now. We've talked about it for months. Cutting jobs. The idea that the goal would be to supplement AI Instead of people.
Blessing
Right.
Mike
But this is now Asha Sharma's ship. Right. This is her role. I am impressed that, like, when we talk about Satya and we talk about her, it seems like, hey, this is her ball to take. She's going to do whatever she wants to do. And only time will tell where this takes us, though.
Blessing
Yeah. I think for me, there's two sides of it. I think the first side of it is as people who talk about the industry every single day. Right. As an audience that pays attention to everything, we're not naive when it comes to the shifts made in the industry, especially surrounding AI and how AI is being forced into nearly everything because shareholders demand for it. And so I. I think that is why we have the. In the innate fear of, oh, no, like, Xbox is being invaded by people who are from the AI team. Right. And I think there. There's the feeling that we have automatically that is. That kind of shudders at this. We're kind of like, I don't like this. No. On the other side, for me, I'm very much on, like, the. All right, let's see how it goes. Like, I. To your point? She's bringing over people that she's worked with in the past and that she looks at their pedigree and goes, okay, cool. I like. I like what you do. I know how to work with you.
Greg
Cool.
Mike
We're bringing people I trust. These are people that we've worked with before. We know each other's workflows. Like, that is a big part of building a team, is the trust and understanding. I know what Bless is capable of. He knows what I like and don't like. Let's work together.
Blessing
Yeah. And so I think on that side of it, I'm like, I don't really have much of an. Of an. A strong opinion about this regarding that. I think that's something that happens when there's big leadership change, right? Like, that leader looks at people they've worked with, looks at people they trust, looks at people with certain expertise, and goes, I want to do this. I'm going to bring this team, these people that I know have the capability of doing this, and bring them. Bring them along with me. So there's that. Does this eventually lead to some AI bullshit? Sure, maybe.
Mike
Of course.
Blessing
I don't know.
Mike
What is their knowledge on Xbox and gaming as a whole? Right. We're talking about Asha and how she's coming in and perceived. Right. Of like, whoa, AI instacart, right? Like, where's the gaming background? And we always say, hey, give them the benefit of the doubt. They're bringing in talents that you might not know about. Right. But now you look at the team and go, okay, what is the knowledge? What are you going to be bringing? But we do know that Asha is bringing a different eye to this, right?
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
It is about the user base and player engagement. Right. And trying to get small wins now to start getting this turn, especially ahead of Project Helix, when that is going to be announced, dated and slated and outright. You want a big positive upshift towards that, and you want to start winning the fans back. And I think her goal is we got to start getting people back on board now.
Blessing
Yeah. The only thing that does stick out to me here, they talk about Evan Shockey, right. The former general manager at Corey. He's joining the team to, quote, lead a forward deployed engineering group focused on removing repetitive work, simplifying development, and improving how we operate. That sounds like you're gonna fire people. That sounds like we're gonna slim this thing up. That's the only part where I'm like, that scares me.
Mike
I don't know about that.
Blessing
I don't like that language. Right.
Mike
I think we will see. I think the big one with Asha and this team is we will see A lot of this is gonna be a year, five years out. Right. But, like, with that. That reads me resume speak, hey, this is what I'm good at, right? I'm good at coming into a role, seeing what you have going on, and finding ways to be more efficient. Right. What are the bottlenecks? What are the issues that your team is having or that I see from the outside that I'm good at coming in and saying, hey, let's change This, I don't jump immediately to cut, cut, cut. I think a lot of us would do that.
Blessing
But like, I think that's coming regardless if, well, leadership changes. It's not a we will see, Mike. It is a, it will happen.
Mike
I don't.
Blessing
When is it not happened?
Mike
That's true.
Blessing
It's never not happened on this scale.
Mike
So the problem is when you say that then my mind goes back to the Seamus Blackley quote at the beginning of all this. Like we're putting, putting Xbox to rest then, you know.
Blessing
Right.
Mike
And like it doesn't feel like the fighting mentality you want to be. I want to be more optimistic of like these business changes are in the right to better Xbox and get them back into a better spot than they have been over the past 10 years, this past generation. Yeah, but yeah, I mean this is all corporate speak. This is all we can just guess and hope we won't find out until two weeks from now when they're like, hey, guess what, Mike? We shut off a thousand jobs.
Blessing
Yeah, I, the only pushback to that, where I don't see it in line with the Seamus Blackley thing is that I think their job here is to make Xbox more profitable and make money. And you know, I think that's at odds with. We're sunsetting this. We're putting, we're putting it to sleep. Right. But I also think to the corporate speak of it and corporate structure of it for companies, especially a company of the size of Microsoft and Xbox, oftentimes raising profits means we're paying less people. We're paying, we're not going to pay the people that we think are sitting around and doing a job that we think they don't need to do. Or in the case of maybe some of these AI folks, we can have an AI, do you know what I mean? Like, I think that's just the, that's the natural course of how these things happen. That sucks. I don't agree with it. It all comes down to capitalism and all in all that bullshit. Right. All comes down to the people at the top and their greediness and filling their pockets. But yeah, like that's. I, you know, I feel like we get into this loop every single time of oh, this company acquired this other company, let's be, let's be optimistic. All this shit and then the layoffs happen. Xbox acquired Activision Blizzard. Oh, they're saying all the right things. Layoffs happen. Right. It's a yearly. Come June, we're going to hear about layoffs. It's Always in June for Microsoft. Like it happens like clockwork. And I don't, I'm not trying to be defeatist.
Mike
Yeah.
Blessing
I'm not trying to be anti Xbox either. I know people think that every single time I talk about Xbox, I'm just trying to lay it out how it is. And yeah, like not saying that this specific thing is exactly that, but overall, with these big shifts in leadership, that's the, that's the other shoe that drops every single time.
Mike
I mean, it'll be interesting to see. Only time will tell. Of course we also talk about Sarah Bond.
Blessing
Right.
Mike
And her role leaving. Who is filling these gaps. Right. For Ash's team to be in those kind of roles. These are the people that kind of have to come and be brought in when you have talent like Sarah Bond leaving and probably more of her team going as well.
Blessing
Yeah. Let's move on. Story number four, which Mike, you know we talked about a lot of. We talk in story number four, I would put in maybe the big ish news category. Yeah. Maybe a little smaller. Yeah. But if I wanted the tiniest news I need to know about, where would I go?
Mike
Plus, I take you to our last story, the WE News Channel where we cover all the small news items you need to know about story number four.
Blessing
We're, we're far into the show, of course we talk. Had a lot of big conversation and bless.
Mike
I love having good gaming conversations with you, Big D. I want you to know that I love bouncing off of you and having a good conversation.
Blessing
Halo Studios is actively developing remakes of Halo 2 and 3. It is claimed is from Andy Robinson at VGC. That's according to Rebs Gaming which claims to have received proof from sources that the entire original Halo trilogy is receiving the remake treatment.
Mike
Yeah, bless. We'll keep this very short. I will say when I, me and Tim went up to go and preview Halo Campaign Evolved or yeah, Campaign Evolved, whatever they call that. My immediate thought was, oh well, they're going to run this back with 2 and 3. Right. Like, hey, we're bringing this to PlayStation. This is now in Unreal Engine 5. My immediate thought was, oh well, they'll go to 2 and 3. Yeah, right. Like they'll complete the saga. Brand new player base, a brand new look and feel for the modern day Modern Engine. Boom. Like that just seems like a win. Where's the multiplayer on that? What is that? What's the balance of. Hey, they have a multiplayer project, the next Halo. Plus these two. Where does it really go? Are the campaigns enough? I Don't know. But my mind did jump immediately to oh, surely they'll do two and three.
Blessing
People in chat are saying that we also talked about this yesterday, but Mike wasn't here yesterday.
Mike
Oh, I'm well, thank you. I wanted to talk. I'm very excited to talk Halo, you know. Fuck yeah.
Blessing
You know, I also was off yesterday. I was getting back from Vegas. Usually I prep every single show. I thought I read the full notes for the show yesterday. Apparently I missed.
Mike
We will see. I'm very excited to see how Halo sells on PlayStation in particular and of course how it's received. Right.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
There's die hard Halo fans like me or just Mike in general who was like, hey, Halo campaign evolved great. 10 levels plus additional 313 total. That's fun. Where's the multiplayer? Yeah, this isn't a full Halo product to me. Right. I'm very looking forward to whenever this comes out, how it's received. What is the sales for this? What. What does this look like? Can it be a smaller project in the Halo library so you can do a 2 and 3 without taking so much time away from where it needs to be? Which is that real full product here.
Blessing
I miss Halo infinite.
Mike
Was it so much fun?
Blessing
I was so. It's such a fun.
Mike
Halo Infinite was so good.
Blessing
Bring that to places. Let's give it another shot, bro. I want to play more Halo Infinite. We news for you. Call of Duty tweeted out that they're not sure where this one started, but it's not true. The next Call of Duty is not being developed for PS4.
Mike
Big deal.
Blessing
Let's watch those rumors.
Mike
Say goodbye to the last gen. Is
Blessing
this the first one that's not on PS4?
Mike
Let me double check which one was.
Blessing
Yeah, fact check for that for me. More for you from Noble. This is a really fun one. Landfall and Aggro Crab teamed up for a banger Steam bundle. You can get eight games for $12 and you donate to Make a Wish. The list of games, pretty cool. You got another Crab's treasure. Haste Peak content warning, totally accurate battle sim going under. Stick Fight, the game in Subway Midnight. That's a banger. Banger list of games.
Mike
That's a great lineup of games. Jump on that. Black Ops 7 is on PS4. Currently on target right now.
Blessing
Hell yeah. Really exciting then for this next Call of Duty.
Mike
Big deal. Yeah, it's one of those we're so deep into this life cycle that like or this console generation, it feels like now's the time. But then you saw those GTA numbers. You're like, well, people are still playing back.
Blessing
Oh, yeah, you are definitely still playing back back there. From VGC, the CEO of Hitman Studio, IO Interactive, has assured players that the Switch 2 version of 007, First Light will be released eventually and that he'll do everything in his power to ensure it runs well.
Mike
Nice.
Blessing
Coming to game pass. On May 6, you're getting Ben 10 Power Trip. On the 7th, you're getting Mixtape. On the 11th, you're getting Outbound. On the 12th, you're getting Black Jacket, Call of the Elder Gods and Elite dangerous. On the 14th, you're getting Subnautica 2. It happened.
Mike
That's the release date right there.
Blessing
We got the release date for Subnautica 2. I assume they talked about that, but if they didn't, that's happening. Whoa.
Mike
That's a big fucking deal.
Blessing
Yeah.
Greg
May.
Mike
May 14th. Okay, I'm here.
Blessing
Can't believe it's happening.
Mike
Wow.
Blessing
On the 19th, they're getting Forza Horizon 6.
Mike
This is a packed month right here.
Blessing
Super packed month. And then you're getting for premium Descenders next Wheel World, Wildgate, wuxiang, Fallen Feathers and Doom. The Dark Ages, which do the Dark. Oh, Premium. I see different.
Mike
We've. Don't even get me started. We fucked it up. I got so uptight about this. The moment that you went from the two very clear. PC console and premium, whatever, right? And then they were like, well, now there's core and like, some of you will get these games. Then a lot of you will get those games. Some of you won't get all these games. That was the moment, like, you fucked it up.
Blessing
Premium. What is.
Mike
Wait, there's three different levels. Bless. And it depends on what games you get and when you get them.
Blessing
Because I knew something. They structured it is premium. Which one was what Games of Gold was? Is that premium?
Mike
That's core. No.
Blessing
So premium is it more expensive?
Mike
Games with gold is done. Games with gold. I know that. Three games a month that change that Xbox Live ended and became Game Pass Core.
Blessing
So premium, I got to get my presentation. The Dark Ages is a new thing for premium. But wasn't it. That's an Xbox first party game though, right?
Mike
Well, you're not an ultimate. Ultimate is where you got to be for the first party games day and day. Wait. Damn. Let me bring up my. I'll bring up the slides.
Blessing
Bring up the slides. Horizon Hunters gathering second closed play test will take place between May 22nd and 25th. It adds two. Two new Hunters, a playable episode, a New region and more. I haven't talked to anybody that's played that. If you play that, let me know because I want to know, is it good? Is it fun? Did anybody bless.
Mike
Welcome to the snow. Mike. Mike. Slideshow presentation of what Xbox now is. Right. And so this is what it previously was. But just to give you a quick rundown before the price changes, there was Essential premium, ultimate.
Blessing
Yes.
Mike
All of those levels would dictate when you get certain games and how many games you have in your vast library immediately. Right? And so at this ultimate tier, that's 400 plus games with day one launches of day and day game, game pass, first party titles. When you get to this premium tier, you get 200 plus games, but only a couple of games from the day one or from Xbox first party, day and date will come later on. You're like six months out. And then when you get to essential, that shit will come eventually. Whenever I'm in the mood, huh?
Blessing
Yeah, we got to simplify that, bro.
Mike
We got to. We got to get back to the two. What have we done?
Blessing
That's crazy. And then Control is sold over 6 million copies. People are saying in chat that the Hunters gathering thing was under NDA. I didn't know that. Tell me anyway. Break it. Let's get weird, guys. Let's take one more look at super Chats, see what people are talking about. Kinetic says, Mike, will the boys return to CS2? Has the hype right now.
Mike
Yo. Did you hear the conversation?
Blessing
No.
Mike
Greg got on the phone with Nakey Jakey.
Blessing
Oh, I did hear that.
Mike
When I think about Nakey Jakey, I think about CS2.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
And so maybe we can sweet talk Greg and be like, hey, can you ask him to play CS2 with us for an afternoon? That would be a lot of fun.
Blessing
Here's. Here's the thing. Because I was listening to that show about Nikki Jakey.
Mike
Pretty amazing.
Blessing
I mean, if you want to call it that. I met Nikki Jakey the week before at the 007 event. I was so excited because I'm such a big fan of Nikki Jakey. Yeah, he's one of my favorite video essayers. And when I met him at the 007 event, I was so excited. I was hanging out with Jake Baldino. Of course they know each other. And then I introduced myself. I'm like, hey, my name's Blessing. I work with. Kind of funny. He's like, oh, yeah. No kind of funny. I was like, oh. I was gushing. I was like, oh, let's go. Like, he Knows. He knows. Kind of funny. That's cool. I felt like such a fanboy. And so when you jump forward a week and Greg calls him a thing that you shouldn't call somebody, you know, my first reaction was like, damn, Maybe I shouldn't have said I was kind of funny because now we had Greg Miller calling him something. You shouldn't call me. Call people. But that's cool. They got on the phone with them.
Mike
Got on the phone with him.
Blessing
So, like, is he coming through? What's the. What's the vibe?
Mike
The word is he's trying to get him in.
Blessing
Let's get him in.
Mike
So, yeah.
Blessing
I love Nikki Jakey.
Mike
I would love to return to Counter Strike. I haven't played a tactical shooter in quite some time. Right. I fell off of Valorant because I wasn't invited to the team. Andy. And then we played some Counter Strike. We had a ton of fun with it, but I haven't played any tactical shooter like that in a while.
Blessing
I didn't. I don't think I've. I think I booted up Counter Strike one time when I was younger.
Mike
Okay.
Blessing
And just never. I never. I didn't understand it at the time. I think Post Valorant Bless could probably play Counter Strike a little bit better.
Mike
You'll be good at it. You'll be good at it.
Blessing
I mean, it was. It seems like the most hardcore shooter.
Mike
Yeah. It's a frustrating one. You know, when you die and you just want to keep playing and you got to sit there and watch your teammates, like, that's a frustrating thing.
Blessing
Yeah.
Mike
It's all about patience.
Blessing
Luke Newcomb Gaming says. Hi, guys. Great episode as always. Y' all have inspired me to set up this channel where I'm doing quick game reviews and rankings. I'd appreciate a plug starting out. Much love, kind of funny crew slash community. Listen, here's the thing.
Mike
Bless just gave you a free plug without even checking this.
Blessing
Here's. Yeah, right. Here's. Here's the thing, right? Nobody else do what he just did. If you do it, I will curse you out. All right. No free plugs on the show. But.
Mike
But what was his name?
Blessing
Luke Nukem Gaming.
Mike
Luke Nukem.
Blessing
Listen, Luke Nukem Gaming, how dare you? How do you super chat us? Luke Nukem Gaming, spelled N U K E M. Luke Nukem Gaming.
Mike
Is that on YouTube?
Blessing
It looks like it's on YouTube, yeah. Let me click into your account so I can roast some of your content.
Mike
I'm. I'm getting on it right now. I'm gonna hit the follow.
Blessing
Oh, I'm gonna go to channel Luke Nukem. What videos you got here? He has a pragmatic quick review, homie. You gotta get more videos on here. It's just starting out but like if you're gonna. When you shoot your shot for the promo, you gotta have the stuff ready because we're gonna then talk about you and people are gonna immediately click over, upload more content.
Mike
Oh, see, I went to Bompton.
Blessing
No, that's not the same. This is different.
Mike
Guys.
Blessing
Luke Nukem gaming.
Mike
Okay.
Blessing
Anyway, no free shout outs. Ooh. Okay, we'll do one more quick one. We gotta get out of here. Well, let's not do that one. OMG. OMG. Burr says 25 mil would beat Gamecube live. Gamecube lifetime in a day if we sell 25 million units of GTA.
Mike
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Blessing
That would be. That would beat the lifetime in a day.
Mike
It's an insane number to look go to top selling video games of all time and see the numbers and see how quick it drops off from the Minecraft and one other game to Grand Theft Auto and then the drop off from the 2000s to just 80 million.
Blessing
What's the Tetris number?
Mike
Because I feel like Tetris is there.
Blessing
Yeah, Tetris I'm pretty sure is number one. It goes Tetris GTA. Probably Minecraft.
Mike
Tetris, Minecraft, GTA, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Blessing
There's something above that.
Mike
There's got to be something before Red Dead. Yeah, maybe.
Blessing
But should Tetris count? It was a pack in game. I mean we Sports counts. Wii Sports is.
Mike
We Sports is in there.
Blessing
But esports is.
Mike
It's low. That's an 80 game. That's 1,080 game.
Blessing
And I think, honestly I think they bundle every single Tetris, which we can't do. Right? I don't bundle every Assassin's Creed together, but I'm pretty sure when a Tetris effect comes out, they put that in there. They're ballooning the Tetris numbers. We gotta talk about Tetris. Y' all count. That's where you write in list of what we got wrong as we got it wrong. Mellow fellow writes in says dead as disco was out today. That's not a year wrong. And I don't always include, include the out todays.
Mike
But did you try that one? Are you looking forward to trying that one?
Blessing
I tried it and then I, I remembered it was early access and. Okay, I'll wait for it. Okay, the real Garatti says Luke's plug wasn't free. He paid ten pounds to Super Chat the plug.
Mike
Well, he got it.
Blessing
Well, ask us how much any of these sponsors pay us more than ten pounds.
Mike
He's got his plug. I'm. I'm following.
Blessing
Let's see. Oh, Subnautica writes in it says the release date was announced last week on April 30th. It's an early access.
Mike
Nice. I didn't even know this. I'm so excited now. Yeah, that's a big deal to me.
Blessing
And that is it for your wrong. And that is it for this episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily. Of course. Mike, thank you so much for joining me on the show.
Mike
Big fun day today. Yeah, got a lot of awesome stuff.
Blessing
Greg is talking about his preview of Lego Batman, the new one, Legacy of the Darkness, Legacy of the Bat, whatever the new Batman game is. And then we have a bunch more.
Mike
Then after that we have a kind of funny podcast with your big four that you all love. Tim, Nick, Andy and Greg. And then after that, Mike, Greg Zanth A Gamescast plays of Diablo 4 with the developers 4 Demon of Hatred.
Blessing
Love it.
Mike
Very pumped.
Blessing
Legacy of the Dark Knight. It's funny, I was going to say Legacy of the Dark Knight and I was like that's not it.
Mike
I can't wait for this game.
Blessing
Batman. Lego Batman. Yeah.
Mike
Yeah. This is top three most anticipated. Yeah, it's up there.
Blessing
Well, let's listen to Greg talk about it right to this. If you love what we do, support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get our shows ad free and get a daily exclusive show. Enjoy the games cast next and everything after. But until next time, Game Daily.
Does GTA 6 NEED To Cost $80? – Grand Theft Auto 6’s Blockbuster Expectations, Industry Pricing Pressures, and Xbox’s New Direction
Hosts: Blessing Adeoye Jr. & Snowbike Mike
Blessing and Mike dive deep into the mounting hype and expectations surrounding Grand Theft Auto 6’s launch, especially its rumored day-one sales projections and the industry-wide pricing debate—should GTA 6 be $70, $80, $100, or even more? The episode unpacks Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick’s “terrifying” outlook for GTA 6, how that intersects with current industry inflation, and whether a price hike could ripple across all triple-A game releases. Plus, they analyze Xbox’s ongoing leadership and staff shakeups led by new chief Asha Sharma, what the influx of Microsoft AI veterans could mean, and touch on rumors, new releases, and community reactions.
Strauss Zelnick on “Terrifying” Expectations:
Projected Sales:
Console First, PC Later:
Can GTA 6 Online Repeat GTA 5’s Run?
Bank of America Analyst Pressure:
“We think it’s Take-Two’s self interest as a publisher and partner to many developers to raise the price point for the entire industry.” (25:50)
Industry Precedent & Microtransactions:
“Management can offer consumers an incentive to pay $100 or more per unit by rewarding them with a large amount of in-game currency...”
Strauss Zelnick’s View:
Blessing & Mike’s Take:
“$80 is insane… You want as many units out there as possible.” (29:42)
“If GTA 6 came out tomorrow and said the game’s $100, we’re all going to … nod and say hell yeah, let’s get it right now.” (30:19)
Health of the Industry & Fairness:
Restructure Overview:
Fan Worries – AI Focus:
“That sounds like you’re gonna fire people… slim this thing up. That’s the only part where I’m like, that scares me.” (56:10)
Optimism vs. Realism:
“I’m not trying to be defeatist. I’m not trying to be anti-Xbox either. I’m just trying to lay it out how it is…”
Halo Remakes:
Call of Duty:
Game Pass Updates:
Indie & Charity Bundles:
On GTA 6’s Scope:
“Our goal is to deliver to consumers something that's never been seen, something that's never been experienced before… it’s terrifying because expectations are so high.” – Strauss Zelnick, cited by Blessing (11:16)
Price Point Realism:
“$70 seems more likely, with special editions at $120 or more… that’s what balances this out plus the microtransactions.” – Blessing (31:36)
On Industry Pressures:
“If GTA 6 comes out at $70, from that point forward, you’re going to be looked at as crazy for going above that.” – Mike (32:20)
On Bring Your Team:
“Bringing people I trust, who know each other’s workflows… big part of building a team.” – Mike (54:42)
On the AI Shift:
“For me, there’s two sides. As people who talk about the industry every day, we’re not naive… there’s the innate fear of, ‘oh no, Xbox is being invaded by AI people.’” – Blessing (53:44)
Blessing and Mike keep the conversation energetic, irreverent, and honest—combining genuine audience questions, deep data and industry context, and plenty of raucous sidebars (including stories from MagicCon in Vegas, fighting game chatter, and audience callouts over plug etiquette). Despite skepticism about industry economics and corporate priorities, there’s excitement for gaming’s future, especially the blockbuster moments everyone knows are coming.
Support the show:
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[Episode summary by Kinda Funny Games Daily Summarizer]