Is Xbox FINALLY Winning? - Kinda Funny Games Daily 05.21.25

Summary

Kinda Funny Games Daily: Is Xbox FINALLY Winning? – May 21, 2025

Hosted by Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Tim Gettys, and Blessing Adeoye Jr.

---

1. Introduction: Xbox's Ascendancy in the Gaming Industry

Timestamp: [00:00 – 01:42]

The episode kicks off with Greg Miller celebrating his father’s 75th birthday, quickly transitioning into the main topic: Xbox's burgeoning dominance in the gaming market. The hosts express excitement over the overwhelming influx of positive gaming news, setting an energetic tone for the discussion.

2. Exclusive Magic: The Gathering Announcements

Timestamp: [02:09 – 07:18]

Magic: The Gathering takes center stage with exclusive reveals tied to iconic franchises:

• Ghostbusters Crossover: Tim Gettys shares, “A huge insult that Final Fantasy gets an entire deck. Oh, Ghostbusters. Got a few insert cards” ([04:54]).

• Final Fantasy Integration: Five new Magic cards based on the Final Fantasy series are unveiled. Tim emphasizes his excitement, stating, “I am. It's true” ([03:10]).

Card Highlights:

• Baron Airship Kingdom ([03:24]): A land card representing the militaristic airship era.
• Final Fantasy 5 – Of Ruin ([04:10]): Depicts the enigmatic Town of Ruin.
• Gado Salama Farplane Gateway ([04:33]): Highlights the resting places of the dead.
• Gongaga Reactor Town ([05:12]): Reflects the somber aftermath of reactor construction.
• Corinne Merchant from Final Fantasy 11 ([05:38]): Introduces a unique character from the ATU Empire.

Tim Gettys passionately discusses the integration, mentioning, “I want to give it a shot for sure” ([06:35]).

3. Guest Segment: Andy Cortez Reviews Lies of P DLC

Timestamp: [08:16 – 24:14]

Andy Cortez joins the show to provide an in-depth analysis of the Lies of P DLC. His review covers:

• Gameplay Mechanics: Describes the "Dark Souls-like" difficulty and innovative weapon customization, stating, “The weapon experimentation... creating the weapon that you want” ([10:35]).

• Boss Fights: Highlights challenging bosses like Mark Iona, noting, “She has a puppet that... turns red with electricity” ([15:00]).

• Overall Impressions: Praises the game’s design and balance, remarking, “This DLC looks to be shaping up to be really, really awesome” ([18:16]).

Andy also touches on community interactions and future content, emphasizing the game’s expansive content for a reasonable price.

4. Roper Report: Xbox's Market Dominance Confirmed

Timestamp: [28:49 – 43:02]

Sales Data Highlights:

• Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered led April's sales, outperforming the original's first 15 months ([32:50]).
• Forza Horizon 5 surged to second place following its PlayStation 5 launch ([32:50]).
• MLB The Show 25 and Minecraft also featured prominently, boosted by related media releases like the Minecraft movie ([32:50]).

Analysis by Tim Gettys: Tim confirms, “Yes, yes and yes. I feel like this has been happening for a while and it's only going to continue to happen” ([33:28]). He attributes Xbox’s success to strategic acquisitions and widespread game availability, stating, “Their strategy is working out for selling games. Awesome stuff” ([33:28]).

Key Points:

• Microsoft-published titles dominate PlayStation sales charts.
• The integration of Xbox Game Pass enhances game accessibility across platforms.
• Analysts suggest continued growth as Xbox leverages its extensive game library.

5. Nintendo Updates: Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Redesigns

Timestamp: [55:00 – 65:38]

Mario Kart World Transition: Originally developed for the Nintendo Switch, Mario Kart World was transitioned to the Switch 2 in 2020 to enhance visual and performance capabilities. Kenta Sato, Mario Kart World's programming director, explains the pivot was necessary to avoid compromises like reduced frame rates and lower resolutions ([56:39]).

Tim Gettys shares his enthusiasm: “I much prefer it happening this way” ([56:39]), highlighting the benefits of waiting for the Switch 2 to deliver a more refined gaming experience.

Donkey Kong Redesign: Shigeru Miyamoto discusses the redesign aimed at making Donkey Kong more expressive. The new design, approved by former Rare artist Kevin Bayless, bridges nostalgia with modern aesthetics ([62:00]).

Diddy Kong also undergoes a redesign, featuring a new cap with his logo, enhancing his visual appeal without straying far from his classic look ([64:28]).

---

6. Ubisoft Milan’s AAA Rayman Project

Timestamp: [66:59 – 68:43]

Ubisoft Milan is expanding its team to develop a new AAA Rayman title. A recent job listing highlights the studio's commitment to reviving the franchise with top-tier 3D gameplay animation ([67:57]). Tim Gettys expresses excitement, “I'm stoked for that” ([68:25]), reflecting on Rayman’s potential comeback.

7. PlayStation Studio’s Embrace of Generative AI

Timestamp: [73:12 – 83:16]

A new PlayStation studio, Dark Outlaw Games, seeks concept artists with advanced expertise in generative AI tools for their upcoming AAA project. This move reflects a broader industry trend towards integrating AI in game development, despite ongoing debates about ethics and job sustainability.

• Job Requirements: Proficiency in tools like Stable Diffusion and MidJourney ([73:17]).
• Industry Concerns: Balancing AI innovation with preserving the human touch, as highlighted by PlayStation Studios’ head Herman Hulst ([72:20]).

Greg Miller criticizes the trend, stating, “It's just shitty” ([72:33]), emphasizing concerns over creativity and ethical implications.

8. Additional News Highlights

Timestamp: [39:24 – 77:40]

• Xbox Game Pass Enhancements: Introduction of Retro Classics featuring over 50 classic Activision games, with plans to expand to 100+ titles ([39:22]).

• Prince of Persia Mobile Success: Officially hits 1 million mobile downloads, showcasing the viability of console titles on mobile platforms ([65:32]).

• Epic Games and Fortnite Return: Fortnite is relaunching on the US App Store for iPhones and iPads, alongside the Epic Game Store in the EU ([74:48]).

• PlayStation Stars Program Ending: Nintendo’s PlayStation Stars initiative is concluding, with discussions on the future of loyalty programs in gaming ([77:17]).

• Street Fighter Movie Casting: Epic announcements include high-profile actors like Jason Momoa and Roman Reigns potentially joining a new Street Fighter movie ([77:40]).

9. Listener Interactions and Super Chats

Timestamp: Throughout the Episode

The hosts engage with their audience through Super Chats, addressing fan questions and comments:

• Gaming Suggestions: Listeners recommend titles like Prince of Persia and express excitement for new releases.

• Feedback on Content: Positive reinforcement for guest Andy Cortez’s reviews and discussions.

• Humorous Exchanges: Light-hearted banter about listener comments, such as playful insults and music recommendations.

10. Conclusion: Looking Ahead

Timestamp: [86:54 – End]

Greg and Tim wrap up the episode by previewing upcoming content, including:

• Death Stranding Review: Featuring Mike and Roger.

• Outer Worlds Review: Scheduled for next week with live streaming plans.

• Final Elder Scrolls Online Podcast: Culminating in discussions about cross-play and HBO’s future involvement.

They encourage listeners to support the show through memberships and subscriptions, emphasizing the community-driven nature of Kinda Funny Games Daily.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Greg Miller: “This DLC looks to be shaping up to be really, really awesome.” ([18:16])

• Tim Gettys: “Their strategy is working out for selling games. Awesome stuff.” ([33:28])

• Shigeru Miyamoto: “We reevaluated what can we do with the design to make it more expressive.” ([62:00])

• PlayStation Studios' Herman Hulst: “Striking the right balance between leveraging AI and preserving the human touch will be crucial.” ([73:12])

---

This episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily provides a comprehensive overview of Xbox’s rising dominance, exciting collaborations in the Magic: The Gathering universe, detailed game reviews, and significant updates from major gaming companies. With engaging discussions and insightful analysis, the hosts offer a valuable resource for both avid gamers and industry enthusiasts.

Transcript

[Greg Miller]

Today in the nerdy news you need to know about the dominoes are finally falling for Xbox. We're gonna talk about the fact that Mario Kart world almost was a Switch 1 game. And the fact that a PlayStation studio is chasing generative AI. We'll evolve this and more because this is kinda Funny Games Daily. What's up, everybody? Welcome to kind of Funny Games daily for Wednesday, May 21, 2025, my father's 75th birthday.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, wow.

[Greg Miller]

Yep, yep, yep, yep.

[Tim Gettys]

The bicentennial birthday.

[Greg Miller]

No.

[Tim Gettys]

There has to be some name right.

[Greg Miller]

Side forms. 30 under a 30, aka the married one, aka game showdown season three runner up at Tim Gettys.

[Tim Gettys]

Big fan of second place. You know, sure you are best baby blue. Sure you are number two in game show. Now.

[Greg Miller]

Let's call it like we see it. Let's address it at the top of the show, everybody. There's too much video game news today.

[Tim Gettys]

It's true.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, I. This show I thought was built last night when I was assembling it last night. And in the morning, in the afternoon, I started building. There's so much games data, it's already locked in. Then I woke up this morning with Ben 5:45. What the fuck? Ben? He wanted to play some Hot Wheels out there. I was like, oh. And I looked, there was more news. I'm like, okay, well, now the show's really done. And then throughout the next five hours, news has continued to come at an alarming rate. Most of it good news. Most of it good news.

[Tim Gettys]

Good.

[Greg Miller]

Now, if that wasn't enough, we already have an agreed upon exclusive announcement. Tim exclusive. As you know, Tim, world premiere, kind of funny, loves Magic the Gathering. The reason we love Magic the Gathering is me, Greg Miller, of course, long ago. Stick with me. I'm not really. This is true. Long ago, the magic folks reached out and said, we're doing a crossover with Ghostbusters.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Do you want to exclusively reveal some Ghostbuster cards? I said, yes. They sent me the cards. Blessing was like, this looks really cool. Michael's like, I used to play magic all the time. Get me magic cards. And Blessing was like, well, I'd like to try. And so then we got that. We did a stream. We all fell in love with magic, myself included. I've just been too busy to actually commit like Blessing is. Who's obsessed and obscenely obsessed with it. Mike as well. And magic's taken over the office. They played.

[Tim Gettys]

Took me over. They played a stream a couple days ago.

[Greg Miller]

They played in the lunchroom. Why did you do a stream.

[Tim Gettys]

Final Fantasy, baby.

[Greg Miller]

That's right, everybody. Of course, Final Fantasy is also crossing over with Magic the Gathering. The entire Final Fantasy Saga is here. June 13th. The beloved Final Fantasy RPG series, 16 mainline games of unforgettable characters, items and moments are now here in Magic the Gathering. This is not a sponsored thing. In the same vein of the Ghostbusters thing, they said, do you want to reveal exclusively? Yes, we do Magic the Gathering cards. And I said, well, sure. I mean, I'm not the Final Fantasy guy, but Tim Gettys is.

[Tim Gettys]

I am. It's true.

[Greg Miller]

So, ladies, gentlemen and enbies, we have five brand new Magic the Gathering cards to reveal. Barrett, please reveal the first one. Baron Airship Kingdom. This is.

[Tim Gettys]

Which one's this one from?

[Greg Miller]

Greg, I'm gonna. I'm quizzing you, sir. I'm quizzing you, sir. And actually it's written at the bottom of the card. If you would have just given me five seconds to cheat God. Baron Airship Kingdom. A land town. This land enters tapped. The advent of the airship marked the realization of Baron's dreams, but also the birth of its militarism. Did you know that when you saw that? When did you Baron, you're like, oh.

[Tim Gettys]

No, no, I'm not. I'm not too big of a 4 guy, but I mean, it makes sense. I have played the intro to four many, many times.

[Greg Miller]

You play the intro many times?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. And you can see the intro at the top left right there. I think with all the ships. Okay, I'm a little bit more pixelated in the game. It was.

[Greg Miller]

I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is.

[Tim Gettys]

Two in the west.

[Greg Miller]

You're such a dork. Can we please see the second card to reveal today? This is going gone.

[Tim Gettys]

Final Fantasy 5. There we go.

[Greg Miller]

Of Ruin. They say that beyond the dunes in the town is town of Ruin. But no one can enter. No one can. No one can even enter the desert to find out, let alone cross. It said Sid.

[Tim Gettys]

It's a quote from Sid.

[Greg Miller]

I don't even know. I know that it's this whole thing. I know that.

[Tim Gettys]

Cool guy.

[Greg Miller]

Great land town card. What do you got for me?

[Tim Gettys]

Let's get to the next one. This is the important one. Oh, not the one I thought it was going to be. This was important too, though. Final Fantasy 10.

[Greg Miller]

What is. How do I say this one? Gado Salama Farplane Gateway. This is another land town.

[Tim Gettys]

Mike knows all about this. This is a very emotional.

[Greg Miller]

We guado protect the far plains so the dead can rest in Pe. This is a WADO salon, citizen. I'm gonna say what we're all thinking. The Ghostbuster cards. Better.

[Tim Gettys]

No, they were better.

[Greg Miller]

Here's the thing. Magic. I know you're watching. I know you're all about this. A huge fucking insult that Final Fantasy gets an entire deck. Oh, Ghostbusters. Got a few insert cards. I want a whole Ghostbusters.

[Tim Gettys]

You're so lucky that that's what you got.

[Greg Miller]

Let me see what the next one is.

[Tim Gettys]

This is the bun. This is the one. Gongaga.

[Greg Miller]

Gongaga Reactor Town. It's from Final Fantasy 7. Of course. This land Enders tapped. It's a land town. The Shinra people told us that everyone would be happy once the reactor was built. But all it brought us was sadness.

[Tim Gettys]

Who's from Gongaga?

[Greg Miller]

That's easy. Barrett.

[Tim Gettys]

Zach. Fair.

[Greg Miller]

Impressive. I knew Barrett, though, right?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, it is impressive. You knew Barrett?

[Greg Miller]

Played that game? Played that first game. Don't worry about it. And then one more to go. There it is.

[Tim Gettys]

Say that word twice.

[Greg Miller]

This is the key. Corinne Merchant from, of course, Final Fantasy 11.

[Andy Cortez]

Huh?

[Greg Miller]

No, I get it. Small beastmen that live alongside humans in the AT U Empire. Empire is a real word. And I screwed up. Their ancestors were nomads in the north. And their unique culture and customs can be seen even now.

[Tim Gettys]

Sick. These cards are cool, man.

[Greg Miller]

What is gonna happen for you when the Final Fantasy cards Magic the gathering drops June 13, 2025. Again, not sponsored. We're just fans. Thank you for working with us.

[Tim Gettys]

Bloody war between me, Blessing and Mike.

[Greg Miller]

Well, I mean, they're gonna stomp you.

[Tim Gettys]

They're gonna stomp you to get the cards.

[Greg Miller]

No, you'll get the cards, no problem.

[Tim Gettys]

That's what I'm saying.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

But here's.

[Greg Miller]

Are you going to actually play here? It's just a collection you're going to get.

[Tim Gettys]

I want to try to play. I want to try to play. Look, I was. We did a deep dive a couple days ago. If you want to see me react to all the Final Fantasy cards. A couple days. Exclusive. Exclusive. You can check out the. The stream that me and Mike did. And Bless as well. But that was super fun. It was cool looking at them all. We read through all the cards and I'm like, I'm already overwhelmed. You know what I mean? It's already, like, deeper than I expected it to be, even just with, like, the basic cards. But I was seeing the similarities between this and other card games that I play and Pokemons of the World. So I want to give it A shot for sure. But I. I am definitely more on the collector side of it, and it really. I'm just so excited for Mike and blessed because they are so into magic, but Mike, specifically, because he's been going down the Final Fantasy rabbit hole following in my footsteps, and the fact that he now loves 10 as much as I love 10.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Makes me very, very happy. So maybe it'll be less of a bloody war and more of, like, a nice little truce.

[Greg Miller]

So I think they need to give you a training stream, because when we did the foundations box and me and Blessing learned to play, that was so helpful.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Like, is it just step by step? Here you go. How do you own. And that's when I fell in love with it and bought it. You know, got the arena.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, I love that you actually play. Like, that's incredibly cool and random as hell. Very cool.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And it's another one of those, you know, just like, imagine if this had happened before, Ben.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Because then I'd be obsessed with it. But then I had to stop because I got to play video games all the time.

[Tim Gettys]

Magic of the boy.

[Greg Miller]

Now, speaking of playing video games with the boy, let me tell you about my boy, Andy Cortez. That's right. We sent Andy Cortez to play a video game, and now Andy's here to talk about it. Andy, this is. This is the moment. Andy, my boy, you know, Andy Cortez, he's. He's everybody's boy. He's doing his thing out there. He's living the life out there. Oh, man. Yelled for him. I don't know. He came in and said, I'm here. And then he. But then he. He's not here. You know what I mean?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, he's probably in the.

[Greg Miller]

There he is, everybody. Andy. Andy. Andy. Andy. Andy. Hello, Andy Cortez.

[Tim Gettys]

There he is.

[Greg Miller]

It's Andy Cortez. Here to say hey. Andy Cortez is here to say hey. Andy Cortez is here to say boom. Boom, Boom, boom. Andy Cortez, we sent you down to lovely la, Los Angeles to play the one, the only lies of P. DLC Tell me all about it. Oh, you got a notebook.

[Barrett Courtney]

Took some notes.

[Greg Miller]

Did they give you this?

[Barrett Courtney]

No. The Zelda.

[Tim Gettys]

Little drawings and doodles in there.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Do some weapons, things like. Like that. It's the. It's the map of Hyrule.

[Tim Gettys]

Really, really sick.

[Barrett Courtney]

Really, really happy about it up close. Last time it was. Yeah, we went to la, Me and Blessing, we got to go to the lies of P. DLC event Overture. And they said, here's the thing about Overture. 30 bucks. And they just moved on to tell us more stuff.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Barrett Courtney]

And everybody in the room was like, what about the date? What about when's the date? Yeah, still no date.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, still no date.

[Barrett Courtney]

Still no date. Summer 2025.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

I think this is an SGF thing.

[Barrett Courtney]

I think it may be. I think it may be a freaking, like, just random drop.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, really?

[Barrett Courtney]

I mean, that's just. That's just a prediction. Could be.

[Greg Miller]

I have you a chair. You keep talking.

[Tim Gettys]

No, no, no, no.

[Greg Miller]

There's always B roll. There's always B roll. I want you to sit me comfortable.

[Barrett Courtney]

No, dude, I'm. Trust me. Greg, stay. You stay right there. You stay right there.

[Greg Miller]

Put your ker in there.

[Barrett Courtney]

I like your little te. Got you a little tea right there. Okay, so lies of P. Dlc. It is a little bit of a Dark Souls one sort of thing where you. You go back in time and you. Something happens. You go back in time and you. You awaken and your little homie Jiminy Jiminy Cricket. Jiminy Jiminy's like, but Kratz Zoo didn't exist back Kratz. He's already destroyed. How is it put back in? And it's. It's really, really. And you're like, well, where are we right now? But I think the setting for this first level is super cool and fascinating and creative because you're going through the crop zoo and it's. You're just going through a zoo with different exhibits.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, that's pretty.

[Barrett Courtney]

And like, you know, here's like the. Here's where the gorillas may be, and here's where the rhinos are.

[Greg Miller]

Whatever.

[Barrett Courtney]

And yeah, big collab. But you're seeing them all mutated and everything. And you're fighting a lot of cool enemies out there. It was a. The preview event was sort of split into two sections. You would sit down and say, all right, play the video game. Play the DLC from this first level. Just go explore. Play it like you would play Liza P. And then the other people on the other side of the room, you are doing. You're playing three bosses. I think the coolest thing that they are introducing is difficulty modes. The standard mode will be, I believe, like, difficulty two. There will be an easier difficulty.

[Tim Gettys]

Blow it.

[Barrett Courtney]

And then they will go even more extreme. If you want more of a challenge of the world. Well, for the challenge runners, honestly, because, like, I think the game's playing hard as it is. But for the challenge runners, I Think there's been such an awesome sickos out there. There's been a really awesome economy with like a lot of great speedrunners who play through a lot of bosses. This is one of the first bosses that you will encounter in the zoo.

[Greg Miller]

And.

[Barrett Courtney]

Let me tell you, yeah, I got, you know, I beat this boss, ran through, got to the end of the level, went into another boss room and nothing happened. And it was actually the same boss room of another boss that we fought earlier on the other side of the room of the like in group one. I started off in group one where it's like you, you just do. The boss rushes you. You play up to three bosses with five difficulty levels. You start, you know, it starts off at three and then you can, you know, maybe you want to see all the bosses drop it to difficulty two, maybe down to one or whatever. I, I didn't do that because I just, I. I lost track of time. And then by the time you were.

[Greg Miller]

Lost in the sauce as I was beating. How long did you have with it?

[Barrett Courtney]

One hour on each side. So it was like one hour with the boss rush, one hour with the. This sort of section that you're watching right now in the video where you're just kind of walking through Kratzu. That weapon kicks so much ass. The pinwheel weapon, it charges by running, so it gets stronger as you kind of start to sprint. On the top left corner you see like a little Roman numeral three right now.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

If you run a bit more, it sort of like speeds up and becomes a number four and gets stronger. It rocked. The weapon choices are great. I wish we had more time with the exploration section of it because I think the thing. One of the things that really sets Lies of P apart from a lot of other souls likes is not only that it's real good, but it. The weapon experimentation because so much Eliza P is. Well, I love the handle on this weapon and I love the stats, but the blade isn't really what I'm looking for. Let me disassemble this other weapon, take that blade, put it on this, and you kind of like have a lot of player agency there sort of creating the weapon that you want. That's cool and I love that about it. We weren't. There just wasn't enough time to sort of like look into the systems there because there's a lot of new weapons, a lot of cool looking things. The pinball weapon, like I mentioned earlier, I. I did end up using a weapon that. It's called a Lorenzini bolt blade. And it's like a little stabbing, kind of like a long range little poker thing. But as I was running with the weapon, the creator, the lead director of the game walked behind me. It was like, when you're running, hold right trigger. And so I'm running and I hold.

[Greg Miller]

Right trigger my business.

[Barrett Courtney]

And suddenly it boosts like crazy. This fucking weapon, like, shoots out like fire from behind, and I'm sprinting through the level like crazy fast. It was awesome. It was really, really damn cool. And by the time I got to the end of the zoo level, I walked into what I thought would be a new boss arena, and there was already a bonfire there, as if the boss had been completed. And they had to walk up to you. They were like, you're the only one who's gotten this far.

[Greg Miller]

God damn.

[Tim Gettys]

Cortez, everybody.

[Greg Miller]

More Hussein in the corner, sucking his thumb, can't even play.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, here it is right here. Bear. They're like, there's actually no more demo here. You're done.

[Tim Gettys]

Wow.

[Barrett Courtney]

So it was like gamer, you know what I mean? But the. The other three bosses on the other side of the room that you end up getting to fight are super fascinating and really cool and challenging. One of the first bosses you fight, her name is like Mark Iona. And she had a puppet that. A puppet flying thing. I don't know if you saw it in the B roll, Barrett, where she. She has it, like on a leash and it kind of flies around and attacks you. When the leash is red, the puppet's attacking you. So, you know, like, oh, the Lee. She turned the leash red. It's bright red with like, red electricity. I got to defend against the puppet. And then it turns blue, you know, like, oh, now the puppet's going to back away and she's going to attack me now. So the difficulty really started ramping up. It was really, really tough on the first difficulty. Also, you know, to everybody at Neowiz at around 8. No backpedals. I got it.

[Greg Miller]

I almost, like, I predicted why we shouldn't give ourselves to these things that won't always be there for us. Thank you. I got an stars. Thank you.

[Barrett Courtney]

I did get an apology from one of the PR people. He will rename remain nameless because I don't want to. Danny put his business out there.

[Tim Gettys]

Close call, Danny.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah. He was like, sorry, no backpedals for you.

[Tim Gettys]

I was like, dang.

[Barrett Courtney]

It's unfortunate, you know what I mean? But, you know, I had to, you know, real gamers overcome.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

You know, the real gamers tell their bodies not today, regardless of how injured they are. Yeah, the. There's some awesome new weapon arts with the game where on your left arm as Pinocchio, you have these abilities that are kind of like you can either shoot a rocket or you could grapple enemies towards you, or you could grapple towards enemies. Or if you choose another arm, it will put a bomb in the ground and set off like a little proximity mine or whatever. There's a lot of different gadgetry you have on your left sort of. Oh, here's a little rocket boost. So cool.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, man.

[Barrett Courtney]

And the one that I really, really dug is the one that's equipped right now. It's called Icarus, and it shoots blades that just kind of like they shoot out of the arm and they just rotate in a singular spot and they do a buttload of damage to enemies. And it sounds great and the feedback is fantastic. Yeah, the boss fights were really super cool, super engaging. I got to the end of the second one right as I ran out of time. I didn't get to see the third boss, but I was like, bless, fight the third boss first. Because I didn't get to it and I probably should have. The smarter way to do it was like, no. All the smarter players are like, let's drop down to difficulty one or two just to see all of them. You know what I mean?

[Tim Gettys]

The two notes here that I have questions about. Sure. Kangaroo and weird elephants.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah. Oh, kangaroos. Well, it made me laugh a lot thinking about blessings. Yeah, that's stranding preview about killing kangaroos because you go into the kangaroo section, you just have these dudes that are just punching your head. Yeah, it was crazy.

[Greg Miller]

And you.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah. Like, here they are. Here they are. Like, they, they. They get aggressive, they roll at you, they punch the shit out of you. But yeah, the parries feel fantastic. It just. I'm so glad that I had just restarted a second playthrough for Liza P. To kind of get that rhythm going. And I. I felt a lot better because of it, but it's just. It still shows why they are the gold standard for if you want to make a fromsoft style game but still put your own flavor on it. They are still the best to have done it and I think they're still the best doing it. This DLC looks to be shaping up to be really, really awesome. And I have it on my fantasy critic. So nice. Hopefully 85.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Barrett Courtney]

That's what I'm hoping for.

[Greg Miller]

This is, I think, a question that I would Hope that is just going to be as good as it was in the base game. But it is super chat here before you go. Tyler Wallace says, hey Andy, how is the combat in the lives of pdlc? Is it just more the same? Feels as good.

[Barrett Courtney]

Feels just as good. A lot of that depends on the weapons that you're using. But they also introduced a brand new bow and arrow which is pretty awesome. Reminds me of getting this new bow and arrow class in Elden Ring Night Rain when they showed up that trailer a couple weeks ago where bow and arrows rarely feel good from software games. And then seeing this trailer first drop with the Liza P. Overture DLC and seeing him use an arrow, it's like, ooh, was that just a cutscene or is that something we can equip and you can equip a little bow? Different cool weapon arts where you know the. If you charge up your full power, then it does a even stronger thing. It'll shoot three bows or three arrows at that moment. Really, really fun. Still awesome. They have a weapon called the Pale Knight weapon, Tim. Very final fancy.

[Tim Gettys]

It's a gun blade.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, it's a gun blade. Yeah. The gun blade was so freaking cool. Had all, everything that you would want when it comes to like slash, slash, boom, shoot. Like it really, really great move. Awesome enemy types, awesome level design. Still all of the trappings that you would hope to get from a. From software like game where you travel for 28 minutes and suddenly you see a door and you open it, it's like, oh shit, that's the first bonfire right on the other side of the door. Great level design. I'm super, super pumped. And it looks freaking great again. This is still Unreal Engine 4. I think it's like 4.6 or something. And it runs amazingly great and it feels efficient, but it looks still really.

[Tim Gettys]

Really damn good without spoiling, like what it actually is. Does this at all have to do with the end of the first game?

[Barrett Courtney]

No.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay.

[Barrett Courtney]

That's what we're assuming is going to be sequel territory.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay.

[Barrett Courtney]

That's like the next thing. Let's hop into other kind of open. I always fuck this word up. Open source, open donate, free domain. What's it called? Ip Public domain.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

Where the IP is just like anybody so much.

[Greg Miller]

I was like, I know what he's going for.

[Barrett Courtney]

I can't say that's. We're so. We're assum. Assuming that the sequel, whenever they get to it, will, you know, get to that. But we had a nice little Q and A with the directors at the end and the director was like, wish I had more time to continue working on this. And that's why I assume that we have no date. But I think a lot of these games have challenge with trying not to always up the stakes with just more difficulty. Because it seems like every next game that comes out is harder. And sometimes developers think, well, harder is better. Like that's the only way we can innovate. But you can still get really, really creative with move sets. And I think that they're proven so with. With what I experienced with the boss fights and with the oops and with the different weapon types. Freaking awesome. Had a great time. Herman Lee was there.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I was gonna say Eric Myers in the Super Chat says, can you talk about why Herman Lee was there?

[Barrett Courtney]

Herman Lee was there to play some like metal renditions of the Lies of P music as a little, you know, in between when set, when group one is done with their section and we have group two coming in later. It was, you know, they had a little reception out there with food and things like that. But he played a guitar rendition of some of the songs from Liza P. Also one of the funnier moments, you know, and you got. You got to love PR people trying to do the best and trying to. Goddamn Danny. Trying to, you know, making these. Making these little appointments feel larger than life and you get immersed into the world. And they did a lot of cool stuff where we're in some sort of kind of like mansion. And a couple of the different rooms are themed after different rooms that you would see in Lies of P. There was. For the. For the ball knowers out there. The. The Trinity room was recreated where you walk in and it's just like this little pedestal with a box and three chairs around it and little safe in the corner. You're like, oh, this. I love shit like this. You know, kind of. That's recreating different things in the room. But then the funnier part was when Herman Lee is doing his final song. He is introducing and bringing up a singer to come join him on stage. And like, nothing was more. You couldn't have comedically written it better of him going so and so. I'm blanking on. His name was a 2013 5th place contestant on American Idol. And it was just like something about the date and the.

[Greg Miller]

Why did you say it? Why did you say that he was on American Idol. That's all you gotta say.

[Barrett Courtney]

It was hilarious. It was hilarious, but it was awesome seeing that it was a great event and can't freaking wait. Whenever this date happens I gotta assume.

[Greg Miller]

It'S gonna be shadow dropping at SGF.

[Barrett Courtney]

Or either shadow dropping or that's when the date will be and it'll be like hey in two weeks or whatever. But they are still really stuck on the summer 2025. But yeah, this looks to be like a lot of content. A lot of awesome content for 30 bucks and it's going to be 10 to 20 hours ish of content. Awesome but really stoked for people out there who love souls likes and love adventure action adventure games like this but can't get into them because sometimes they are too hard and Liza P can hit you real roughly with some crazy difficulty checks and to be able to drop the difficulty and have a bit of an easier way about it I think is massive for the approachability side of things. So I hope people give this amazing souls like a try if you haven't because I I would put this above demon souls as like it's still better than you know, part of some of what fromsoftware has done themselves.

[Greg Miller]

Fantastic. Thank you Andy. What a great preview.

[Barrett Courtney]

Thank you.

[Greg Miller]

Applause at home for Andy everybody.

[Tim Gettys]

The boy.

[Greg Miller]

Can you drag your chair out too? Oh yeah, thanks. Believe it or not, we haven't even started the show everybody. Because this is Kind of Funny Games Daily. There's literally like six feet. He could have gone more.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

More than that, you know, could have gone.

[Greg Miller]

This is Kinda Funny Games Daily. Each and every weekday on a variety of platforms. We run you through the nerdy video game news you need to know about. Live on Twitch TV, kindafunnygames, YouTube.com kinda funnygames and podcast services around the globe. If you love that, pick up a kinda funny membership. $10 gets you all of our shows ad free for the entire month. It gets you good karma for supporting a small business and of course it gets you 15 to 20. And it's with me each and every weekday in a series we call Greg Way. No bucks to toss our way. No big deal like subscribe, share, follow, click the button, use Amazon Prime's Twitch prime if you got it. Support us however you can for free. Watch, enjoy. Tell your friends. Thank you. Of course, if you are live and you want to be part of the show, super chat YouTube.com kindafunnygames you can write in with your super chats usually about the combat in lies of P what we've been talking about with the Gathering already talking about the new stuff. But you could also do birthday tax which is a big deal. Logan Jensen writes in and says birthday tax to my fiance, Ellen. Greg, why don't you say something nice about Kansas to her since she's from there. Oh, hey, Ellen wanted to wish you a happy birthday and of course tell you that you should be so glad you're from Kansas. Of course you found Logan here who isn't from Kansas. So what I love about people from Kansas that are able to break out of the mud hole, right, is the fact that they can look around at all these other inbred hicks. Just the stupidest motherfuckers who don't know if it's water or turpentine when they're drinking it because they're so exhausted from having sex with their family members. You were able to look at these people, your peers, and go, no, I will not. I will not give in to this. I will not have sex with my brother. All right, I will go find a nice man named Logan Jensen. Happy birthday. You could be just like that. You too, super chat.

[Tim Gettys]

You could be just like that. Everybody get in line. You too can be insulted.

[Greg Miller]

Housekeeping for you. We're an 11 person business. All about live talk shows today after kind of funny games Daily you're getting the kind of funny games cast review of Death Stranding. That's right, Snowbike Mike, Roger Piccorni of course did two marathon streams. One big marathon stream, not a stream last night that went longer so that they could finish the game and come in and give you a review. Today we're excited about that. After that we're doing a stream of the outer worlds. Remember, do your homework. We are re reviewing the outer worlds one week from Friday. It'll be myself, Andy and Stella Chung coming in remotely. I've been playing it. I'm excited to talk about it and get us ready for SGF and the Xbox presentation. Deep dive and get ready for it. So get ready for that. To show you where my character is, of course, Taylor Swift, I'll be streaming it with Mike today. If you're a kinda funny member, today's Greg Way is about the last of us. Now that I'm a dad, one of the things many people had wanted me to really think about and talk about. You know what I mean? So we're going to. Based on of course episode six, which I watched last night.

[Tim Gettys]

Hell yes.

[Greg Miller]

And then big news for you Friday, it all comes down to this. It is the final episode of the Elder Scrolls online podcast. A kind of funny Gamescast limited series. Of course we have been working with Zenimax Online studios. We have had the devs on for three parts. Deepest dive of my career getting to talk about everything. Thank you everyone who's watched this. I know so many of you have written in saying I'm not an idiot. Never. I'm never going to play it. But listening to them tell the story of how they made the game, the trials and tribulations of keeping it alive, what it is, all the stuff has been fantastic and we will answer the question on this final episode. Timothy Robert Gettys will ESO ever have cross play? We will answer it on this one. Thank you to our Patreon producers Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney Twining. Today we're brought to you by Subway Surfers and Factories, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. Time for some new eight items on the Roper Report.

[Tim Gettys]

A baker.

[Greg Miller]

Does it and this is a chance to go pour yourself a coffee, get on your comfy pants because we're going to be here a while everybody. Number one is Xbox finally winning? Are the dominoes finally falling? We go to the one, the only Rebecca valentine.com the Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered launched in a not so surprising shadow drop at the tail end of the month and in just one week managed to vastly outsell the original Oblivion's first 15 months on the market. This comes from Syrcana, which reports that Oblivion was not just the best selling game in the US for the month of April in dollar sales and the third best selling game in 2025 so far. It also sold more in units in April than the original Oblivion managed in its first 15 months, and brought in more money than the original Oblivion did in its first 14 months. While that's admittedly not a huge shock given the massively larger install base Oblivion sold into now compared to 2006, it's still an incredible feat. The remainder of April's top 20 presents some fascinating twists on the usual suspects we see on the charts. In second place for the month was Forza Horizon 5, up from number 42 last month due to its PlayStation 5 launch. Following it is MLB the Show 25 at number three and then Minecraft at number four, up from number 11, and almost certainly riding high from the release of the Minecraft movie earlier in April. At number five was last month's winner Assassin's Creed Shadows, and it's now followed by Indiana Jones and the Great circle at number six. Indiana Jones is now up from number 118 last month, thanks to Forza thanks to like Forza, its PlayStation 5 release. As Circana analyst Matt Piscatella notes, four of the top five in five of the top seven best selling games of the month on PlayStation platforms were published by Microsoft. If you're an RPG fan, you might be wondering where the heck Clair obscure expedition 33 is. Per Piscatella publisher Kepler Interactive doesn't share digital data with Sir KANA and thus Expedition 33's digital sales aren't counted and likely resulted in it not appearing anywhere on the chart. Piscatella did tell me that its physical sales ranked it among the top 35 bestsellers in April, number 22 on PlayStation and it was the 19th in monthly active users on Xbox and 21st on Steam. It released towards the end of the month and started a bit slow. Parentheses player count rankings have improved each week since launch through May 10, he said. All of those bits reflected in a very successful result for the game of this type. It's a game that has or was a game that was been incredibly well received by enthusiast audience but in the end of the month had not crossed over to the mainstream in a significant way. We'll have to see what May ends up looking like with more physical copies entering the market and word of mouth pushing the game to a big audience. That is the end of Rebs reporting. As always, well done. I know I titled this about Xbox. Are they finally winning and then going to talk about Claire Obscure here? Of course, because I know when you start talking about MPD's that would be a one we come up on. But of course remember that is on Xbox Game Pass making it part of this conversation. And as Barrett already tossed up, if you're a visual one, I want to go to Jeff Grubb who of course quoted Matt Piscatella's thing April 2025 Top 10 Best Selling Premium Games on PlayStation Platforms US Dollar Sales with Jeff Grubb saying half of the list is Microsoft. Of course again, if we were to read down this list right again, April 2025 top 10 best selling games on PlayStation platforms number one the Elder Scrolls Oblivion publisher Microsoft number two Forza Horizon Microsoft number three MLB the Show number four Indiana Jones Microsoft number five Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Microsoft number six Assassin's Creed Shadows number seven Min Microsoft followed by WWE 2K25, NBA 2K25 and Split Fiction.

[Tim Gettys]

Love seeing Split Fiction in there. I think that's, That's a fun one there. It's like it, you know, dropped to 10 from five last month but still cool to see a game like that selling so well.

[Greg Miller]

And of course, quote tweeting, this, like I said, was Jeff Grubb saying half of this is Microsoft. And then quote tweeting, that was the one. The only Ethan Gotch from Kotaku, and I should say quote tweeting is quote Blue Skying, I don't fucking know what you call it. And Ethan sky or Ethan Gotch pointing out from Kotaku. And only one of them was developed internally from this list.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, four of those being, you know, games from devs that they have acquired over the years.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly. Timothy?

[Tim Gettys]

Yes?

[Greg Miller]

Is Xbox finally winning? Are the dominoes finally falling? Has this been happening for a while? Are you aware of all this information?

[Tim Gettys]

Yes, yes and yes. I feel like this has been happening for a while and it's only going to continue to happen. We've been talking about this ad nauseam of the more that Xbox has acquired and the more that they've kind of gotten under their belt and figured out the kinks and started to actually commit to the vision of actually being everywhere instead of just being this like, well, there's these three games and we'll see what happens. Now it's like, all right, cool. The expectation is these games are going to be everywhere and it's working for them. So, yes, I think Xbox is winning because their strategy is working out for selling games. Awesome stuff. Love to see this. I've been playing the hell out of Forza Horizon 5 on PlayStation 5. It's running amazing on my PS5 Pro. Yeah, I can't believe it. It's a dream. Like, it is so damn good being able to play with the dual sense. Like, that's just how I prefer to play games. So very happy to be able to do that. I was just hanging out with my friend James Burke. He played through Indiana Jones on PC, I think. Oh yeah, on PC when it first came out. He's a trophy and then he rebought it because he wants to get the platinum. So he's playing through on PlayStation Now. And so I just think that there's really cool. It's cool that there's these options now and it's cool that it's working. And also not a big surprise, there is such a big install base of PlayStation Fives. People that own PlayStation Fives want to play games and buy games. And so when there's incredible games, including forza, which was IGN's game of the year the year it came out. Indiana Jones on many people's game of the year lists, like yeah, these games are going to sell really well. You go back to things like Oblivion, remaking classics. That works too. This is awesome. This isn't even talking about Doom, which I'm sure is going to be on the list next month. Right. And then you continue down the path of the rest of the Xbox game.

[Greg Miller]

Let me get you more stuff but I do want your super chats everybody watching right now on YouTube.com kind of funny games. Is Xbox winning and is this the kind of winning you'd want from Xbox? I'd like some answers to those questions while we move on to even more good news, especially in this lineup for what's going on today. I got a press release from the one, the only Ninja Theory. Today Ninja Theory have announced Senua's saga Hellblade 2 will be releasing on PlayStation 5 this summer. The game will come octopus optimized for the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro and release alongside a free update with new features for players across all platforms including the Xbox series, Xbox PC and Steam. So once again we're talking about Forza. We're talking about Indiana Jones. You see Hellblade joining the mix.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Where is Game of the Year two years running? Starfield. We'll have to wait and see.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean that's the thing though is like you know, with Gears of War being announced, Ultimate Reloaded Edition, whatever it's called, coming to PlayStation. I do think that we are starting to run out of the obvious games making the job. Right. I think south of Midnight is the most recent new game that I'm still surprised isn't there. But again we know that is a smaller team and it does take work to get the games on other systems and I imagine that we will see that on PlayStation 5 sometime this year. Right? Yeah, I think within the next day.

[Greg Miller]

They have more Starfield updates, whatever that's going to be coming. Right. So I assume hopefully at this Xbox showcase.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, two weeks and you know I was talking a lot about this yesterday, but I really think that the Switch 2 is going to destroy in amazing ways in terms of its market dominance of video games. I think Xbox is going to be a a big part of that. I think that these games are going to come to Switch two as well and we're going to see this story even bigger because now they're going to be selling on another console that is going to have a excited user base that actually buys these games, which is something we just the proofs in the pudding. They don't do that on Xbox and they don't do that because there aren't that many Xboxes out there and Xbox has Game Pass, which is another way to play all these games.

[Greg Miller]

Logan Jensen writes in and says, who's winning? Game Pass subscribers? Funny you say that, Logan. Microsoft has announced the Xbox Game Pass May 2025 Wave 2 lineup, which is headlined by Metaphor Refantazio, Tom Clancy's the Division 2 and 2 at this news dropping today. Obviously more games you can go get on Xbox wire and figure it out. But if that wasn't enough Microsoft Announces Retro Classics with Game Pass this is w. I'm sorry, yeah, WYP at IGN Microsoft has announced Retro Classics with Game Pass, a collaboration with Antstream Arcade, to bring a collection of over 50 classic Activision games from the 80s and 90s to Game Pass members. The list includes the likes of Commando Grand Prix, Kaboom, MechWarrior 2, 31st century combat and Pitfall. Some of the games go back 45 years. Players can even save their progress and continue later. A first for many of these games. Microsoft said Retro Classics with Game Pass is a step in our commitment to game preservation and backwards compatibility. Retro Classics will be available to all Game Pass membership options in the regions where Game Pass is currently available. Over time, Microsoft will add more classic games from Activision and Blizzard's back catalog to Game Pass, expanding the Retro Classics collection to over 100 games. Expect additional games to be announced monthly. Here's the official blurb from Microsoft. With Retro Classics, Game Pass members can expect a seamless gaming experience across console, PC and on supported devices with cloud gaming. Whether playing on Xbox console, the Xbox app on PC, or streaming on supported LG and Samsung Smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV devices, and Meta Quest headsets. Retro Classics offers a versatile and accessible way to enjoy these nostalgic titles. Game Pass members can access Retro Classics through their Game Pass membership by searching and installing the feature via their console or on the Xbox app on PC. Additionally, players can take on friends, rivals or the entire world with unique challenges. For the achievement hunters, there are some great new ones to collect and for newer players, the ability to save and reload progress. A first for many of these classic titles.

[Tim Gettys]

There's a lot here to talk about.

[Greg Miller]

Because they're finally winning. The dominoes are falling.

[Tim Gettys]

They've been doing that though. The dominoes been following Greg and you.

[Greg Miller]

Know, I'm well aware.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, the chat's not though. They need. They need to learn. But what's cool here? One Top of metaphor. That's a big get. Yeah, obviously. Huge game and I feel like that is another example of game pass continuing to not just have the new releases, but also the semi new releases being able to go back and maybe the people that have heard the Barrett Courtneys of the world gush about this game for a year now or coming up on, you know, whatever it is, and then are like, hey, I wasn't actually gonna buy it, but now I have game pass, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a shot.

[Greg Miller]

Not usually a turn based exaction. Right. But I can take a shot here and not feel like I'm throwing my money on you.

[Tim Gettys]

So I think that's great. And then just yesterday I was talking to you about the Activision stuff and this isn't quite that.

[Greg Miller]

Well, we're getting close.

[Tim Gettys]

Closer. We are getting closer and this is.

[Greg Miller]

Our best chance for Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

[Tim Gettys]

All right.

[Greg Miller]

Come on.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, you know, these are kind of the, the, the building blocks to, to get there and they clearly are committed to it and they clearly. It takes time to organize and figure out what you're going to do when you have so many assets available. And I do prefer them taking their time to get it right and adding the multiplayer and like, really thinking about the preservation of these games going forward, like, this is awesome. Like, it's very, very cool that Xbox has always taken this so seriously. And the fact that they have access to more than any other publisher on the planet in terms of history at this point. Yeah, that this is good that there are people in charge that see the value in that and are putting money into it. So it, so it's not just, ah, here's a bunch of fucking games, let's see if they work. It's like, no, we're actually putting love and care into this.

[Greg Miller]

And that's one of the things for me with this Retro Classics. Right. Not something that speaks to me. I've lived through many of these games. I don't need to go back necessarily, yada blah blah. But the fact that it's not just, oh, we're putting up emulators, we're putting up the thing you can get to. They're adding in the ability to save, which is super nice. They're adding in achievements, they're adding in these ability to go on and unique challenges like, you'll have to help me, I forget the name of it. What the NES Challenge Classics, where it was like, hey, here are the old games. Excite Bike World Championship. Okay. We're giving you these cool challenges to take on it. I think that that's such a nice way to modernize an old game. Do something new with it and do it. The fact they're putting that level of detail into it's awesome.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, it's really cool stuff. And I've been a big fan of Nintendo adding multiplayer online to its games like Goldeneye and Mario Kart 64, things like that. Like that's cool. And yeah, how big of a market is there for that? I don't know. But it's clearly big enough that they're continuing to invest in this. So I think all that's great. And the value of Game Pass just continues to grow again in every way, whether it's games like Metaphor eventually making their way to it, brand new games coming out that are going to be in the top 10 selling on other consoles. Like that's, that's really good stuff. So good for them. And, and the craziest thing is they're about to have another showcase. And I feel like the last three years, the showcases got progressively better leading into last year's, which is I think one of the best showcases we've ever seen from anybody. So what's this year gonna be? Is it gonna be more of a reset time or more likely, in my opinion, it's going to be another banger because they just have access to so much, so many developers and teams that are putting out projects and now they'll have more systems to be able to announce it for where it doesn't at all need to be. Weird tribal warfare bullshit. It's just like, oh yeah, these games that are awesome, that everyone loves you can now play no matter what console you have.

[Greg Miller]

Norman writes in with a super chat and says this is basically what the FTC was worried about. No one giant company buying their way to a dominant position in the industry. Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, at the end of the day, they're killing themselves in terms of hardware like the Xbox as one of the big three is over. Like they lost admittedly. And that's fine because that's a game that you don't need to win.

[Greg Miller]

They're Phoenix. They rose from the ashes.

[Tim Gettys]

It's. You find a strategy that works to run your business. And I think that they're. They're doing that for now. Like obviously so many. I am still the biggest Game pass doubter in terms of how the money sustainability, it just like doesn't add up to me. It's not my business, but I don't understand how it's possible that that's going to work out long term for them. But I've seen multiple devs come forward and say I'm an asshole. You know what I mean? They've said, hey, like behind the scenes, we actually are the ones doing the deals. It is sustainable.

[Greg Miller]

So to this question, Norman, I think, and I'm not trying to dunk on you, you asked it for the FTC was worried about Microsoft getting all these toys and then keeping them on their one box. So theoretically them being all over the PlayStation charts is Microsoft being like, fuck, you see? And like we don't have to worry about that. And we are putting the games everywhere. You get them. Yeah, you can get them on. Game Pass would be a better deal. I saw it go through earlier, something if somebody was like, are they winning when they're raising the price of Xbox again, They're giving you avenues to get to the games, whether it be Game Pass, cloud streaming, PlayStation, whatever, the devices you already have that it's such an interesting argument to what Xbox has been building too. And here we are, they've built to this moment and I think it works really well. I still, you know, eventually we'll do the episode of gamescast. Greg loves his Rog ally. Yeah, like I am so in the Xbox ecosystem all of a sudden with Game Anywhere and Game Pass and the games I'm using on the device and learning the ins and outs of it or whatever. But like it's worked. What they've done is worked really, really, really, really well. And I am super excited to see this is why we're doing. I mean obviously I already enjoyed the Outer Worlds. I enjoy an open world rpg. But it's one of the reasons I want to be so ready for that Sunday showcase from Xbox. Right. That is the here's the Xbox showcase followed by the direct just about outer worlds. Of course we'll be live reacting here. YouTube.com kind of funny games, Twitch TVgames. Just like we will for SGF.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes. And another thing that I'm sure we're going to talk a lot about in the coming months, but Xbox is clear path. Path to the everything's an Xbox and really looking at the PC side of things as a incredibly viable market. All the talk of The Raj Allied 2 and the Xbox version of it, whatever that looks like. But in addition to that, the conversations we've seen about Steam and the, the rumors at this point. But what is that going to look like of getting Steam on Xbox consoles or like that type of collaboration their.

[Greg Miller]

Rog ally with their Xbox interface.

[Tim Gettys]

That seems all that stuff. Right. I think that we're at a very interesting kind of like crossroads at this point of what the future of Steam and just PC gaming in general looks like and how are they going to play nice together and where are they going to kind of put up walls? Because in addition to me being like I don't understand how game pass is sustainable, I do really wonder if Xbox were to allow people to bug, like buy games on Steam on their platforms. Like at what point are Xbox really just like getting cut too much in in terms of like being able to themselves just own all the profit or is that all just baked into what they're doing? Similar to how we run our business where the kind of funny membership is on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify or Apple. We get significantly different cuts on each place but we want to meet the people where they are because we understand that that's where they're going to subscribe to us. They're not going to go to a different platform. So maybe Xbox is going to look at it that way when it comes to the Steam inte. But anyway, we'll get more answers later.

[Greg Miller]

We will. I'm excited for sgf. I'm excited to see what Xbox has got up their sleeve. I'm excited to see outer worlds. I'm excited to play more outer worlds today. I'm just excited to see a strategy that we all had so many questions about. It might still have questions about but a strategy working and going somewhere cool with it. I think that's rad.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. Barry just popped up.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, I just still have questions about of just like where they're going and stuff like that. Just, just backing up what Greg is saying about people having questions like I do of Xbox owning a very large chunk of the software of this industry. I'm being scared about that.

[Greg Miller]

When's the last time a big corporation did us wrong? You know what I mean?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What happens when Xbox falls or if Xbox falls in this industry?

[Greg Miller]

Well, they'll lay off a lot of people.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, they've already done that. But in terms of the health of this industry is what I'm concerned about.

[Greg Miller]

I hear you. I think and I understand that. I think it's also. You're not wrong obviously to worry about the healthy industry. We've already seen that. Right. As I've talked about coming out of the last two dices where it was these conversations of people being like, whoa, people aren't funding games the way they were. Those game Pass deals and PlayStation plus deals aren't happening at the same frequency. I think it just pivots and changes to what it is. I think the industry still will go, but what it means for a big thing from an Obsidian, from a whatever. I understand there's all these different pieces.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, absolutely, those are all fair and we've seen them all come to fruition the last couple of years as the industry falls around us. But I do think the difference here is Xbox has half the games at the top 10 selling things embracer doesn't.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. You know, yeah, it didn't. All the money didn't all hinge on one fucking deal. Well, dial back. I'm going to go to when we come out of an ad break to the next story. I want to go to more Obsidian news. But right now I'll remind you, of course this is Kind of Funny Games Alien we couldn't do without your support each and every weekday. Kind of Funny is live, starting at 10am and going all day long with live talk shows, usually about video games, but oftentimes about super cool movies like Superman in theaters this July. If you like that and you like what we do here, remember it is an independent operation that needs your support. Pick up a Kinda Funny membership and say good job. Of course $10 gets you all of our shows ad free. That's more than 20 a week, more than 80amonth. And of course it gets you a daily dose of me 15 to 20 minutes about whatever I want to talk about, which adds up to be a four hour long podcast. By the end of the month you get your membership patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com kinda funnygames Apple or Spotify. But right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsor.

[Andy Cortez]

This episode is sponsored by Subway Surfers, the goaded endless runner that carried me through middle school, high school, college and now adulthood is celebrating their 13th birthday, which also marks their 200th world tour update. And they're going big because Subway Surfers decided to travel to not one, not two, but 21 different locations in their 200th World Tour Special Events event as Kind of Funny's resident Zoomer, I can seriously say that I adore Subway Surfers. It's one of my favorite comfort games. Grabbing items, completing challenges and pulling out a hoverboard right as I'm about to hit a train feels just as good now as it did when I was sitting in the back of Mr. Coburn's Spanish class. Play through all 21 destinations to unlock amazing rewards such as characters, hoverboards and in game currency just tap the 200th World Tour button on the screen to start Start playing and exclusively for best friends. Head over to kindafunny.com subwaysurfers or scan the QR code on screen to get a ton of special in game rewards. The Update ends on June 1st, so scan that QR code, download Subway Surfers and start running if you don't want to miss out on all the rewards. I already did. This episode is brought to you by Factor. When life gets busy, food can sometimes feel like a chore and the fast food trips can go from a weekly to daily occurrence very very fast. So buck those trends and make this season your best with nutritious 2 minute meals from Factor. Eating well has never been this easy. Just heat up and enjoy, giving you more time to do what you want with 45 weekly menu options. You can pick gourmet meals that fit your goals, choose from Calorie Smart, Protein plus Keto and more. We at Kinda Funny Love Factor Meals Blessing Greg Love it for a quick lunch in between shows and I adore it as a healthier alternative instead of the dreaded hump day. Too tired to cook? Drive thru run helping me to get on track with my goals. Get started at factor meals.com kindafunny50 off and use code kinda funny50OFF to get 50 off plus free shipping on your first box. That's code kinda [e-mail] kindafunny50 off for 50 off plus plus free shipping factor meals.com kindafunny 50 off.

[Greg Miller]

And we're back everybody. Story number two avowed director quits Obsidian for Netflix this is Andy Robinson at VGC News. Avowed director Kerry Patel has announced her departure from Obsidian Entertainment after nearly 12 years at the now Xbox owned studio. Patel, who previously was a narrative designer on Pillars of Eternity and the Outer Worlds, is leaving Obsidian to join Netflix. The writer and director will take on a directorial role at Night School, the studio behind Oxenfree, Oxenfree 2, Lost Signals, Afterparty and Next Stop Nowhere, she announced on Monday. Patel's departure comes months after the release of Avowed, which its developer estimated to have reached a huge 6 million players in its opening month. Obsidian is currently ramping up promotion for its next big RPG, the Outer Worlds 2, which is set to receive its own dedicated live event following the Xbox Summer Showcase next month. Month Night School I'm sorry, yeah, no, I got it. Night School Studio was acquired by Netflix back in 2021, becoming the first game developer to be swallowed up by the Streaming company. Earlier this year, Netflix was reported to have laid off numerous staff at the Oxenfree developer. Current and former employees, speaking on her anonymity to game developer, claimed that an undisclosed number of employees were laid off. Of course, we've interviewed Carrie before. She's been around a long time. Congratulations on your new job. Greener pastures and all that jazz. I hope it finds you well. Well, now to the news.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

What a terrible. What a terrible. I don't know, 12 years. A long time anywhere, right? You know what I mean? I understand. You want to go, you want to think, hopefully they threw a ton of money.

[Tim Gettys]

This is a get the bag situation.

[Greg Miller]

She was done with her part of the outer worlds too, or whatever. Or got it to where she wanted to be with it or if she did anything because she was on a vow. She was lead on that. But Netflix, you want to talk about somebody. And I, you know, don't get me wrong, I'm not correct all the time. Just on this episode when we talk about PlayStation stars a little bit. Bit. And of course, Fair Games, who could have called that? Except Greg Miller and Concord. Greg Miller. But it doesn't matter. You know what I mean? I just don't have faith in Netflix being committed to games the way they need to be committed to games. Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I mean, you're, you're nailing it. We've seen it already and it continues to happen. But they're spending money, so get that money.

[Greg Miller]

Carrie, as always, would love to be wrong.

[Tim Gettys]

More people, totally cool stuff in different ways, different audiences. This is good for games.

[Greg Miller]

But fact, we still. You turn on Netflix and it doesn't beat you over the head that you have games. They put out the thing where you can use your phone as a controller. They just. People still don't know. They just don't know that those games are there. It's so bizarre. And I understand there's discoverability issues. How do you get there? But this is all stuff, actually. It goes right there, right? Oh, it was propaganda Panda. This Twitch says, in this economy, you got to get that bag. Yes. For carry. And in this economy, I don't believe in any of these big companies taking a chance on gaming their gaming initiatives. We've already seen layoffs there.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

How long is that going to go? You know, they're eating people up and putting them in there and then not getting it out. I feel like.

[Tim Gettys]

And it sucks. These are good games that are in some ways trapped on weird platforms, but also sometimes they're good games that are just in addition to and I'm hoping for that. I hope this works out just like you said.

[Greg Miller]

Like, yeah, we'll have to wait and see.

[Tim Gettys]

We'll have to wait and see.

[Greg Miller]

But it is one of those. It's an interesting move in 2025, I feel. But again, to the point, get the bag. You can go anywhere you want after that. I digress. Number three Mario Kart World Almost was a Switch one game this is the big man Jordan Midler at VGC News Mario Kart World was originally in development for the original Nintendo Switch. Nintendo has revealed as part of Nintendo's latest Ask the Developer interview, Kenta Sato Sato, Mario Kart World's programming director, revealed that the next Mario Kart game was originally planned for release on Nintendo Switch before development transitioned to Nintendo Switch 2 in 2020. When we were developing for the Nintendo Switch system, it was difficult for us to incorporate everything we wanted, so we were always conscious of what we were giving up in return, he explained. We discussed things like toning down the visuals, lowering the resolution, and we even considered dropping the frame rate to 30 frames a second in some cases. It was a tough situation. Development of Mario Kart World began around the time Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was released on Nintendo Switch, Sato said the decision to move development to The Nintendo Switch 2 is made in 2020 five years before the game's release. We worked on it while kicking the can down the road in terms of deciding what to give up on, so at some point we knew it was going to get messy, explained producer Kosuke Yebu Ki. But as we decided to Release Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass, we thought this would give us a bit more time to continue development. That's when the conversation of moving into the Nintendo Switch 2 system came up, and this suddenly opened up a bunch of possibilities on what we could do. It was truly a ray of hope. Timothy yes, you've said at nauseum ad nauseum how much you're excited for Nintendo Switch 2, how you're listening to podcasts all about it. Did you listen to more yesterday about it?

[Tim Gettys]

Not yesterday.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. How do you feel about this decision? Can you believe? Would you have been pissed off if it came out on switch one and it was 30 frames a second, everything was missing.

[Tim Gettys]

Pissed off? I mean, to some extent, yes. I would have been happy and playing my Mario Kart. I also don't believe that they would have done that, but I'm very happy that that didn't happen and that we're getting this instead. Like in Every way, I think this is the right call. But more than that, like, I always thought it was very bizarre how they did the booster pack courses in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Because Mario Kart 8, we're going to do our final review of it next week, then we'll talk through like kind of the history of it all there. But, but you know, coming out on the Wii U, and it was a big success. Eight million copies sold on a system that only sold 13 million. And it wasn't like a launch title. This was definitely, I would say, probably the biggest kind of boon that the Wii U had in its entire life cycle. And then they followed up with DLC packs, right, that added the Animal Crossing and Zelda stuff. And for the game to then get re released the Deluxe Edition on Switch and then years later get the booster pack stuff that had a handful of new levels that were incredible and awesome. And then otherwise it was just like, all right, let's take all the Mario World Mario Kart Tour mobile game maps and just kind of make them work, you know, definitely lesser than the other levels in a lot of ways. Visually, that was like a. A call that was awesome. It gave us literally double the amount of Mario Kart eight courses. And that was great. But I think that that clearly was a move of like, that's evidence of this game was a Switch 1 game, right? And they were like, all right, cool. Well, let's just keep milking this Mario Kart for as long as we can until we get to the Switch two for Mario Kart World. Yeah, I'm excited. I much prefer it happening this way. And also we're here now, so I don't need to worry about more Mario Kart on Switch one. We got an insane amount of Mario Kart and Switch one.

[Greg Miller]

That's my thing where I think this is just such a. I'm glad they did it this way. I'm glad it all worked out this way. I'm glad it got them closer to whatever their vision is for World. Even though I haven't had the to chance chance to play and obviously we haven't seen the final, final copy of it, but everything they're saying about it seems so exciting in the open world stuff. Wario64 Today I tweeted out from this same asset developer. Anything, Just this blurb. Mario Kart World will feature over 200 music tracks from the jukebox music for free roam, including brand new arrangements and live recordings.

[Tim Gettys]

I could not be more excited. Yeah, you guys know how I feel about video Game music, specifically Nintendo music, specifically live music. So all of this is music music to my ears. When Bless and I were reacting, we were both kind of like hoping that they would confirm that in the free roam mode it would work like Forza and kind of have the radio stations and be able to just listen to a bunch of songs. They're confirming that here, so that's great. In the direct, we saw, we heard some awesome remixes of Bob on battlefield for Mario 64. There was some Yoshi's island music. And what's really, really cool, getting into, like nitty gritty nerd shit about this. A lot of those arrangements were initially made for Nintendo Live at PAX a couple years ago. Okay. Where they did a Zelda concert and a Mario concert. And the Mario one was with like the Super Mario Super Big Band or whatever. And it was arrangements that were awesome, like jazz, like big band arrangements. And that it was literally that exact arrangement in Mario Kart. So I'm hopeful that, like, all the songs they did at that concert are now going to be in this game in addition to a bunch of others. Like, this is going to be very, very cool. Mario Kart 8 had such an amazing soundtrack and they. Nintendo really upped the quality level of music and video games back when Galaxy dropped. Like going the full orchestral route and actually committing to that being something that matters and I think makes the games have a higher production value than we see in a lot of other video games across any of the bigger guys even. And Mario Kart, I think, is a shining star example of that, of having a style that they can adapt to any song, whether it is Zelda or F0 or just Moo Moo Meadows. But you know, it's Mario Kart 8.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Tim Gettys]

And they're continuing that with Mario Kart World. So with the Booster Pack, I was talking shit about, like, the visuals not being up to par with the rest of the courses. The music was. Yeah. So they're taking that shit seriously. I think it matters. I think it really changes the experience of the game. And 200 tracks in Mario Kart World. I can't freaking wait.

[Greg Miller]

It is coming up fast. Remember, we will be streaming from basically the moment we get it on Twitch TV. Kinda FunnyGames, YouTube.com kindafunnygames Continuing coverage all around. Our SGF coverage, probably the weekend. We'll talk about that later, but we'll continue talking about Nintendo right now. Number four, why'd they redesign Donkey Kong? This is Andy Robinson over at VGC News. Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto has explained why Nintendo decided to redesign its iconic Donkey Kong character stage, stating that the aim was to make him more expressive. The first hints that Nintendo was looking to retool Donkey Kong came with the Super Mario Bros. Movie back in 2023. A more striking redesign was then spotted in the debut footage of Mario Kart World earlier this year, and since then Nintendo has replaced a plethora of marketing items with the new DK look. Nintendo Then officially announced Switch 2 title Donkey Kong Bonanza in April, along with the official reveal of Donkey Kong's new design, which appears to be a cross between the reflection version seen in the Super Mario Bros. Movie and that scene in pre Donkey Kong country artwork. Now speaking to ign, Miyamoto has discussed the redesign of Donkey Kong for the first time. Quote when it comes to the character creation and working with characters, I still take an active role in that, he explained. In looking back to the first generation Donkey Kong country, we worked with Rare to create Donkey Kong Country. Yes, okay, I didn't get it wrong when we were talking about trying to create new versions evolving Donkey Kong, we created the game called Jungle Boy Beat. We worked together with the team that made 3D Mario. With that technology that was available at that time, we were able to make Donkey Kong more expressive. And going back to the design that Rare came up with, we reevaluated what can we do with the design to make it more expressive. And then when it came time comes to the movie, we decided to move forward with this new generation of Donkey Kong design. Kevin Bayless, the former Rare artist who was responsible for redesigning Donkey Kong in the 90s, gave his approval when the new design was revealed in April. April. Quote I don't understand why there's any debate to be had, Bayless wrote. It's still Donkey Kong, only better looking. Only better looking. People need to embrace change more. All good things get better with age. Parentheses I would say that though, since I've been doing this for almost 40 years now. Everyone give a big warm welcome to the new dk.

[Tim Gettys]

This whole thing is so bizarre to me because it just reminds me that people are wild and care about everything the way that I care about some things. You know, everyone has their video game music. You know what I mean? Everyone has that one thing. And apparently people really care about how Donkey Kong looks.

[Greg Miller]

You know who else they care about? Diddy Kong. We go to Chris Scullion at vgc. A new render on the Nintendo website gives users a better look at Diddy Kong's Redesign. If I have to hear blessing talk about Diddy Kong one more time, the render, which can be seen on the characters page of the store section of the US Nintendo Store, shows Donkey Kong running and Diddy holding onto his shoes shoulder. It's been known for some time that Donkey Kong has been given a redesign, but all we've seen in the new Diddy until now is a separate low resolution render which was added to the Nintendo site last week. The new render gives a better look at the new Diddy Kong. When the low res render was released, Kevin Bayless, who of course we just talked about, came up with all that stuff, said, thank you Nintendo for improving your Diddy Kong character and being sympathetic towards my original design. They both now look better than ever. I can now rest in peace. Other aspects remain unknown. However, last week's low render appeared to show Diddy's cap now has a round badge on the side with his own logo on it, rather than the Nintendo Logan emblazoned on the front of the cap, as was also the case in the cameo appearance in the Super Mario Bros. Movie. Neither that render or this one give a proper look at the cap in full. However, the mystery of Diddy Kong continues.

[Tim Gettys]

It does, it does. But the point I was trying to make is these designs aren't that different. Like it's. Yes, it is different.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

But like I don't. I can't imagine even really having much of a stance on this of like a preference. Like, I look at these, I'm like, you know what? I do prefer how he looks here compared to how he looks on the Donkey Kong Country Returns HD below him. Right? Yeah, but like, not by a substantial amount. Like, it just seems weird to me. This is. It's not like ugly Sonic and real Sonic in the movie. Movies, you know what I mean? Like, this is just kind of a.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It is, Tim. It is like ugly Sonic and real Sonic.

[Tim Gettys]

Which one's ugly?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, I'm kidding.

[Barrett Courtney]

I don't give a shit either.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, the new Donkey Kong looks way better than Donkey Kong.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like they both represent different eras.

[Greg Miller]

Country returns. HD down there looks like he lives in Kansas. This one Donkey Kong up here has a job, a family, people who love him.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm nostalgic for the one that's as we see in the art here. But I like, you know, I. I enjoy this new one here. It's more jovial, it's a bit more fun, bit more kid friendly, you know?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, well, thankfully Tim never gets bent out of shape about anything. Number five Tim demanded this and wants to go off Prince of Persia on Twitter tweeted officially hit 1 million mobile downloads. Thank you all who decided to join the journey of Mount Quaff on your.

[Tim Gettys]

Phones heart I just fucking love this. I obviously love Prince of Persia and I love that it's doing so well on mobile. A million downloads is awesome for a full ass console game that people are enjoying on mobile devices. I always talk about this where Apple putting so much focus on death stranding and Resident Evil and all that stuff coming that we do the news stories and it's like they're not selling well whatever the power is there though and these phones are in people's pockets at all times and I think we're being incredibly silly to act like mobile games in any way are lesser than especially as everything just gets more and more it's all everything's a Xbox, everything's a PC, everything's the same. It's just things that play video games in different ways. Whether it's cloud or not. I just love it and I these are the numbers I want to see and for a game that I want to see succeed and I'm still I.

[Greg Miller]

Missed this even came to mobile I.

[Tim Gettys]

Totally yeah a couple months back and I just think that it's great put good games everywhere and what game it's.

[Greg Miller]

The Prince of Persia one I can.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Ever I can't wait to see what this team does next.

[Tim Gettys]

I know oh wait.

[Greg Miller]

Speaking of Ubisoft teams doing something next not being closed down like that one was number six Mario and Rabbids Developer Ubisoft Milan is hiring for you triple a Rayman game. This again is Andy Robinson at VGC News. Everybody support vgc Mario Rabbid Studios Ubisoft Milan is staffing up for what it describes as a AAA Rayman game. References to the title can be found on the now removed Job Jobs ad, which were spotted by archive and archived by Reddit users Quote Ubisoft Milan is seeking a talented 3D gameplay animator to be involved in the production of a prestigious AAA title for the Rayman brand. Rayman brand one job ad reads, you will be responsible for ensuring the quality and content of gameplay animation assets and aligning with the game's vision. Ubisoft first mentioned plans for a Rayman return last year when it confirmed it had started an exploration into reviving the franchise with its Milan and Montpelier studios. At the time, it said Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil creator Michel Ansel, who left the company in 2020, is consulting thing on the project.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. There's Rayman origins, Raymond Legends. They were great.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

You know what that team do after that Prince of Persia and now that team doesn't exist.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

So instead they're talking about this AAA Rayman 3D game. All my anger aside, I'm stoked for that. The great escape was awesome. Great 3D platformer. Rayman's proved he can rebrand, come back stronger, you can do it again.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

When do the rabbits come back and take over his brand?

[Tim Gettys]

And then that could happen again too.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

But I think this is going to be from how this reads, I think this is them going to be going back to just a pure Ray man and friends.

[Greg Miller]

You think they make it out with it or does it get killed in the crib somewhere along Ubisoft, you know, Very tumultuous.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, man, that's a great question. I don't know. And I. It really bums me out. I freaking hate this shit. But this, this team's gonna make another game, right? The people behind Mario plus Rabbids, like, we're gonna get more from them. And I can understand them not doing another Mario game because the second one just didn't do as well as I think that they would have wanted it to. It's so silly too. Like, if they just held that for the switch to, I think it would have been so much better.

[Greg Miller]

Oh my God. Can you imagine?

[Tim Gettys]

But I think it just released too close to the first one and. And people just weren't ready for it.

[Greg Miller]

Sei Shigami says usually once a Ubisoft game is announced, they stick with it. Really? That's the hill you want to climb on right now. It might be Beyond Good and Evil 2 the Division Heartland. The division Marvel game Prince of Persian stands the time Prince of Persian stands the time again. Splinter suck, I would think a little bit on that one. Number seven on the Roper Report. New PlayStation studio looking for an artist with advanced expertise in generative AI. This is Ethan Gotcha. Kotaku Dark Outlaw Games is a new PlayStation studio born out of the ashes of deviation games and led by developer Jason Blundell. Best known for Call of Duty Black ops hit Zombie Mode. The team is looking for a concept artist for its first project. But not just any concept artist. A new job listing on Sony's website lists quote, advanced expertise, end quote, with generative AI tools is one of the basic qualifications first spotted by the game post. The listing reads, quote, we are seeking a senior concept artist to join our LA studio. Reporting directly to our art director. The ideal candidate is Proactive with strong skills in digital illustration, 3D modeling, character design, graphic design experience with generative AI tools and passion passionate about making games. Help us create our next AAA title, one that will truly stand apart from the rest, end quote the Qualify Qualification section enlisting provides a requirement for advanced expertise. You already said that. Oh, then saying Sable Diffusion, Mid Journey Chat, GPT or similar platforms in the Duty section, the listing says one of the concept artist jobs will be to, quote, refine and polish 2D artwork created by both human artists and generative AI tools, end quote the new job listing at the Sony owned studio comes after a recent GDC 2025 survey found that companies are moving ahead with AI tools whether their employees agree with using them or not. Concerns about the technology range from the ethics of using tools trained on stealing other people's work to worries about continued layoffs as companies seize on the hype around generative AI to cut workforces. Anecdotally, at least, artists and writers appear to have been particularly hard hit in the most recent waves of mass mass games industry layoffs. Quote I suspect there will be a dual demand in gaming, one for AI driven innovation experiences and another for handcrafted, thoughtful content, PlayStation Studios head Herman Hulst told BBC in December. Striking the right balance between leveraging AI and preserving the human touch will be crucial. It was revealed earlier this year that Sony had at least experimented with turning its Horizon Zero Dawn Hero Aloy into an AI powered chatbot. Meanwhile, Finnish games that incorporate AI generated assets have been forced to disclose the practice on storefronts like Steam. Call of Duty is one of the franchises frequently dunked on by fans for making use of what appear to be AI generated cosmetics, players, cards and marketing materials.

[Tim Gettys]

The story makes me want to fart on somebody. You know what I mean?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah. I could go for farting on somebody in Dark Outlaw games. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Sucks. It just sucks that like this is just, just it's not the future, it's the present. It's where we're at.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

And like just it's so readily jumped on and supported. It's just shitty. It's just shitty.

[Greg Miller]

These shitty trends.

[Tim Gettys]

It's just shitty.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Fascinating story especially to come out after like right after we started talking about the marathon debacle with Bungie and them like stealing art. Not like not with generative AI and stuff but actually like actually just like taking someone else's art and now we're just gonna do it with in extra steps and like when do we eventually, you know, get the, you know, apology from this studio that someone else.

[Greg Miller]

I learned about swastikas and put them all over the. You know. Sorry.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, we just trained it on our tools.

[Greg Miller]

But.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, somehow this thing accidentally got in there.

[Greg Miller]

Who.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Who knows how that happened? It was the AI's fault. Maybe. Maybe stop using it. That'd be cool.

[Greg Miller]

Sucks.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That'd be cool. Stop killing the planet, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

If these studios stopped using AI, it'd be huge news.

[Tim Gettys]

It really would.

[Greg Miller]

But I could go for some smaller news. Where should I go?

[Tim Gettys]

Last news story. The WE News channel where we cover all the small news items that you need to know about.

[Greg Miller]

The days. The point at the Wii News thing. Wii News. There it comes. It's rebooting this weasel.

[Tim Gettys]

It's dusty yellow.

[Greg Miller]

This is something you got excited about yesterday. I misunderstood when I saw it, but. Lost in Cult is redefining physical editions. They announced this over on Twitter. They're doing a new run of this, right? Announcing additions. Physical games designed with care they deserve. We're doing it differently. We're doing it better. Our new preservation and design focused imprint redefines what physical games can be. The first three are available now. It's immortality. The excavation of R.A. hobbs Barrow. Sorry. And thank goodness you're here. Our collections of prestigious, consistent high end collectible releases. Preservation guaranteed with every game up to date and playable, offline tested by. Does it play? A curated artful collection with a monthly release cadence. Additions include original slipcase artwork, a variant game cover, an essay booklet, poster and more. Standard retail versions are also available from Lost in Cole. Very cool.

[Tim Gettys]

Very cool. Absolutely love this. I'm a big fan of Lost in Cole in general. If you are unfamiliar, go to lostincolt.com and just click around. They have so many very, very cool things. They have a magazine series, a very premium magazine series that is very, very cool and I think this is a great move. I obviously love physical media and more than anything I love the like collector's edition type stuff. So this reminds me a lot of how a 24 does a lot of its merch. I bought the Euphoria screenplay books and stuff and they're just. They're gorgeous. Like they're. They're such cool pieces and this being. Being game preservation but also beautiful and actually having cool stuff that's not just like shitty little plastic statues and stuff, but like something that you wouldn't be embarrassed to have in your living room, you know? Yeah, big fan of that and I hope this works out for them.

[Greg Miller]

In more Wii News. Epic announces quote Fortnite is back on the app store in the US on iPhones and iPads and on the Epic Game Store and Alt store in the eu. It'll show up in search soon. That was last night. I'm sure it's up now. But congratulations. If you're a Fortnite freak, it's back on your iPhone for you. I put this in here because I watched it on the sound down. I knew you'd explain it. There's a Kingdom Hearts activation at Disney now. Let's take a look. What is. So is this real? Because you. I started watching the video. I was like, oh, is this a bit. And then I was like, wait, is this something they're really doing?

[Tim Gettys]

So it seems like they're actually. They're doing it, but it's not actually Kingdom Hearts. Just like Kingdom Hearts, but key to Disneyland field. Thomas is the one doing this. And you can go to each land and like you can unlock and you get pins.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

See, it's not actually like a keyboard, but it's very.

[Greg Miller]

It's cool.

[Tim Gettys]

Kingdom Hearts adjacent, but yeah, this is like the coolest thing ever.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, okay.

[Tim Gettys]

Very, very cool.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, well, there you go. Do this for Kingdom Hearts then. VGC reports that Ridge Rate the Ridge Racer. Really? Oh my God. Ridge Racers re release that was announced for Switch 2 is also coming to Switch PlayStation and Xbox.

[Tim Gettys]

One of the weirdest switch to launch games. We're just putting out the arcade classics Ridge Racer 2 and it's like, all right.

[Greg Miller]

Like, sure, why not?

[Tim Gettys]

Why? All right, cool. I loved ridge Racer on PSP. That was a good launch game.

[Greg Miller]

There you go. PlayStation Stars. Speaking of PlayStation Stars is coming to a close as sie evaluates new ways to evolve future loyalty program efforts. Aw shucks. The highly successful digital game goods that were PlayStation stars coming to an end. You hate to see it. You know what I mean? Get out of here.

[Tim Gettys]

It's dumb.

[Greg Miller]

Every you tell me I was wrong about it. You were wrong about it. There it is. Go get it. We had a fight. We had to fight a fight every time in the chat about this.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

And it's another day I get to win.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, you want to know why? It's because they were fungible if they were non fungible.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly.

[Tim Gettys]

That is the big problem.

[Greg Miller]

Via deadline. Andrew Koji, Jason Momoa, Noah Centennial. He's the guy from all the girls, all the boys I love before.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes.

[Greg Miller]

And Roman Reigns, your tribal chief are in talks for Legendaries Street Fighter.

[Tim Gettys]

It's so interesting. This sounds like a dope cast for a Street Fighter movie. I'm definitely in for that. I am bummed though because originally it was going to be the talk to me directors gonna do this but for some reason they backed up out and it sucks because they got their start doing super cool action YouTube videos and the one of their most viral videos was a Street Fighter in real life thing and it was so cool. Like that was like 15 years ago. But yeah, I'm hopeful. They they've done what, three, four Street Fighter movies at this point and none of them have been good for the.

[Greg Miller]

Right this will be the one that turns the corner.

[Tim Gettys]

But I I do think that it could be fun. Like I I enjoy fighting game movies. Like I feel like my expectations for them are very different than the Last of Us, you know, or even Mario. Like I just kind of want to see like cool fight scenes of characters doing their moves. Hopefully they play the music, you know.

[Greg Miller]

I bet they will. Your final piece of Wii news comes from Eurogamer, where Matt Wales reports. Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the Cyberpunk tabletop RPG that formed the basis of Cyberpunk 2077, has been discussing CD projects in development sequel, saying it'll feature a second city that feels like quote Chicago gone wrong. Mike, I got bad news for you on what's going on in Chicago these days. We don't need to worry about what the game. Anyways, that's your little piece of we news there. There's a whole article going on about.

[Tim Gettys]

That, but okay, cool.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I'm excited for more cyberpunk, wherever it may be. I'm also excited to read through your super chats. Remember, if you're watching live on YouTube.com/kind of funny games, you can write it with a super chat to be part of the show. Usually I try to sprinkle them as we go. I think I did pretty well, but there's plenty of in here that are just going on with other stuff. Claw Master got in late and said the new DK is basically the Malibu Stacy bit from the Simpsons. There you go. The new and approved Malibu Stacy. Yeah, Krogan clinician says. Greg, are you doing your part to repel the squids? When can we get another kind of funny Helldivers stream? Of course, we talked about this yesterday. Super Earth has been invaded in Helldivers. I have not picked up my gun and gotten out there because there's so many other games to play right now. Now let alone the stream schedule is packed. So eventually maybe, but probably not. I'll let Gary Wood I'd Take care of it. Nightlife says. Tim, did you. Did you revisit Mother's Day from last year? Does that make sense to you?

[Tim Gettys]

No.

[Greg Miller]

Hoping that was a reference you would understand. Mother's Day from last year? A podcast?

[Tim Gettys]

I don't know.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

But that does remind me of something I Want to read.

[Greg Miller]

Scoopball420 says birthday tax to my son who turned 4 yesterday. Happy birthday, Sebastian, aka Bash. That's a great nickname for Sebastian. Just landed in Orlando for Epic universe to celebrate Scoopball 420. Have a great time celebrating with Sebastian.

[Tim Gettys]

Speaking of AI just sucking ass.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

The amount of spam emails I get for, like, fake ass business deals now are. It's just. It's insane. Like, literally 20 a day, and I hate it.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

But every once in a while they make me.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Hey, Tim, I really enjoyed hearing about Snowbike Mike's marathon stream plan in your latest episode. The idea of him and Roger attempting a full playthrough of death, stranding one on a treadmill, sounds like a wild journey. While they gear up for their adventure, I'm inspired by the awesome variety your shows offer. I'd love to introduce you to Father's Day as we've just expanded with over 15 new brands. What the fuck are you saying? You'd like to introduce me to Father's Day and you look at the website and it's just like, clear. Fucking trying to get my information. Asian, like, like, what the fuck?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I get so many bad. Oh, hey, it is always Nick. Hey, Nick. Yeah, you know what I'm like. Ah, Jesus. Super chat from Dave, bro. Who says, Greg, screw Missouri Rock Chalk. Dave, bro. I saw this come in and I clicked into your profile. You only have one video on YouTube. It's from 10 years ago. It has eight views and it's. You're not even playing as the Chiefs, so I. You know what I mean? Like, what are you. What are you doing? You're. You're playing as Washington, so don't come in. You don't even respect where you live. Don't come and act like you give a shit about it. All right? Eight views. Get out of here. D.J. kento says a post on Blue Skies is skeet. Posting is skeeting. I still don't. I don't. I don't follow that logic.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm with you.

[Greg Miller]

No one's going to do that if that's what it is. DJ Kento also says all I want to know. Tim, have you listened to Sleep Token yet? I would bet Money you'll dig the song emergence.

[Tim Gettys]

I have not. Where did I just hear about sleep token? Somebody tell me. Tell me. Greg.

[Greg Miller]

I don't. I don't g. Is charging you tokens to sleep.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I feel like Andy brought up sleep token for some reason recently.

[Greg Miller]

Riyadh. I mean, you keep thinking about it. Just writing in. Just writing this to tell my mom I had a connection with Greg today. Lol. I need to find a job. It's a good call back to yesterday. I appreciate that. Chocolate Fox 9 says are you going to review the DLC for the outer Worlds? I will be. In terms of my re review, I've already played through organ or whatever and I was thinking about kicking off the other one today on the stream with Mike so that every had a jumping on point. Christ. Calls out the great work by Barrett and says really getting used out of the jib today, Barrett. Good job, Barrett.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So I feel like that's like a backhanded compliment.

[Greg Miller]

I don't think so. He's recognizing the craft.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah. See the. But the last time I've heard you're.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Getting really good use out of this thing was Mike telling Roger getting real good use out of that Jeff jacket.

[Greg Miller]

Idiot. You know, Eric K. Allen super chats and says love to see new players get excited about magic. The Gathering would kind of funny. Ever try a more produced show like other creators? What if you had a volunteer editor eyes emoji? That's funny, Eric. No, I doubt. I mean, never say never. I could see us doing a season or something or a limited run or whatever, but we're so busy making the content you love around here. The core content that we double down on. Maybe. I don't know when we would do that on Ms. Prime is mad About Stars. Understandable. Tyler is making fun of Ghostbusters so we won't read that CJ splits on. Greg was right about PlayStation stars. Here's my bet money. So there you go. There you go, Barrett. You see, I've been fighting the fights out here you don't even know about. All right, I see Wiener says, Tim, what games should I buy for the Switch to launch? I would ask Greg, but he's a loser. Sega boy. That's understandable.

[Tim Gettys]

True. I mean, obviously Mario Kart World. Like that. That is. That's the one. And if you don't have a Switch, one Breath of the Wild and Sears the Kingdom for sure.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. Like that. I can't even imagine being able to play those games running great. Like that'd be amazing for the first time, you know, God, be cool. And this is a bit of an aside but like I don't think people are prepared for how well cyberpunk is going to sell on Switch too.

[Greg Miller]

Oh yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

I think that it's going to sell incredibly well and I think that it's going to be a sign of of what's to come for if you actually put your third party games on the switch and present them as if they're a big deal, not just like a second thought. You know what I mean? I feel like Konitsugami not going to do well. You know, Cyberpunk is going to do really well. So if you haven't played cyberpunk, wait for reviews because make sure it's like as good as it sounds from the previews. But yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And the final super chat is the first super chat and it goes to Amador Lopez. Love yesterday's Claire. Obscure discussion. Got the platinum all listening. My game of the year for sure. And then leaves a rose.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm working on the platinum. I had to start new game plus because I got on the journals. Oh I gotta. You know.

[Tim Gettys]

Damn.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You gotta get a key at the very beginning of the game and you can't go back to get that key. Oh yeah. So got to recollect all the journals. Fought Simon twice though. Kicked his ass on new game plus. One shot. 100 million damage. One shot. Love it.

[Tim Gettys]

God that's awesome.

[Greg Miller]

Ladies, gentlemen and enbies. That is another episode of kinda funny Games Daily in the bank. A super jam packed long one for you. We had some you're wrongs here. Final Fantasy Dork wrote in and said Sid isn't in every mainline Final Fantasy game. He showed it for the first time in Final Fantasy 2.

[Tim Gettys]

Don't make me fart on you dude.

[Greg Miller]

Kebabs then said Mount Calf is pronounced Calf because I didn't say Calf. Mount Calf. There you go.

[Tim Gettys]

That's been able to tell you that.

[Greg Miller]

Of course our programming day is just getting started from here. Now we roll into your death stranding review with Mike and Roger. After that the outer worlds with me and Mike so you can get ready for that review we are doing next week. One week from Friday. Of course. Friday is this week the final Elder Scrolls online podcast. There's always something cool going on here. Including that there Switch two coverage and sgf. Remember we will be live for the big press conferences. We will be live playing Switch 2. We're going to be hanging out and having a great time. It is a crazy time at kind of funny we couldn't do without you. If you think it's crazy and you like it, please pick up a kind of funny membership, toss a few bucks our way, get every show ad free, get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a series we call Greg Way. And of course, get some good karma for supporting us to toss. No big deal.

[Tim Gettys]

My hair looking fucking good.

[Greg Miller]

That's great. YouTube.com kind of funny games, Twitch TV kind of funny games. Spotify, Apple, any podcast service. Like subscribe, share, ring the bell, leave a review, do the thing, blah blah. Tell your friend. For now, though, it's time to get ready for the Gamescast. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.