Phil Spencer Retiring, Sarah Bond Out - Kinda Funny Games Daily Special Edition

Summary

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Kinda Funny Games Daily: “Phil Spencer Retiring, Sarah Bond Out” – Special Edition

Date: February 20, 2026
Hosts: Greg Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., Mike Howard, Paris Lilly, Barrett
Topic: Major shakeups at Xbox – Phil Spencer retires, Sarah Bond leaves, Asha Sharma named new head.

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Overview

In this special, somber edition, Kinda Funny’s crew reacts in real-time to a historic shakeup at Xbox. Phil Spencer, long-time head of Xbox, is retiring; President Sarah Bond is leaving the company; and Asha Sharma, a Microsoft core AI executive, has been named CEO of Microsoft Gaming. The team walks through executive emails, speculates on how sudden the departures truly are, analyzes implications for Xbox’s future, and voices concerns for the wider games industry.

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Major Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Breaking News ([03:11]-[07:23])

• Phil Spencer Retirement: Greg reads the initial report from Steven Totilo/GameFile – Phil Spencer retires after 38 years at Microsoft, 12 as head of gaming. Asha Sharma (core AI, ex-Instacart, ex-Meta) to take over. Matt Booty promoted to Chief Content Officer. Sarah Bond is leaving.
• Official Statements:
  • Satya Nadella’s email emphasizes Xbox’s great legacy, thanks Phil for “extraordinary leadership,” and praises Asha Sharma’s business scaling experience ([04:16]-[07:23]).
  • Phil Spencer’s Farewell: Heartfelt, talks legacy and community, introduces Sharma, thanks Bond ([07:52]-[10:15]).
  • Asha Sharma’s First Words: “I feel two things at once. Humility and urgency.” Lays out three commitments—great games, return to core Xbox fans, and the “future of play” ([10:15]-[14:19]).

Notable Quote:

“Gaming is in a period of rapid change, and we need to move with clarity and conviction.”
— Asha Sharma [11:26]

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2. Was This Really Planned? ([14:19]-[17:14])

• Skepticism Over Narrative: The crew is openly suspicious about how “amicable” and “planned” all this really was.
• Greg: “I don’t believe this has been gestating for a year… This seems like such a crazy way to jump into this pool.”
• Sarah Bond’s Sudden Exit: No goodbye email, incongruent LinkedIn post just hours earlier.

Notable Quote:

“If this was amicable, if this was the plan, wouldn’t you have introduced her [Sharma] a long time ago?”
— Greg Miller [15:10]

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3. What’s Next for Xbox? Recommitment, Realignment, or Retrenchment? ([17:14]-[25:31])

• Urgency and Fixing What’s Broken: Sharma’s language about “urgency” and “returning to Xbox roots” is interpreted as an admission something is “broken”—perhaps strategy or public perception.
• Return to Console Focus: The commitment to “core Xbox fans,” and starting with console, triggers questions: Is this a move away from “Play Anywhere” and multiplatform?
• Host Skepticism: No one trusts that rolling back to “classic exclusives” will magically solve anything. There’s worry that the audience Xbox lost is unlikely to return.

Notable Quotes:

“They’ve gone left so long and so far that I just don’t think it’s possible to win back that trust.”
— Greg Miller [25:34]

"If you're trying to make games that are console sellers, I think a lot of those studios are fucking dead."
— Blessing Adeoye Jr. [47:11]

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4. Sarah Bond’s Exit and the New “AI Era” ([31:40]-[33:53])

• Sharma’s Background: Not a “gaming industry” lifer, but an AI/operations/biz scaling exec.
• Potential Ramifications: The hire signals business discipline, possibly layoffs and cuts, rather than creative renewal.
• AI and Monetization: Sharma claims the new Xbox won’t “chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop.” The hosts are skeptical, seeing this as just lip service.

Notable Quote:

“We will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop.”
— Asha Sharma, read by Greg [11:34], discussed at [32:15], [60:25]

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5. On Console Identity, Exclusivity, and Future Hardware ([18:05], [23:38], [27:33], [43:54])

• Confusion and Uncertainty: Consensus among panelists and guests like Paris Lilly that Microsoft truly doesn’t know its own roadmap.
• Unlikely Comeback for Exclusives: Most agree that after doubling down on multiplatform, you “can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”
• What About the Next Xbox? Speculation that “premium,” “dual-boot” hardware plans may vanish, replaced by a low-cost, safe, “normal ass Xbox.”

“The exclusive genie is out of the bottle. As a customer, why would I trust buying an Xbox for exclusivity when you then told me it doesn’t matter, but now it does again?”
— Paris Lilly [43:54]

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6. Looming Cuts, Studio Uncertainty, and the Human Cost ([46:20]-[58:59])

• Layoff Anxiety: New leadership likely to rationalize, cut, and focus only on instantly profitable teams/franchises (Call of Duty, Forza, Bethesda’s big IP).
• Indie/Creative Teams at Risk: Studios like Double Fine, Compulsion, Ninja Theory, and others named by the hosts as vulnerable.
• Explicit Fears: “Compulsion, Double Fine, etc. are so cooked.” (chat, echoed by Blessing at [46:34])
• Barrett: “This is probably someone who comes in as a ringer—make the raw business decisions, cut where needed.”

Notable Quote:

“Every Xbox studio, Microsoft-owned studio right now is head in their hands like, What the fuck’s about to happen?”
— Greg Miller [70:40]

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7. What’s Happening With Game Pass? ([79:03]-[81:08])

• Is Game Pass on the Chopping Block? Crew debates if Game Pass will survive this shakeup. Blessing and Mike doubt it could be cut, given how far the model has gone and the revenue it represents. But panel highlights the anxiety around all existing initiatives.

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8. Industry Morale, Identity, and The Wider Crisis ([65:47]-[77:55])

• Xbox Vibes and Personal Impact:
  • Hosts reflect on how industry turbulence, including major layoffs, closures (like Bluepoint), and pricing woes are sapping joy and optimism from gaming culture—even as playing games remains fun.
  • Greg voices concern for the domino effect–what will happen to all those creating, shipping, and living in the Xbox world?

“Imagine the amount of people who are buying houses, are pregnant, are getting married, have sick family…now is this ever going to see the light of day?”
— Greg Miller [70:40]

• Comparison with Nintendo: The hosts briefly contrast Microsoft/Sony’s business-driven chaos with Nintendo’s (perceived) creative-first, steady approach—even as they acknowledge Nintendo’s own flaws ([66:16]-[69:22]).

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9. Final Reflections and The Mood in the Room ([72:19]-end)

• “Bummed Out and Perplexed”:
  • The ending tone is honest, raw, exhausted, anxious. The team expresses worry not just for Xbox but for the soul of the games industry in 2026.
  • “We all just want to talk about video games,” Blessing sighs, before lamenting how business drama constantly threatens the joy of play ([77:53]).
  • Mike: “Now you have to prove a lot to me…as an Xbox gamer…I'm disheartened. I just don’t feel like this group knows what’s next.”
  • Barrett: “Years and years of building trust, which is going to take so much more money that in their eyes has already been wasted…I see this as a moment where we're gonna see a lot of cuts…a lot of slimming down.”

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “[Phil] expanded our reach across PC, mobile, and cloud, nearly tripled the size of the business…helped shape our strategy through the acquisitions…”
  — Satya Nadella Email [05:45]

• “I feel two things at once. Humility and urgency…gaming is in a period of rapid change and we need to move with clarity and conviction.”
  — Asha Sharma Email [11:26]

• “We will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop.”
  — Asha Sharma, read by Greg [11:34], discussed at [32:15] and [60:25]

• “I don’t believe this has been gestating for a year…Phil’s retiring on Monday…Sarah Bond has resigned. Oh, okay…”
  — Greg Miller [15:10]

• “It takes a very long time of proving yourself with exclusives that are banger after exclusives that are banger…people going, damn, I gotta get that Xbox.”
  — Blessing Adeoye Jr. [28:12]

• “If you’re trying to make games that are console sellers, I think a lot of those studios are fucking dead.”
  — Blessing Adeoye Jr. [47:11]

• “As a customer, why would I trust buying an Xbox for exclusivity when you then told me it doesn’t matter, but now it does again?”
  — Paris Lilly [43:54]

• “Every Xbox studio, Microsoft-owned studio right now is head in their hands like, What the fuck’s about to happen?”
  — Greg Miller [70:40]

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:11] – Segment begins: The news as it breaks
• [04:16]-[07:23] – Official statements read aloud (Nadella, Spencer, Sharma)
• [15:10] – Trust issues: why this doesn’t look “planned”
• [17:14]-[25:31] – Dissecting and doubting promised ‘return to roots’
• [31:40]-[33:53] – What does an AI exec running Xbox portend?
• [46:20]-[58:59] – Layoffs, studio risk, the new business reality discussion
• [79:03]-[81:08] – Is Game Pass safe?
• [65:47]-[77:55] – The emotional impact on the community & morale
• [72:19]-end – Closing feelings, the “vibe shift”, hopes for future

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Tone & Style

• Largely raw, mournful, and urgent, punctuated with typical KFGD humor
• Direct, candid skepticism of official statements
• Hosts maintain empathy for developers and industry workers

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Conclusion

Kinda Funny’s panel offers an unfiltered, community-centered analysis of perhaps the most impactful leadership shakeup in Xbox history. While they give space to the official narrative, their collective skepticism and concern reflect a wider malaise in the games industry, surfacing real fears for creative teams, platform identity, and the fate of beloved studios. This episode captures gaming’s ongoing crisis of confidence—one not easily solved by corporate restructuring or PR.

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For more reactions and future analysis, tune in to Kinda Funny Games Daily on your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Mike]

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[Greg Miller]

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[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sip for yourself.

[Greg Miller]

Shop Vertuo up [e-mail] go to boot.dev and use code kinda funny to get 25% off your entire first year on the annual plan. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com kindafunny if you

[Mike]

want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows go to patreon.com

[Greg Miller]

kindafunny today in the nerdy news you need to know about again, Phil Spencer is retiring, Sarah Bond is out and Xbox has a new head cheese. We'll have all this and more because this is Kind of Funny Games Daily again. What is up everybody? Welcome back to Kind of Funny Games daily for Friday, February 20, 2026. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller alongside Forbes 30 under 30 aka New York Game Awards nominated aka leftover poppy. It's blessing. Adio Ye Jr. You know I know,

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I know we put this together in a rush. I'm scrolling through the thing. I think we're copying pasting the same emails over and over again. I don't know if I was getting

[Greg Miller]

things this is the most like this is a day.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And so like yeah, the new I. I thought maybe we would get to eat lunch before moving on to the next meeting show, whatever. And so no, yeah, go ahead and you can clean it up. Sorry I'm getting things on a back channel over here so I'm putting in things that I'm getting jazz.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So like listen, we can just dive into it. We can just let it be out there and we'll read what we read.

[Greg Miller]

Everybody you are for a Rick rolling, rocking good time that'll go on for a long time I'm sure on a very special and somber kind of funny Games Daily. Remember if you're watching super chat to be part of the show as we get through all this insane news. Of course we couldn't do this without our patreon producers on patreon.com kindafunny so so thank you Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Som Twining.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Can I tell you I'm so tired of industry shaking news. We need like, like can we just like you know, show up one day and it's oh, we announced a new Viva Pinata. Ah, sick. Let's talk about it.

[Greg Miller]

That's rad. I love that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Whatever happened to that happened.

[Greg Miller]

It's more than and this is not, I swear, me patting on myself on the back at all. Roger, if you're watching, we gotta get in the hopper. The social video of me going, it's gonna get worse and do like the days where that was like Tuesday, it's going to get worse, but it'll eventually get better and then Blue Point and then this and then just the insanity we're dealing with every day. Whatever. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the Rope Report. We have one story on the Roper Report.

[Barrett]

Fuck.

[Greg Miller]

Number one, Phil Spencer is retiring from Xbox Microsoft AI exec I Asha Sharman Sharma is taking over the gaming division. This is Steven Totilo at gamefile. Phil Spencer, the longtime head of Xbox and gaming at Microsoft, is stepping down. That move is part of a massive change in the leadership team for one of the big three console makers. Taking over for Spencer as head of gaming at Microsoft will be Asha Sharma, the current head of core AI at Microsoft. According to Microsoft's announcements about the changeover, Microsoft Head of Game Studios Matt Boody will remain on the team, rising to Chief Content Officer. Xbox President Sarah Bond is exiting Microsoft. Spencer will stay on as an advisor into the summer. Sharma joined Microsoft in 2024, having previously served as chief operating officer of Instacart. The moves were announced via emails from Satya. Satya.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Satya.

[Greg Miller]

Nadella. Satya, I think you know Nadella Sharma. Spencer and Booty Today, one more call from Greg.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Also, if you need me to pick up the reading, let me know.

[Greg Miller]

We can switch off. Here comes Nadella's email. Gaming has been part of Microsoft from the start. Flight Simulator shipped before Windows and you can practically ray trace a line. Okay, go.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Let's see. And you can practically ray trace a line. From DirectX in the 90s to the accelerated compute era we're in today as we celebrate Xbox's 25th year. The opportunity and innovation agenda in front of us is expensive. Sorry, expansive. Also expensive though. Today we reach over 500 million monthly active users, our top publisher across all platforms and continue to innovate across gaming, hardware, content and community in service of creators and players everywhere. I am long on gaming and its role at the center of our consumer ambition. And as we look ahead, I'm excited to share that Asha Sharma will become Executive Vice President and CEO Microsoft Gaming reporting to me over the last two years at Microsoft and previously as Chief Operating Officer at Instacart and a Vice President at Meta, Asha has helped build and scale services that reach billions of people and support thriving consumer and developer ecosystems. She brings deep experience building and growing platforms, aligning business models to long term value, and operating at a global scale. Which will be crucial. Sorry. Which will be critical in leading our gaming business into its next era of growth. Matt Boody will become Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer, reporting to Asha. Matt's career reflects a lifelong commitment to gaming and to the people who make games. Under his leadership, Microsoft Gaming has grown to span nearly 40 studios across Xbox, Bethesda, Activision Blizzard and King, which are home to beloved franchises including Halo, the Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, the Diablo, Candy Crush and Fallout. Together, Asha and Matt have the right combination of consumer product leadership and gaming depth to push our platform innovation and content pipeline forward. Last year, Phil Spencer made the decision to retire from the company, and since. Since then, we've been talking about succession planning. I want to thank Phil for his extraordinary leadership and partnership over 38 years at Microsoft, including 12 years leading gaming. Phil helped transform what we do and how we do it. He expanded our reach across PC, mobile and cloud, nearly tripled the size of the business, helped shape our strategy through the acquisitions of Activision Blizzard, Zenimax and Minecraft, and strengthened our culture across our studios and platforms. I've long admired Phil's unwavering commitment to players, creators and his team, and I am personally grateful for his leadership and counsel. He'll continue working closely with Asha to ensure a smooth transition. We have extraordinary creative talent across our studios and a global platform that is second to none. I'm excited for how we will capture the opportunity ahead and define what comes next while staying grounded in what players and creators value. Please join me in congratulating Asha and Matt on their new roles and in thanking Phil for everything he has done for Microsoft and our industry. So that is the Satya Nadella email. I can keep reading or.

[Greg Miller]

It seems super amicable.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh yeah, everything's happy. Everybody's happy.

[Greg Miller]

Last year they decided to do this last year. Yeah, yeah, it's totally normal.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What's up, Mike?

[Mike]

Hi, guys. Thanks for having me. I apologize for being a couple minutes late, but a lot to talk about.

[Greg Miller]

You apologize for being late? You have nothing to apologize. Mike's at home working on a redacted review and I called him and he's like, what's up, homie? And I'm Like Phil Spencer's retiring. Sarah Bonds out, come to work. Yeah, he went, really? And then here he is. You killed it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

If you want, I can move right into the Spencer email.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So this was the email sent by Phil Spencer. When I walked through Microsoft's doors as an intern In June of 1988, I could never have imagined the products I'd helped build, the players and customers we'd serve, or the extraordinary teams I'd be lucky enough to join. It's been an epic ride and truly the privilege of a lifetime. Last fall, I shared with Satya that I was thinking about sleeping back. I was thinking about stepping back and starting the next chapter of my life. From that moment, we aligned on approaching this transition with intention, ensuring stability and strengthening the foundation we've built. Xbox has always been more than a business. It's a vibrant community of players, creators and teams who care deeply about what we build and how we build it. And it deserves a thoughtful, deliberate plan for the road ahead. Today marks an exciting new chapter for Microsoft Gaming as Asha Sharma steps into the role of CEO. And I want to be the first to welcome her to this incredible team. Working with her over the past several months, it has given me tremendous confidence. She brings genuine curiosity, clarity and a deep commitment to understanding players, creators and the decisions that shape our future. We know this is an important moment for our fans, partners and team and and we're committed to getting it right. I'll remain in an advisory role through the summer to support a smooth handoff. I'm also grateful for the strength of our studios organization. Matt Booty and our studio's teams continue to build an incredible portfolio and I have full confidence in the leadership and creative momentum across our global studios. I want to congratulate Matt on his promotion to EVP and Chief Content Officer. As part of this transition, Sarah Bond has decided to leave Microsoft to begin a new chapter. Sarah has been instrumental during a defining period for Xbox. Shaping our platform strategy, expanding game pass and cloud gaming, supporting new hardware launches, and guiding some of the most significant moments in our history. I'm grateful for her partnership and the impact she's had. And I wish her the very best in what comes next. Most of all, to everyone in Microsoft Gaming, I want to thank you. I've learned so much from this team and community, grown alongside you, and continually inspired by the creativity, courage and care you bring to players, creators and to one another every day. Day. I'm incredibly proud of what we built together over the last 25 years and I have Complete confidence in all of you and in the opportunities ahead. I'll be cheering you on in this next chapter as Xbox's proudest fan and player. That is Phil Spencer's email.

[Greg Miller]

Let's go to Sharma. I'll try this one, see if I can get through now that I've had my cough syrup. Today I begin my role as CEO of Microsoft Gaming. I feel two things at once. Humility and urgency. Humility, because this team has built something extraordinary over decades. Urgency, because gaming is in a period of rapid change and we need to move with clarity and conviction. I am stepping into work shaped by generations of artists, engineers, designers, writers, musicians, operators and more who create worlds that have brought joy and deep personal meaning to hundreds of millions of players. The level of craft here is exceptional and it is amplified by Xbox, which was founded in the belief that the power of games connects people and pushes the industry forward. Thank you to Phil for his leadership into every studio and every studio, platform and operations team that built this foundation. We are stewards of some of the most loved stories and characters in entertainment and bring players and creators together around the fun and community of gaming in entirely new ways. My first job is simple. Understand what makes this work and protect it.

[Mike]

Don't. Don't hold on that. You know I don't like that. You know I don't like that.

[Greg Miller]

Listen, my first job is to understand what I'm in charge.

[Mike]

What the hell am I doing here?

[Greg Miller]

That starts with three commitments. First, great games. Everything begins here. We must have great games, beloved by players before we do anything. Unforgettable characters, stories that make us feel innovative gameplay and creative excellence. We will empower our studios, invest in iconic franchises and back bold new ideas. We will take risks. We will enter new categories and markets where we can add real value grounded in what players care about the most. I promoted Matt Booty in honor of his commitment. He understands the craft and the challenges of building great games, has led teams that deliver award winning work and has earned the trust of game developers across the industry. Second, the return of Xbox. We will recommit to our core Xbox fans and players, those who have invested with us for the last 25 years, and to the developers who build the expansive universes and experiences that are embraced by players across the world. We will celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox, starting with console, which has shaped who we are. It connects us to the players and fans who invest in Xbox and to the developers who build ambitious experiences for it. Gaming now lives across devices, not within the limits of Any single piece of hardware. As we expand across PC, mobile and cloud, Xbox should feel seamless, instant and worthy of communities we serve. We will break down barriers so developers can build once and reach players everywhere without compromise. Third, future of play. We are witnessing the reinvention of play to meet the moment. We will invent new business models and new ways to play by leaning into what we already have. Iconic teams, characters and worlds that people love. But we will not treat those worlds as a static IP to milk and monetize. We will build a shared platform and tools that empower developers and players to create and share their own stories. As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with with soulless AI slop. Games are and always will be art crafted by humans and created with the most innovative technology provided to us. The next 25 years belong to the teams who dare to build something surprising, something no one else is willing to try and have the patience to see it through. We have done this before and I am here to help us do it again. I want to return to that renegade spirit that built Xbox in the first place. It will require us to relentlessly question everything, revisit processes, protect that work. I'm sorry, protect what works and be brave enough to change what does not. Thank you for welcoming me into this journey.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

If I was to say something controversial.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, God.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

She's saying the right things. Yes, that's the controversial part. But I don't believe her.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's the problem with all of this, right? There's obviously so much to unpack here.

[Greg Miller]

Yes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think the place to go would be back to the first email we read from Satya Nadella, because Greg, you made a comment of Phil Spencer made the decision to retire from the company. Where do we stand with that? Like, where do we. I guess. What is your belief levels with that? What is your. Like, how do we end up here, man?

[Greg Miller]

Lots to unpack that we're doing live on air and doing all these different things. Let's start with what I believe. Looking at this as a human being and as somebody who covers the industry, I don't believe that this has been gestating for a year. This seems like such a crazy way to jump into this pool and do it this way. Hey everybody. Phil's retiring on Monday.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Remember when Jim Ryan said He was leaving PlayStation, right? It was like, oh, it was like three months, a quarter or whatever. The same thing. Even shoe when Shu left PlayStation a huge Runway to it yada, yada, yada. And you think back to on the opposite PlayStation side when Sean Layton, one day there was a tweet on a Friday afternoon, hey, Sean, lady's left the company. We wish him well. Like, what the fuck happened? And we never got the story of what really happened there. Yeah, like, if this was amicable, if this was the plan, wouldn't you have introduced her a long time ago? Not as, hey, here's our successor. Give her some other title in Xbox so that gamers get to know her and see what's happening. We ease it in. We're like, all right, cool. And then when it's inevitably that you leave, that makes sense. Not as you know, they had been clearly, it felt like building forever that Sarah Bond was number two and Sarah Bond would one day step up. So let's take the Sarah Bond part of the equation. Phil is retiring on Monday. That seems super above. Sarah Bond has resigned. Oh, okay, interesting. Let me scroll and read Sarah Bond's email. Goodbye. Oh, there isn't one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Interesting.

[Greg Miller]

That's interesting. That's weird. Oh, what's that again? You're right. It's the 25th anniversary of Xbox this year. We didn't want to say, hey, Phil's retiring. After that, like, we. Phil's going to lead us to the celebration that we're planning and whatever, Iran, whatever, and then go on his way. No, this doesn't sound great. And even the email from Sharma. Right. Talks about urgency and talks about fixing things. So it's like, guess what? In Microsoft's official. In Satya's official opinion, something is broken. Something is not working. We can be here and we can say, congratulations to Phil and thank you for all your hard work. Here's a gold watch and a handshake. But when you read this, she's talking about changing things because things aren't working right now.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yep.

[Greg Miller]

And so that makes me think that as we've talked about at length, the

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

whole second bullet point, like the second, the middle portion of that email talks about the return of Xbox. Like return being the key word. And yeah, to your point, Greg, we will recommit to our core fan, core Xbox fans and players, saying, we have

[Greg Miller]

not been committed to you.

[Barrett]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

That Xbox play anywhere and we don't have a console was not a right choice. Well, that's what I read from it.

[Mike]

I mean, the lack of exclusive games, the loss of exclusives, the loss of the fire behind the console, and the reason for gamers to invest and buy the console, that has been shaky and lost.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Throughout this, right, we're gonna have a fun conversation.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

See that?

[Greg Miller]

I want to come in with the

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

world that I want to dig into.

[Mike]

I got a lot going on because

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't think, I don't think Satya Nadella agrees with that part.

[Mike]

One generation into this, it has felt like Xbox has lost its identity. And now, yeah, sure, the past couple of years they have started to find that. And hey, we're going to be a massive publisher. We're going to put our games everywhere, we're going to celebrate our games.

[Greg Miller]

But.

[Mike]

But when I hear that, it's like, oh, yeah, you lost Xbox. Yeah, you lost the identity of the Xbox gamers. Because Mike is on the camera going, just buy a PlayStation. You'll get all the same games any way you want.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I agree with you with part A. Part B is where I'm like, I'm pretty sure we have Satya Nadella quotes or like bigger Microsoft, not Phil Spencer, like his higher ups being like, yeah, like, we want to. Like, this is the plan. We want to put our things everywhere because we want to be able to make back that money. But I think they, I think everybody agrees with part one of what you're saying as far as shit's not working, right. Xbox has not been Xbox, like this has not been a leading console competitor in the space since the Xbox One like you're talking about. And yeah, that's where we get to this recommitment thing. And I. There are so many. I mean, God, there's so much to talk about here. But I have so many questions.

[Greg Miller]

We got all the time in the world.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I have so many questions about just that part.

[Mike]

And if you're going to stick to the plan that you're already doing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Mike]

What is more recommitting than already? We already know Phil and Sarah are delivering us or their plan was to deliver great games on all platforms, anywhere you want to play them at a discount. If you want to sign up with Game Pass or at full price with whatever console you own. What more recommitment can you do for me as an Xbox gamer at this time? What is their vision that they really have that I don't understand already?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's fair.

[Greg Miller]

That's very fair.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I have the same exact question.

[Mike]

Yeah, right.

[Greg Miller]

We are acting like, you know, where is Sarah Bond's goodbye? I saw over here a super chat from sky. You go to LinkedIn, which is of course a website for marketing Sarah Bond posted four hours ago. We'd love to learn more about how you play. So we can continue improving Xbox accessibility features and then links to an accessibility survey. Which totally makes sense that if you knew you were resigning today, 4 hours ago you put that up, you would do this. And it wasn't. Someone walked into Phil's office. Somebody, Satya Nadella, walked in the office and was like, it's time for the experiment to end. Phil, we've. You've done best. We appreciate this. We're going to have to talk to some people about exiting you out. We want to do it in a great place.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I know. People mentioning like that's probably as a scheduled post. Even if it's a scheduled post, it's like how long ago did you schedule that? Like if you knew this was happening today. Right. Like did you schedule yesterday exactly a week ago. Like no matter when Bill's leaving and

[Greg Miller]

I'm resigned, I'm going to resign on that day. Not even wait till the day he released.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So you didn't know a week ago that this is going down? You know what I mean? Like this is still insane no matter how you cut it.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So then, Mike, try to get ourselves

[Mike]

on a track here.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, no, I mean that was, I mean, no, no, no, we're doing it, of course. What's the future of Xbox? Do you look at this and go, because let's also. Let's canary in the. Canary in the wrong. The elephant in the room. Things haven't been going well, public perception wise for Xbox. Right?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Nor I mean monetarily in the long run. Yeah, your games are selling well on PlayStation 5, but again as I continue to say, Microsoft wants consoles and wants money and wants fans who are there all the time. So on the one hand, this is, this is a crazy fucking way to do this. On the other hand, it's not. Unexpected is not the right word, but it's not so out of left field you can't believe it.

[Mike]

That's true.

[Greg Miller]

No, does this. Do you believe that Matt Booty and Sharma here have a chance to get it on the Xbox that you would love the Xbox, you'd be represent with the Xbox casting in X Cast.

[Mike]

Me, Greg, I don't even know what that Xbox is anymore. After what we've done here over the past decade and where we are today. Right. There's just so many things in your mind. But as someone who has been tracking the industry with you all here at Kind of Funny Games for years now and has also just been a die hard video game fan, my worry is, is the belt is about to tighten real tight. Right. Like we just watched Blue point get absolutely axed after acquisition. And then five years of building a game that a company wanted but then didn't want. Right now my worry is, is we haven't announced that Xbox that's coming up this year. It's in the works, but at any moment that could just be paused, that could be cut at any time.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Mike]

We look at the giant slate of teams that this team has acquired and has homegrown. Right? They have bought two massive players in the industry from Bethesda to Activision Blizzard King. Right. There is teams that we talk about from Compulsion games to double fine to these mid tier groups that are like, hey, they're making fun and innovative games that gamers like, but they're not selling all that well. They are game pass fodder for what you want to call it. But now my worry is you look at that and you just go, we're going to start chopping all of this off. We're going to pause on this next Xbox. I don't know what their game plan is because in my mind, Phil and Sarah, we're trying to drive that play anywhere. The next Xbox is going to be a dual boot. Gamers can have Steam, Epic, they can have Xbox all in one place. We want to be that console that you say, oh, I want a PC, but I don't want to afford a PC. I want this in my living room. Still. Xbox is going to try to bring that to me. Right. Game passes, the subscription model. We bought all of these teams to help publish and create games that will go everywhere now and hopefully be big.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I just don't know what they're really going to get out of this that I can't see right now.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, do you think they know?

[Mike]

I mean, unless it's we're going to make exclusives again, which would be a crazy idea like we just talked about. But I mean, the only way in my mind and we talked about it with Starfield, right. When I brought up like Starfield needed to deliver. Starfield needed to be a game of a generation so good that you had to go buy an Xbox for it. Right. And that didn't deliver. And now you have this moment. It's like, well then are we even able to sell exclusives? Because PlayStation is running amok on us right now. They're too far gone where people won't jump ship. And at this moment now it's like if I sell Halo, Gears, Forza, you know, Kiln, if I Sell any games on Xbox. Would it even be possible to make it exclusive and worth it? And in my mind, it's a no.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think post buying Activision Blizzard. Everything's out the window as far as traditional console rules. Like, I don't know how you can, how you can put that genie back in the bottle when you have bought Activision Blizzard.

[Greg Miller]

I think they're going to do it. How I think that's second is the return of Xbox. We will recommit to our core Xbox fans and players. We will celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox, starting with console, which has shaped who we are. It connects us to the players and fans who invest in Xbox and to developers who build ambitious experience for it. Gaming now lives across devices, not within the limits of any single piece of hardware. As we expand across PC, mobile and cloud, they don't say console, not PlayStation, not Switch. Xbox should feel seamless, instant and worthy of the communities we serve. We will break down barriers so developers can build once. And I think it's Activision Blizzard is hinky because of, hey, we went to court and we said we'd do it everywhere which way and beef, blah, blah. But I think you're about to see not. I would, I would hazard a guess as a stupid moron. None of the games that are already announced and have confirmed anything but after that, we're going back to. You're making an Xbox game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Is that going to be successful?

[Mike]

No, no, will not be.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, I mean, you shake the crystal ball, you look into this. No, here's, here's the thing. Whether you love it, hate it, and clearly Satya Nadella hated it, right? Phil Spencer and team went left when a lot of people wanted to go right. And they have gone left so long and so far that I just don't think it's possible to win back that trust of a gamer. Like, guess what Xbox is. Okay, fuck you. Starfield wasn't a game of generation. You guys got to make games that are fucking awesome to justify this thing. But if I'm not going to buy the thing, I'm not going to know they're awesome. And you're never going to get to that second wave of awesome games that would hopefully justify buying this, let alone I'm spitballing and who knows, Sarah Vaughn, the next Xbox is going to be a premium thing. It's going to be this dual boot thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would imagine that's fucking out the goddamn window now. No, make a fucking Xbox that's affordable for A normal family that plays exclusive Xbox games. Which means, granted, we've already had so many conversations about memory loss, the RAM shortage, right? Continuing life cycles of these consoles. So maybe that's good and buys them time to be like, listen, back to the drawing board, make a normal ass Xbox. That does it. But I think it's people coming in, expecting what it was, going into Xbox series and thinking they can get that kind of play off the Xbox audience, which I think they've eroded and the jig is up. And again, I understand not liking the Xbox strategy as of late, but I do think that that is a very interesting. That in some regard could be the future is the future. And I think going back this way isn't the future. And I think by going back to this, you're going to shoot yourself in the foot even more than it already was. This is almost back to what I always talk about when they launched Xbox One and it was tv, tv, tv, Call of Duty, Call Duty and every like, we fucking hate this. Always on drm. Fuck you, we won't do it. And they said, you know what, you're right, we're wrong, we'll change everyone. Yeah, you don't even believe in your own vision. Fuck you. And so I feel if they, I would have loved to see the timeline do the Doctor Strange thing and go, but what if they hadn't balked and said, no, we believe in this, this is the future. We're going to show you why it's great. Maybe they fall flat on their face and they're a third party publisher. It doesn't matter by the time we get here, right? But maybe it would have worked out because that's what people want. They want a clear message of what you're doing right now. This sounds like we're going back on an entire generation, a console generation of what we've done. And I think you do that and then you expect people to flock back to the system. No, that just isn't how it works. I just don't think that is the way it's going to work.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean it takes a very long time of proving yourself with exclusives that are banger after exclusives that are banger, right? And like people going, damn, I gotta get that Xbox.

[Mike]

They were just proving to the PlayStation audience and the Steam audience and all the other audience that's not in the ecosystem that hey, there are good games out here. There are games worth talking about over here. On the Microsoft side. We had just won. That team had just won that, right? They had just finally, like, the Xbox

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

team had won that.

[Mike]

Yeah. They had just finally got people to go. I do like, Forza Horizon. Oh, my God. Halo. Yeah. I'd like to try Halo. Gears of War is coming. Oh, man, that's really exciting stuff. Like, they were just starting to win. That public sentiment of like, hey, we're good enough that we'll. We'll sell it on your console and you're going to buy it. And it was. There was numbers proving that they were buying it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But I. The tough thing for me when we were talking about the Xbox first party slate of games is that I don't think that you have enough there for it. Like, it's crazy because they own more studios out of anybody, but I don't. Valve is not a console seller. Outer Worlds is not a console seller. South of Midnight's not a console seller. Kiln's not a console seller. Keeper's not a console seller.

[Mike]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Call of Duty is. But Call of Duty is not going to be exclusive. Forza Horizon is fantastic. And I will ride and die for Forza Horizon all day, every day. You need more than Forza Horizon. You need more than Halo. Well, Halo lately has been whatever.

[Mike]

That was the problem. Like Greg said. Right. They had veered to the left.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And we knew our lane. It looked like Xbox knew their lane. We were putting out games that were good to great but not exceptional and stop everything you're doing to go get this.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Mike]

And so they started to play into that of, hey, then we just got to put our games everywhere. We got to acknowledge that we cannot put out an exclusive title anymore because people just don't care. They're not going to come back.

[Greg Miller]

But this is my odd that we're

[Mike]

going to yank it to the right.

[Greg Miller]

But again, it's people who I don't think understand what they're doing and talking about. And this isn't me saying Sharma doesn't, but Satya Nella. It's people panicking when they see this. This is what I've been talking about the entire time with Xbox is eventually someone's going to walk in the room, be like, stop fucking losing money. What are you doing? You were making more money when it was exclusive. Do that. And that's not the lesson to learn here. If anything, the bold choice would have been, hey, we're. Phil is resigning. He's been talking about it for a year. Sarah's been talking about quitting as well. She did exactly what she was going to do. And the bold decision here would have Been like, listen, we're committed to great Xbox games and we no longer think that requires a console. Yeah, we are committed. We will support. We will continue to put our games on Xbox, but we will not be making another Xbox console. We think PCs are so amazing. Our partners at PlayStation are doing great stuff. We're everywhere on the cloud and everything else. That would have been the bold, bullish, I think reading the tea leaves future take.

[Mike]

That would have been the take where I go. I understand that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I got. We have seen this track the whole time. I'm in on that. I get that.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Mike]

For sure. If you came out and said that, we probably would have a different discussion right now, a different tone.

[Greg Miller]

And people were saying. I was. Maybe I'm wrong because it's chatting. You glance over. But I think when I finished up my thing of, you know, I think exclusives are coming back. People like, that's an insane take. Like, I'm not making up the fucking words. We will celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox, starting with console which shaped who we are. Like, that is a fucking shot across the bow of the. The thing you just saw that so many of you said you hated. We hate too. Microsoft hated too. We are changing that. And so what is that changing that? What does that mean? That means no, you aren't buying these on PlayStation. You got to buy our fucking box. So we make foreign fucking money

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

to shift gears a little bit. Right. Let's talk more about Asha Sharma, the new head of Xbox coming from OpenAI or no, sorry, Core AI.

[Greg Miller]

And I'd like to call this out. This is outside of my usual. My wheelhouse, but I believe it. A super chat from Victor Fry says. I just want to highlight that Core AI is the rebranded Microsoft developer division. Software developer tooling. It's not AI. It's not all AI.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Which again makes sense because of course Microsoft has had their thumb up their fucking ass and just like AI, we got to do AI. AI.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean every tech company, you know.

[Greg Miller]

I know, I know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But yeah, I'm yelling at them though. Yeah. You then come around to her statement where she mentions as monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop.

[Greg Miller]

Back to your point.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

She's saying the right thing, all the right things.

[Greg Miller]

It's.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I just don't know what to make of it.

[Mike]

But of course we're going to say all the right things on day one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Mike]

On the big email. Of course we're going to say all the right things.

[Greg Miller]

I mean again, my first job is simple. Understand what makes this work and protective. Well, but for a year, right, you've been planning to take over this job. You haven't understood it yet. You don't, you don't understand what we're doing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. So like I guess I'm trying to figure out maybe there's the, there's not the answer there yet. Maybe, maybe this is a wait and see thing of what to make of Asha Sharma being the pick to, to check over Xbox here.

[Greg Miller]

Xbox. You were always great about letting Phil Spencer come on the show. Let us get, let's get off the charm. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean it was just them looking and being like we gotta find somebody. Like all right, you're, you know, enough of what you're doing. Come over here and lead the charge. Or do you think this is something somebody they, they've had in the works for a while. Like I don't know what to make of this.

[Greg Miller]

Plus they've had a year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They've had a year.

[Mike]

You would make of it of like you got Matt Booty by your side. Right. So the whole thing too. You have Matt Booty here, chief content officer guide you and be there. It's probably the mentor role.

[Greg Miller]

Not knowing much. It kind of and I could be completely wrong but it kind of sounds a little bit like what we saw in the olden days of like cool, there's Shawn Layden and or like really old days. Jack Trenton and then the shoe leading worldwide. Yeah, maybe that's a little bit of what we're getting here. Right. She's, she's seeing all the properties. Booty's the one who's really chasing the content and what you're getting not that makes it good or bad.

[Paris Lily]

You're wrong, Greg.

[Greg Miller]

Wow, it's Paris Lily, everybody, round of applause. Paris Lily.

[Paris Lily]

I was waiting for you to queue to me. I go he's never going to do it.

[Greg Miller]

No, I was going to get to. It was all my to do. I was actually thinking maybe I would go to ads and bring it back which I might still remember. Everybody, this is breaking news and we couldn't cover it as well as we cover it if you didn't support us. Pick up your kind of Funny membership. Patreon.com Kinda Funny. YouTube.com kindafunnygames Apple, Spotify. Get all of our shows ad free. Get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller and a Greg way. And of course get good karma for supporting an 11 person 11 year old small business. I have a feeling we're gonna go really long today.

[Mike]

Let's have a great time.

[Greg Miller]

We have lots of super chats so go ahead, get more super chats in and enjoy these sponsors this episode is brought to you by boot.dev. ready to learn a new skill and become a software developer? Kevin is and that's why he's been using boot.dev to learn to code.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

My favorite feature is that you could find a solution that works but then afterwards you can hit solution and see

[Barrett]

the way that they were trying to

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

teach you to do it.

[Barrett]

That's really cool.

[Greg Miller]

Boot.dev takes you from beginner to expert the fun way through a hands on RPG like experience. Plus boot.dev just launched the training grounds. A place where you can grind infinite challenges to give you a as much practice as you need before you forge ahead in your own coursework. All content is free to read and watch. A paid membership unlocks interactive features like hands on coding, progress tracking and game mechanics. Bored learners quit. Smart learners never get bored. Learn to code by doing what you'll actually be doing at a job building real projects. Go to boot.dev and use code kinda funny to get 25 25% off your entire first year on the annual plan. That's boot.dev and use code kinda Funny to get 25% off this episode is brought to you by Shopify. You know what I hate trying to remember my payment info when I get to the checkout page on all the websites I visit. You know what makes that a breeze? That big beautiful purple pay button that has all my info stored. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world world and 10% of all E commerce in the United States. From household names like Chubby's and Mattel to brands just getting started. Get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. Get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. See less carts go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their shop pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com kinda funny go to shopify.com kinda funny and we are back. This is the most like newsroom fucking day where like I'm getting calls right before the show. Going over, Mike looked at his phone and left. 30 seconds left. Mike left. Who knows, probably pooping but instead, we got the one, the only Paris Lily. Paris, how are you surviving the news?

[Paris Lily]

I mean, it's. It's shocking, but it's not surprising. I mean, it's.

[Greg Miller]

It's definitely the way. It's definitely the way this is happening. Right. That's what's shocking.

[Paris Lily]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, I personally thought Phil would retire after 25. You know, the 25th anniversary, I was kind of thinking into the year. So for it to happen now and couple that with Sarah Bond just flat out resigning, and then the new CEO is not a gaming person, so to speak. Right. This is someone from the AI world. Yes. Matt Booty's coming in as Chief Content Officer, which obviously will help with that. It just feels like something really went down that will never get the. The full story, too.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, we'll get the full story.

[Paris Lily]

Yeah. Maybe if Phil does. Phil or Sarah does a book 10 years from now, we'll get the whole story. But, yeah, this is. This is a new era for Xbox in the sense of why I say was disagreeing with you. I don't feel this is a signal that they're bringing back any type of exclusivity. I just think. Yeah. To what Blessing was saying. Yeah, we're going to say all the right things right now. But clearly this did not seem like it was in the works for a year because it sounds like she's coming in and I don't want to say her name incorrectly. Is it. It's Asha. Asha.

[Greg Miller]

That's how we've been saying Asha Sharma.

[Paris Lily]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That she's coming in and trying to understand the business and the direction, obviously, with the focus of, hey, let's make great games, let's make sure we take care of our core audience, which I don't think Phil Spencer ever didn't want to do those things. So this pit, like, let me put it this way, Activision changed everything.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes.

[Paris Lily]

I think we can all agree with that. That completely changed it. Obviously, they got to be profitable. We know the industry is on fire. We saw what happened with PlayStation yesterday. Everything's chaos. I get it. But for Phil Spencer to retire right now just feels like, hey, did something happen internally to where he's like, man, I'm already close to the end anyways. Why am I continuing to fight these battles and trying to put out these fires? And I'm just going to hand it off to someone else and like I said, we'll find out the story one day. Sarah Bond clearly was not a part of those plans because she Would not have just abruptly resigned this way if she was.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And the part, the part that you mentioned, Paris, that I agree with and the part that's racking my brain, that I'm trying to wrap my brain around is the idea that Phil Spencer didn't want the things that Ash is talking about here. Right? Like the things that Greg's mentioning of calling out, yeah, you're recommitting to your audience. You're saying that you're going to, you know, commit to cloud PC and stuff, but like maybe not other consoles, or at least there's an absence of other consoles in that statement. The idea of even the implied, or like the softly implied, maybe this could be exclusives or whatever, I would have thought that that's. Those are all things that Phil Spencer would have wanted. And more so it would have been bigger. Microsoft being like, no, like, we bought Activision. We need to make more money, put your games in more places. Like that strikes me as the Microsoft decision to. Not as much of the Phil Spencer decision.

[Barrett]

And that feels more like a Microsoft at large business move. More so than Xbox has been doing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, if you asked Phil Spencer what his ideal Xbox would look like, I think he would have said, yeah, I want everything to be exclusive. Like, I want to be able to be like, hey, you have to buy this Xbox to play Starfield and Call of Duty and all these things. Like, I'm. I. This. This almost feels like a red herring. Not red herring, almost like a like switcheroo of osh. No, we the ones, we the ones that want the exclusivity. Like, we're the ones who want to recommit to you. We got, we got rid of the leadership that didn't want all those things, even though they did want all those things. I don't know if that's me just over reading.

[Mike]

Yeah, I wonder that because I would have gone the other way of thinking Phil probably would have been like, no, we like this vision. Right. Knowing that we're in third place, I want these games to shine everywhere. I don't want to be cutting developers left and right. So I want to make sure that we commit to putting these games anywhere the gamers are. Let's meet them. That was been the messaging for the past five plus years. Meet the gamers where they're at. And I wonder. I'm on the opposite side of. I think Microsoft looked at them and goes, this clearly isn't working. Console sales are tanking. We're done with this. And like, I thought Phil would have been like, no, no, this is, this is where we're at. And Phil's, in my mind, one of the people that we thought, you know, it's a CEO, but we always thought was a gamer at heart.

[Greg Miller]

That was why people liked him so much.

[Mike]

It's clearly seeing that, like gamers are resonating with this. They want the games anywhere they're at in 2026, gamers just want to get home, turn on whatever they own, and be able to be hit by the best games, whoever makes them. And that.

[Paris Lily]

I think that's what worries me the most.

[Mike]

Mike saw that go. That's where we want to be. And I think Microsoft said, no, that's not working.

[Paris Lily]

That's what worries me the most about this, Mike. For. For Xbox, that sure, we knew Phil Spencer was close to the end anyways. But the one thing about him, regardless of however you felt about any decision he's made, you knew he legitimately played games. You knew he understood what we liked and what we didn't like. And obviously business decisions he had to make, you know, being a CEO, but now someone's in charge that I don't know. And I think that's going to be their biggest challenge right now is. And Greg, you already said it. She's got to talk. We got to hear what her philosophy is going to be. We got to hear what the direction of Xbox is going to be. Clearly, Matt Booty is going to be a big part of that as well. But are they still going to make a console, you know, in 2027 or 2028? I don't know now. Right? I think you said it earlier, Greg, maybe let's just focus this. The PC, but the messaging is still saying console. I know Phil Spencer because I asked him a year ago about, all right, you did multi platform. Why am I buying your box? And he said it's going to do something innovative. Is that still the case? I guess we're going to find out. I. I mean, I don't know now, you know, with him leaving at this juncture, if he'd have left once the next generation started, that totally made sense. But I almost feel like the job wasn't 100% finished. One thousand and now. And he now he's not. Not there to see it through. What does that mean? Yes, they need to make great games, but going back to the exclusivity thing, that. That genie's out the bottle. You can't pull that back as, as a customer. Why would I trust buying an Xbox for exclusivity when you then told me it doesn't matter, but now it does again. I'm probably still just going to go buy a PlayStation in that regard. So I think the multiplatform thing is here to stay. I don't think that changes how they sell me on their box. How they sell.

[Greg Miller]

No, I'm sorry, you're going how they say no.

[Paris Lily]

No, I'm just saying that their boxer services and all that, you know, they really have to do a sales job now because a. A key again, it's Phil Spencer. Think about it.

[Greg Miller]

He.

[Paris Lily]

He has been the longest acting gaming CEO we've ever had and now he's gone. So you don't have that person there to instill any confidence in the product. So you got to sell me on it all over again.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And I don't think they know what that vision is and I think that's the problem with that. And I think it's because this was not planned. I don't think this was. I've been passed again back to me. This is the newsroom. We're getting phone calls. People are moving off. I've been past something that again, reiterates to me. I'm not going to read it but like reiterates of like, oh no, this was. This was not planned. No.

[Mike]

Yeah, 100%.

[Greg Miller]

People are still debating the options.

[Mike]

That's crazy.

[Greg Miller]

Chad, if you trust us, what I'm seeing, I'm saying this was not.

[Mike]

We are on the Xbox 25th anniversary. This was supposed to be a big blowout year. We've been talking about it since the start of the year before the year. Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Phil Spencer and Siri Bond have been the face of it.

[Mike]

They have been the two faces of it. And the plan we've. We already heard it on the outside of like Phil is getting up there in age. Phil will retire sooner than later. Sarah is clearly going to be the number two into the number one role. You are watching that live on your screen. You've heard the messaging. And then this year was supposed to be the hey, 20, 20, 25 years. We're going to have four major titles. Probably in a perfect world, like I've said before in Games Daily, we would have announced this. They would have announced the console this year. But with everything backing up, they're probably going to push off of that. But no way, Phil. This wouldn't be the way to let go. Let go of Phil.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Goodbye would have been during the summer game fest or after that with the Halo anniversary. Would have been celebration. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Let him go.

[Paris Lily]

I mean, I mean, think about it, Mike. It would be a thing of.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Let's go here.

[Paris Lily]

Phil Spencer retires. You announce it now that, hey, at the end of the year, I'm stepping down, and then everyone gets the rest of the year to kind of quote, unquote, celebrate the legacy of Phil Spencer as he exit from Xbox. Not, hey, it's Friday news dump.

[Mike]

Yeah, I'm out by 100%. Celebrate right now. I should be walking through with blessing Greg and yourself all the awesome highlights that Phil had throughout his career. Right? When you look back on all of the years that he spent here, he joined as an intern, it's like the guy has had an incredible career, has done so many things for the gaming audience. We should be celebrating that. But instead we're like, oh, shit. Like, that's clearly not what's happening here. That's not what's going down.

[Greg Miller]

Good Lord. Let's get into some super chats here. I think as we get into, you know, sorting through this in your feelings and your thoughts and everything else, Mr. Jimbo, 5895, compulsion, double fine, et cetera, are so cooked.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's what me and Mike were talking about a little bit during the break, right? Especially when you look into this email. We talk about the recommitment part, right? But even the part after that, the third part of the Asha Sharma email where she talks about the future of play, they're talking about reinvention, new business models, all these things, right? Whether or not it is you're staying the course or whether it is, we're trying to find a way to redo the exclusives, like, do all this shit no matter what. Going back to my point of listing all those games and going, these are not console sellers. If you're trying to make games that are console sellers, I think a lot of those studios are fucking dead. Oh, I think a lot of those studios are getting cut.

[Paris Lily]

I completely agree. Because think about it. A keeper. Wait, Someone looks at this just as a raw number keeper, doesn't make money. Why are we doing this?

[Greg Miller]

We were talking about the entire way, Microsoft on high, coming in here in Bean county and going through ledgers and. Yeah, kiln. What? Why? Why do we have this studio in San Francisco? The richest or the most expensive economy, you know what I mean? Why are we paying this much for office space and soma for the studio that's making art house games?

[Barrett]

And that's why you bring in an executive who doesn't have a history with video games in the industry, they have a history of being the head of multiple different businesses. Or they probably come in at a point in those businesses where they have to figure out what is being cut, shout out to, you know, they came in at Instacart, I think a little bit after a big. What is it? Lawsuit came through after Instacart was found out of, like, fucking over a lot of employees. And I think she came in right after that to figure out the business side of what the fuck is Instacart doing. Right. And so, and I only bring that up is this is like, you know, someone who experienced that as once a worker for Instacart and like all, like seeing all of that play out. I think it's interesting, like almost coming in as like a ringer or something. We don't want the business side.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We don't want somebody who has a passion for games. We want somebody who's going to make the raw business decisions and look at the numbers and go, all right, you're gone, you're gone, you're gone, you're here, you're here. Let's buy this. Let's keep going.

[Paris Lily]

Ask yourself this question. We, we know Phil, and honestly, Sarah Bond was with. With him, was making multiple trips to Japan over the past few years, talking directly to those Japanese studios, convincing them to either be on Game Pass or make it like Ninja Gaiden for, as an example, make a game for. For Xbox. Who's doing that now? Who's. Who's doing that work to convince them. Because Xbox for 25 years has struggled with Japanese games. Who's going to be the person now to continue that work? And when the person who was doing that work and was building those relationship just all of a sudden exits the company again. I think this lowers the confidence in that way.

[Greg Miller]

I think confidence was already so low in terms of the Xbox faithful in what you're doing, and now having this emergency, it feels like ejection, exit, entry. Like, I don't think they have any kind of plan spun up to present, to do the thing, to have the conversation. Because to your point, if this was amicable and we knew we were doing, and you had all the time in the world, a year to plan it. It's an announcement. It's going to happen. It's Phil on the Xbox podcast saying goodbye. It's Asha on the Xbox podcast saying hello. Them passing the baton, moving on, doing

[Mike]

this thing, we would have had a lot more going on here.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Paris Lily]

Cameron Entertainment goes back to again. Oh, I'm sorry. I just.

[Greg Miller]

No, please. This is what the show's all Paris. We're going to be here at 5 o' clock for it.

[Mike]

Let's.

[Paris Lily]

Yeah, I know, I know we're gonna talk forever. But that's the other thing about it. Of it was clear Sarah Bond was being put into a position to be the replacement for Phil Spencer. Right. Again. Those Japan trips you everywhere you would go to have conversation. It was her. Even just recently, she's the one that's on Good Morning America talking about the next gen strategy and the hardware.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Paris Lily]

And then all of a sudden both are just gone and someone who we've never heard of before is taking their place. That's where I say the disconnect is. And the lack of confidence that everything that we're saying, this was not planned. There's no way it could have been

[Greg Miller]

Cameron D Entertainment, if I can toss in with one. Or do you want, you want to keep going on there?

[Mike]

No, no, no.

[Greg Miller]

I stopped mid workout. Mid workout to tune in live. I grew up as an Xbox household with a massive backlog I've purchased over there over the years. I'll be going 100% PlayStation now. Mater writes. And it says at this point, Nintendo is going to announce Bluepoint is remaking Ocarina of Time tomorrow at like 3 in the morning. This news is so fast as everything continues to just run away. And then here Raka says, unfortunately we are a month away from fiscal year ending. Do you think we see more Xbox shutters or layoffs? Obviously, yes. But before the fiscal year ends,

[Mike]

I

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

think, I mean, quick turnaround.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

To make those kind of decisions.

[Greg Miller]

I mean that. But you're bringing this person in, right? And this new regime in to fix this shit.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And so again, I hope I'm wrong, but if it is that idea, it is coming in and being like compulsion gone, double fine, gone. And I don't want this to happen. I love these people, I love these games. But if we're talking about like let's balance the books and try to get it in the the black so that when we go there and talk about this and well, the booming growth of this and Call of Duty and this,

[Mike]

this, this, who's lined up to give me a game now and who's not, who's going to be.

[Greg Miller]

Sure, great point. Right?

[Mike]

Like that. That's truly how the room is going to be. I mean, who's lined up to give me a game that we can show in June to get the stock, the shareholders up and who has already given Me a game or is three years for you? Ninja Theory. When was your last game? Way too long.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was a conversation with Tango gameworks, wasn't it? Of like, hey, yeah, they just put a hi fi rush, and that's great. But also now they're very long away from putting out their next game, and so we got to make decisions. And so their cut is what I kept bringing up yesterday with Blue Point of the fact of they had to cancel their last thing, and now, like, they spent a year trying to figure out what their next thing is going to be, and that's probably going to take them a long time. So PlayStation looks at them and goes,

[Mike]

you're fucking seeing on the optics side, of course not. Right. That is too fast into your first time being the ce, the boss of this to be cutting teams and instilling confidence in the people who are going to buy your products. Right. The people who are out there going, I want game pass games. I want to commit to xbox. It would be tough in the first month to be like, I've now shuttered 1, 2, 3 studios. That'd be a crazy way to kick it off. Yeah. But of course, we just saw Blue Point. We've seen a thousand layoffs every single day. Did seems par for the course.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

I'm doing something and I.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

To answer that question more, I think part of it probably has to do with how has she been spending the last month and a half or however long it's been since Phil Spencer decided that I'm going to leave the company.

[Greg Miller]

Decided.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Decided, quote, unquote. Right. Like, I think there is probably a process of understanding what these studios are doing, taking visits or whatever. Right. And it is going to be a thing of like, yo, if. If Asha and Matt are coming into the studio, like, get your shit together, clean it up, make it look like the game's coming out tomorrow. Because I think that visit is going to be very much of like, yo, we're deciding things.

[Mike]

We're.

[Greg Miller]

We're justifying our role.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Sticking around. I can't believe. Did you say it was Blue Point really? Yesterday?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Blue Point was yesterday.

[Greg Miller]

That's fucking insane.

[Mike]

We're still sleeping on the Blue Point thing.

[Greg Miller]

I can't believe that I'm using this exact paragraph text again the next day. But when I took over kind of feudi, the number one game show because of me, I put out in my first survey a question, and I have two questions, and the audience said, they're kind of mean. I don't like them. And I was like, you know what? You're right. That's not the spirit of the show. Yesterday I did it of one of the questions was, what's the next PlayStation studio to close? And we went through them all and Blue Point was number seven on that list way down the line. Yeah. I asked for Xbox as well. The kind of funny audience voted. Number one, Double Fine. Number two, Rare. Number three, Ninja Theory. Number four, Undead Labs. Number five, Compulsion.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This is what I was going to say.

[Greg Miller]

Please.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because I was going through again the list of games. I'm like, you know, none of these are console sellers. All this stuff. Right. I feel like I can say that about maybe 90% of Xbox game studios when I'm thinking about, like when I think about this current generation of Xbox, I think Xbox is the king of six, seven, eight out of ten. Right. None of these games I look at as like, these are going to be the things to get you money. Like really it is Call of Duty and maybe a couple other things. Probably a gear.

[Mike]

Well, you have activism, maybe you have Blizzard now. So you have Overwatch. You have World of Warcraft. Right. You have Diablo. Those are all.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You have Bethesda with Elder Scrolls.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes.

[Mike]

You have Doom in that mix. You have now an Indiana Jones slash a Wolfenstein team. Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So, like, I think that's on the line. But I think even when you take those games they just mentioned Mike.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Now think about all the other teams

[Mike]

that are correct Blessing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That is a very small piece of the pie.

[Mike]

You are thinking very well with your CEO cap on right now. Like, that's exactly how they're going down the list. It's heartbreaking to have this conversation because. Yeah, I don't want to do that at all. I don't want to go down the hill.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But like, if you. If you put up an org chart of Xbox game studios right now, including Bethesda, including Activision or whatever, and gave me a dart, if I throw that dart on there, it's a studio that very likely can get cut. Like, if we're talking about what they're likely looking for out of these studios, like double, we keep mentioning Double Fine. Double fine is not the only Double Fine. Xbox has. Has a very big handful of double.

[Mike]

Course. Of course they do.

[Greg Miller]

I. This will be.

[Paris Lily]

If you ask me, there's only one. There's only two studios that probably aren't on the cutting board.

[Greg Miller]

Let me hear them.

[Paris Lily]

Playground. Playground games. And take your pick, Call of Duty studio.

[Greg Miller]

The rest, see if you know, Bethesda is also in there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But that's probably all.

[Mike]

All of Blizzard right now. I mean Diablo, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, they're all safe. And in there. Activision with Call of Duty, those teams are safe. Because if you're a business person, that is not getting off the hamster wheel.

[Paris Lily]

No, I'm looking. I'm looking at it from this way. I'm looking at it from this way to your point. You're probably correct. But I mean like who's been the most profitable and productive and productive over the past few years. Spin Playground and take your Call of Duty. Pick the rest. I mean we. We just talked about Obsidian. As much as we love Obsidian, Starfield didn't live up to expectations. Where's the next Fallout game you like? There's questions, but here's my every other studio.

[Greg Miller]

And you're not wrong. I think Bethesda is safe because it is. We have Fallout the IP as a show. We know how successful those games already are. We have Elder Scrolls in the pipeline. I do think that there's the. Maybe something like an Obsidian does have its independence ripped away and is. You are making another Fallout. Like again. It's what I've been worried about the entire time. The adults come into the room and like cool, playtime's fucking over. Stop making all these other weird things Outer worlds was a weird call. We do not make an avowed to make a fucking Fallout new Vegas, dude.

[Barrett]

We're going to do the Call of Duty model but for all of our

[Mike]

different come out, get on it.

[Greg Miller]

And what. What was it? Embracer. Right. Who was like we're going to exploit this ip. That is exactly. This is the test. This is the test for Sharma and the new Xbox regime is X Does double fine stick around. Does colorful compulsion stick around. Or is it they are all dropped and they come out and we're like, hey, we are Halo. We are Gears. We are Bethesda. We are Blizzard. Bam.

[Mike]

Or it's. You're making Banjo. Hey, you're. There's no more dancing around the

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

time.

[Mike]

Here's IP numbers. No more you get to pick which is what I'm getting at. It's our passion project. You make this now, Greg, let me

[Paris Lily]

ask you this question. Fantastic interview with Todd Howard the other day. I watched the whole thing.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you. Oh, he said I could call.

[Paris Lily]

No, but. But this makes me think just listening to what he said just the other day. How did he know this was coming? Maybe, maybe not.

[Greg Miller]

But what did he say?

[Paris Lily]

Everything. We're talking about how much. How much what's the word I'm looking for? How much decision making authority does he have for projects that Bethesda wants to continue to do? You know what I mean? Maybe he's being told, yeah, we're getting The Elder Scrolls 6 out and we're getting it out in two years. You don't get five years to do it. Yeah, you're making Fallout 5. Get another team to do it. We're not waiting. We need the popular IPs that you are, that you have out quicker so you don't get to take your time doing it. You get my point?

[Greg Miller]

So 100.

[Paris Lily]

I think all that stuff is on the table. Yeah.

[Mike]

If this was a different world where we had Phil and this is the rollout we're celebrating all of these teams and games that Phil helped cultivate, helped keep alive, helped doing that. Now we're in a whole nother world where it's like, oh, you're getting cut. Well, you better don't answer the phone tomorrow because they're going to. They're going to be calling you tomorrow. That's unfortunate.

[Greg Miller]

It you're not cross says. I think this is partially because Game Pass has been a failure after the Activision purchase. Game Pass is. Is to become a much worse service, imo. Yes. Oh, I'm not that I. Who knows if it'll be good or bad? It probably will. I don't know. I don't want to say that. Who knows it'll be good or bad. Yes, it's part of the Game Pass thing, but it's Captain Capacitor also Super chats. Microsoft stock has dropped 13 over the last month. This is a reaction to the House on Fire and trying to satisfy stakeholders by addressing in quotes a lower growth portion of Microsoft before fiscal year. Ding ding ding. Fucking dang. As we've been worried about this entire fucking time of yes, Microsoft's and all the fucking let's chase this goddamn AI bullshit is going to lead to everything else being pinched as they try to figure this out and try to find every goddamn penny in the couch.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And that's also why it's hard for me to believe the statement from Asha Sharma when she mentions I'm even impressed that they even call it AI slop. Which is kind of crazy, right? But you know, they saw it.

[Greg Miller]

Talk about that's saying the right things again.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But yeah, this is my third time probably quoting this. As monetization and AI evolve influence this future. We will not chase short term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop. I give you T minus 6 to 12 months before we start seeing more AI slop make their way into the organization of Xbox and how this shit runs. Because right now in the fuck, this is the, you know, suckiest thing right now about the tech world and how this feeds into video games is that you put AI on the thing and the shareholders are like, AI and they throw money at it and like that's

[Greg Miller]

the next big thing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I heard that's the next big thing and it's going to pop, right? But right now that is how things work and it sucks. Sorry.

[Barrett]

But to counteract that, right, like that super chat just said, going down 13 in the last month. Do they see that as a, you know, a slow lack of trust in the AI output or what the AI promise? Because Microsoft has been such a big push into trying to make AI work and now the shareholders are starting to feel like we're not seeing a return on this. We feel like this might be empty. And so there. And again, this is just a. To have this angle of conversation. Maybe there is a, you know, I hope so. Maybe we don't push this anymore. Maybe I don't trust Microsoft.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's the thing.

[Barrett]

And for me, for the last couple of years it has been Fuck Microsoft Day 1. They're still on that BDS list and they've been pushing software, software driven by AI for the last year and all of it sucks ass. And I don't trust them to take care of the people that they are in charge of, which is way too many people in this industry.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think even if the AI sector is part of the reason why you're seeing that dip, I don't think Microsoft will have the wherewithal to see that and go, damn, we got to slow down on the AI. I don't think that at all. I think they'll look at it and probably try to write it off to something else because they. Everybody in tech right now is telling you the more AI that you implement, the more the money is going to come in from shareholders. And that continues to be a thing. I hope it pops tomorrow. But we're in such a weird place with it where like this train keeps on going with the AI shit om

[Greg Miller]

gerber super chats and says, enjoy the 25th anniversary because this is the official start of the end of Xbox. This is clearly a satya Microsoft decision. Within five to 10 years, Xbox, quote unquote, will be stripped and rebranded as Microsoft Gaming, which is another option I'm sure is on the table of what does Xbox even mean anymore. A turns. A turn says, the news of this week makes you remember how many decisions in this industry are made by the suits in boardrooms rather than those who know gaming. A conversation again, we've had this week of art, commerce and who's actually got a hand on the wheel anymore and how fucked up all this shit is. Golden Cartridge super chats buying Activision accomplish nothing. Dab and Dragon says they gave Phil the option to retire as courtesy. I think that's pretty clear. Yes. Especially as we see Sarah Bond just. I'm out. Fuck this peace.

[Mike]

They couldn't make it work with Sarah. You know, that's like crazy ones. Like, we'll hear from Sarah one day.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But like, that's the craziest part of this.

[Mike]

They were like, phil's out and we clearly have not chosen you. Right. Like wild stuff there. After a year of what we just watched.

[Barrett]

Is that a not. Is that a not chosen you? Or as I showed this already earlier from Gita from after Aftermath. The only reason corporations ever put a woman of color in charge is if that person is going to have to publicly eat shit in a big way. Sarah Bond has clearly chosen not to be Microsoft's sin eater. And Asha Sharma has taken on that role. It could be a you're out as well. Or I think more realistically with her saying them, saying resigned. She chose to be like, fudge this. Whatever directive internally we are talking about, I'm out of here.

[Mike]

Exactly. Like, what was her reaction there of like, no, I won't follow this, or really, I can't do what this person's doing right now. Like, I've been here for a year.

[Greg Miller]

I've already got a hold of it initially. Aw. Super chats and says. This strikes me as Sarah found out today she wasn't getting the job she was promised and decided to bail. A real House of the Dragon situation. Yes. I think today Phil Spencer was told you're retiring and that went. They told her and then we're bringing. Yeah. And I think either it is you're not offered the job or just like, oh, the writing's on the wall that this is not the thing. Yeah. I mean, if.

[Paris Lily]

I think one of you said it already, if this was a planned thing, a happy thing, there's an Xbox podcast where they're all sitting down together at a table and they're talking about this. And that did not happen. So it's pretty clear this was not by design or by choice. And with that, I will make my exit because I do Have a job. So I still need to go do that as well. But this is. This has been a wild effing day. And I will see you all at gc.

[Greg Miller]

You sure will. Paris. Excited to have you up here. Oh. Austin says personally knowing Phil was at the helm was really the only saving grace for continuing to take part in the Xbox ecosystem now. I don't know, man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I think that's true for, like, if you're somebody who's part of the core Xbox audience. I could totally understand that for all the reasons we're talking about of him being somebody who presents. Who presents himself as. I love video games. I understand video games. I understand the audience, all this stuff. Right. I wonder how much of that is true for the general video game fan base. Like, how many people are actually aware of who Phil Spencer is and how

[Mike]

much I ride for Phil, as opposed to. This is just what me and my friends play. Yeah, we've always played on this since the 360 we've rode. This is right. You know,

[Greg Miller]

Rumble pack says it's amazing how every time Sony missteps, Xbox steps on a landmine immediately after.

[Mike]

Even harder. Yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm supposed to be mad at PlayStation still right now. What are we doing here, Xbox? Let me be mad.

[Barrett]

We can be mad at them all.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Bless. Yeah, but, like, let me. Let me sit in my seething rage about Blue Point for a little bit longer before. Now I'm in a different seething rage.

[Greg Miller]

Palpatine Super Chat says this is. This is crazy to say. Is Nintendo the only one doing things right right now?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, depends on your definition of doing things.

[Greg Miller]

The first Super Chat of this whole show came from Banderas Said, who said, I don't know what's worse. Blue Point closing, Xbox collapsing or old Pokemon games are $20. No one's doing it right. According to Bander Said. I don't know, man. It's been. I was reflecting on this a little bit driving home last night on the Blue Point news, right? The conversation again of PlayStation and what is their identity. Like, what are they doing? This kind of conversation, right? But I'm still listening and reading. I've been jumping around, but now I'm going front to back with Kez's book, right? Super Nintendo. And when you hear Nintendo executives talk about Nintendo, and even if you don't agree with it or whatever, it's so. And maybe it's all lip service, but I don't think so. Look at the track record. Refreshing. Of like. Yeah, it really is about. Is it Fun to play. Then we worry about the money thing. And so I know obviously come at me right now with this $20 Pokemon business or whatever but it is still a business and there is still a reason they're doing. Whether it be Pokemon home, whether it be playing together, whatever. It's this idea though of like in a jaded ass way you can't trust any corporation. But I'm listening to this and I'm like man, this is at least a little bit heartwarming on a horrible day yesterday which I forgot was yesterday and now a horrible day today of just like.

[Barrett]

And I and I think that's that story and probably more like it especially with a Nintendo is I think bred from not the mindset that these other companies have which is chasing a trend.

[Greg Miller]

Right?

[Barrett]

Yeah, it's more of a try to be the trend. Like Nintendo does a lot of, of crazy shitty things that is anti consumer and all that stuff. But I, I see them doing less of what everybody else is doing which balloons and then immediately deflates after we've ballooned too much.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I think that goes back to. I forget what the Gamescast episode was where I was, I think it was the Nintendo Hot Takes episode actually because it was posted the partner direct and I kind of like had a moment of deflation because I'm kind of, I, I, I was feeling, I was in my feelings a little bit about Nintendo and how I feel like I am in a weird place like I'm in a weird place about relationship with Nintendo because I've not been enjoying my Switch to as much yeah year or whatever. And I think it was Mario Tennis Fever this, these last couple of weeks that have really like brought me back out of it into the conversation that we're having as far as how different of a company Nintendo is than the two other console manufacturers. I think there is something there that like you know, obviously corporations, all that shit. You can only like a corporation so much. But there's something about, about Nintendo that warms my heart because of the nostalgia aspect and growing up with it and always associating them with like a level of hey, we're just here for play, we're here for play. We're here for games, we're here for like the bright colors and all this shit. Right. And like I, I know I don't necessarily have to worry about the Nintendo Live service initiative or Nintendo acquiring Activision

[Greg Miller]

Blizzard and if anything they're the ones you hear like take more chances, you know, do crazier things with your ip.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. I guess my biggest problem with Nintendo is that they're too weird. You know, it's like stop being stopping freaks over there. Just make the thing the way it should be made.

[Greg Miller]

Saul Herrera says Microsoft has spent $37.5 billion on AI and is yet to see a profit. They clearly don't care about throwing money into a bottomless pit. Pizza Bet. Bless Xbox pushes AI within six months.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Question.

[Greg Miller]

Or sooner.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean it depends on what you mean by pushing AI.

[Greg Miller]

Don't they already. Haven't they already talked about.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I mean there's copilot. There's. There are things already. I'm not going to take the bet because I don't think there's clear enough parameters.

[Greg Miller]

Clear. That's fair. That's fair.

[Mike]

That's a good bet.

[Barrett]

And someone in chat already points out that like Call of Duty already has AI generated art in it.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Barrett]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's doing emotionally right now.

[Greg Miller]

I'm bummed out. You know what I mean? Like, and it's like again, I'm not. It's such a weird thing because it's just a perplexing move. I hate. I think the. I'm bummed out and perplexed because as I think it was bear but it might have been blessed. But it's also all of us talking, right?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

So many people's lives are tied up in this. I'm not bummed out for Phil Spencer. I'm not bummed out for Sarah Bond. I mean I've had conversations with both of them and I hope they're okay. And it sucks and yada yada. But I'm not like, it's just more like how is it 2026 and the industry is this successful and makes this much money that we are now? Every, every Xbox owned studio, Microsoft owned studio right now is heading their hands like what the fuck's about to happen? Like they no longer. I mean imagine the amount of people who are buying houses, are pregnant, are getting married, have sick family. Were thinking they were going to retire. Just wanted to get this game. It's their first game of all time. They've worked on it. They're so stoked. And now is this ever going to see the light of day? Because we got to balance the budget here AI. We're spending a lot of AI but we're not making the money. That fucking sucks, man. That fucking sucks. And I know I'm talking to myself from four days ago saying it's going to get worse and it's going to be bad. It's eventually going to get better. But it sucks to be in the part where it's like holy fucking shit. And then to sit here and go, cool, is it going to be next month? That it is. Just line them all up, bam, bam, bam, bam. To try to get to that fiscal year moment. And if not, is it a slow bloodletting? And then for everybody at Xbox and Xbox who just found out about this, how many more resignations are you going to see? Because like again, you're the team who's been making the premium Xbox PC. You're the team who may. You worked with the folks on the. From Republic of Gamers on the ally, right? You look at all that now you're like, do you care about this anymore? And like, yeah, maybe we're still making consoles. Maybe if this isn't all just lip service and we're going that like everyone over there just had their entire world fucking flipped. And for, and again, for what? This is not a decision that has been gestating a year that you could have done this and had a six month turnover and had a handoff and had a message when you took over that isn't. I'm excited to learn what I'm doing. Like, I know, I know I'm boiling something down there that's. But it's just like, man, man, what an industry.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Mike, how are you feeling?

[Mike]

Yeah, I think Greg said it so, so well, right. My heart goes out to a lot of the team here as we will see what happens. And as an Xbox gamer and as a video game enthusiast, right. Like, I am super concerned. I'm disheartened. I just don't feel like this company, this group knows what's next, knows what they're doing. And it's like I said that back when we started to let go of exclusives, right? Of like, I don't know if I'm on this, right? Like I. The whole point was you make great games. You proved to me why I got to be spending my money here. And now you've said, well, we make games and we're going to put them everywhere. And it's like, all right, well that's a problem here and now, like with this. This was not how 25 years of Xbox was supposed to be celebrated. Now you have to prove a lot to me, right?

[Greg Miller]

How do you do that anymore?

[Mike]

I am someone.

[Greg Miller]

How do you do that?

[Mike]

This year you come out and prove it to me. I'll give you the grace, I'll give you the time. I am willing to sit here. And I have the time to say, you show me what your new vision is, but as of today, you are really going to have to earn me back. Right? Because I, I'm a person who's already moved into PC gaming. I'm a person that has all the consoles, thankfully, but at the same time, like, my Xbox gets the least amount of love out of anything because everything is on PC now. It's like, well, what are we going to do? We're going to put out a 7 out of 10 game and think, I'm going to go buy a console and I'm going to be a part of this? No, you have to make incredible games to make me really go, fuck yeah, I got to turn this shit. I got to be over there. And they haven't done that. They've struggled to do that. And it's been a sinking ship and I've been on it for a long time. And like, this is the moment where I don't know how in God's green earth you're going to be able to pick it back up and let this thing sail away. It's just going to go down.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Barrett]

And that's why I'm convinced that a lot of what has been said publicly is probably just lip service to, you know, hold on to investors and all of this stuff. Right. Or what have you, or try to have the, the, the graces of the, the audience as you, you first come in. But realistically, to resell and to gain back trust of the Xbox brand is going to have to be years and years of building that trust, which is going to take so much more money that in their eyes has already been wasted.

[Mike]

It.

[Barrett]

I see this as a moment where we're gonna see a, most likely a, A lot of cuts, a lot of, you know, slimming things down and keeping what is guaranteed to make money. And that is your rebrand of Xbox, quote, unquote. And, and yeah, and it. With how we're feeling now, it's like I'm, I'm, I'm angry always. But like, you know, Tim and I have been talking about this for years. Like, we've seen this coming for years. And it, it's frustrating and it makes us angry because, you know, yeah, I get a lot of comments throw my way. Oh, Barrett doesn't know what he's talking about. Barrett's stupid, all this stuff.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I'm a dumbass. A dumbass should not be able to predict this more correctly than business fucking owners. What are we talking about?

[Barrett]

So that's that that's how I feel. And still, it's still to this day, fuck Microsoft.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think for me it's like the thing of, I don't know if you had the thing where you go to a party and they're just bad vibes or like at first the party was great and then like somebody gets to a fight or like you hear people arguing or like something happens and it's like, man, I need somebody to pick me up.

[Mike]

The vibes have been off.

[Barrett]

Blast.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The vibes have been serious.

[Mike]

Called it the L cast for the ending of the X Cast run for a while.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But the vibes have been off.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But for me, it's not even just Xbox is just the industry. Yeah, right. Like this year and it's been before this year, obviously it's been years of bad vibes. But this year I think High Guard started me off on a very bad omen where like the High Guard situation I think just like tipped me emotionally as far as covering video games and covering the business of it. And like, I think part of it, and I'm not trying to carry water for High Guard or anything like that, trust me, but it's like the idea of how much like, you know, hate they got from the offset people even give it a chance. People before that game even came out were already like, yo, this game. So when you lead into that, into then like, I don't know, more bad vibes and then the Blue Point closing yesterday and then this happening now and then between all that, the RAM shortages and us being like, is the Steam machine even gonna come out this year? Ah, Steam decks are sold out. Like, damn, that kind of sucks. Oh, video game prices are gonna go up. I was talking about earlier this week, man, what's going to happen to PS plus prices if they're pushing the PlayStation 6 a few years and they're looking to monetize their audience more? What's going to happen with that? What's going to happen Nintendo Switch to prices are going to go up. Like there's so many bad things happening and like, you know, but between it all, I think we all just want to talk about video games. And I've been in the last couple of days, I've been having such a good time playing Me Genics and I've not had a chance to talk about how good Me Genics.

[Greg Miller]

Remember when the show was. Yeah, we could just talk about the games we're playing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And like Mugen, the, the rotation between Mew Genics and Mario Tennis Fever has filled Me with so much joy in the last week. And I think when we think about the video game industry, so much of it kind of like just taints the experience where I'm like, man, this thing that brings me pure joy. Video games, which have brought me pure joy my entire life, right from the moment I remember gaining memory, right? Like, coming into consciousness as I'm playing Wayne Gretzky's 3D hockey on the N64. You know, the thing that, like, brought me joy has brought me joy my entire life. I am in the midst of playing these two games I'm enjoying so much. And I. I put down the console, I put down the switch, I put down the Steam deck, and I look around and it's fire all around me. And I'm like, damn, dude. Like, I don't know. It bums me out majorly, of course, which is the smallest of things when it comes to the amount of people that may be losing their jobs and people might not be affording things and all this other shit. But, yeah, I think this Xbox thing. Xbox thing is like the cherry on top of just a shitty week for video games and a shitty month and a shitty year and a shitty decade so far. So my feelings, tough one. Bless Harley.

[Greg Miller]

Mizzy says I could see Double Fine being independent again by the end of the year. That's an interesting one.

[Barrett]

It's optimistic.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, that's always been. My theory is that even if Double Fine gets closed, I think Tim Schaefer immediately is like, all right, let's. Let's boot up our own business and rehire everybody, or at least the people that.

[Greg Miller]

It'd be nice to see them keep the name and be able to go. And we've seen that a few times now, not often, but a few times now where studios have been able to get out, keep their. Their name and IP and get going with, where's the one I wanted? I mean, you know, we could end whenever, but I mean, Mob Askew has this one. I hate. I hate this. But Game Pass is going to have to go. Do you think we have Game Pass in a year?

[Mike]

I thought Game Pass was the business model. I don't think so.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I have no. Yeah, I don't. I. I don't think we know enough to know anything right now. You know, this goes back to.

[Greg Miller]

They know enough.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Sharma know enough.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This goes back to the top where Greg was talking about the Sharma question quote, specifically the part where the recommitment to Xbox and them talking about essentially putting things Back into place is kind of the tone of it. I'm like, what does that mean? Because if you are really committing to that, it might mean getting rid of Game Pass. But I don't think you can do that. I mean, I. I think we're too far gone.

[Mike]

Right? But, yeah, everything is a streaming service now. It just feels like that is where we're at with entertainment, with life right now. Everything is a streaming service, so it's, like, hard to believe. It's like we're going to cut Game Pass.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

If you cut Game Pass, I think you.

[Mike]

Then you cut everything.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You cut everything. Right. Like, it's back to. All right now let's move back towards exclusivity. Yeah, but I think that's such a. That changes your revenue so much that I don't analytically, like, on the. On the financial analyst side. Can you do that? Can you go, we're making all this money now. We want to make not nearly as much of it so that we can try to sell the hardware that nobody wants to buy. I don't think you. I think that's asinine. Like, if I'm in the Microsoft boardroom, I'm going, no, we're not doing that. We already took the genie. We already. We already rubbed the bottle. The genie's out. Like, we can't put it back.

[Greg Miller]

What a day. What a week, What a year. Any closing thoughts?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We gotta have, like, a day on the calendar where we only talk about

[Greg Miller]

good things that will be inevitably the day something bad happens.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, we gotta have a KFG day where it's like, all right, this is our day of ignoring all the bad news. You know, if the video games industry shuts down, we'll talk about it tomorrow. Today we're just going to talk about how much we love Mugenics.

[Greg Miller]

You can have a Mugenics day.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Can I have a Mugenics day?

[Mike]

Yeah. We can talk about mutinics, you and I.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Thank you.

[Mike]

Yeah. Heads a little bit in a spin. We're going to talk about it throughout the week and throughout the month and throughout the year, which is the fun part about this job is, you know, we will continue to discuss this. We'll discuss it. We'll grow with it. We'll have different takes and opinions, and we'll also see if this team can prove us wrong or can prove exactly what we think is going to happen here. So today I'll leave the office going, man, that sucked.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Mike]

But then we're going to show up on Monday. We're going to do it again and we're going to see where it goes.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, that's the thing, right? Like again, I don't think this was planned and I think it's pretty obvious. And now you have a weekend of crisis PR to plan for. And next week get Matt Booty and her on the podcast of Xbox Official Podcast and talk about it and have something to say and whatever and like

[Mike]

our job just to or don't and

[Greg Miller]

then prove us all right that you're

[Mike]

there to fucking go through this with a fine tooth comb. But as Blessing says, right, it's like as a gamer, I'm going to go home and I'm going to, I'm going to forget about all of this because I'm going to be playing fun, good games. I'm just going to go and escape and play games right now. Almost forget about this. If I was just a normal game, if I was Mike in 2012, yeah, I would never know.

[Greg Miller]

You wouldn't even know because I would

[Mike]

just be playing whatever game that I love right now. I would not be this deep in the weeds. But I am. And so now I'm going to, I'm going to sit on it but look like Barrett thinking about it for the whole weekend. Like that.

[Barrett]

This is how I look every, every evening look like.

[Greg Miller]

Of course you're not like Mike 20 years ago. You know all this because you watch Kind of Funny each and every weekday. We begin the day with kind of funny games daily running you through the biggest stories in gaming, then doing gamescast with the biggest topic in gaming. They're the number one and number two daily video game podcasts in the world. After that we usually stream some games, maybe play a game show, maybe talk about movies. But no matter what, we got something you'd enjoy because we're all about live programming. So go ahead, like subscribe, share. YouTube.com kindafunnygamesames Twitch TV kindafunnygames podcast services around the globe. If you really like what we do, especially when we come back live and rant through all these goddamn news stories, please pick up a kinda funny membership. Patreon.com kinda funny YouTube.com kinda funny games, Apple, Spotify, you get all of our shows ad free. You get 10, no, 15 to 20 minutes with me in a series I call Greg Way, which is a daily podcast for my car. And of course get good karma for supporting an 11 person, 11 year old small business. For now, I believe our week's done. I don't think Nick and Joey are still streaming? I'm not sure. Is that.

[Mike]

Yeah, I think we're going to be done.

[Barrett]

No, we're cutting it out here.

[Greg Miller]

We're going to go lay down on the couch and stare at the ceiling and maybe play some games. Have a great weekend. We'll see you back here Monday. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.

[Mike]

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[Greg Miller]

Guaranteed.

[Mike]

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