PlayStation ABANDONS PC?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 03.04.26

Summary

Kinda Funny Games Daily: PlayStation ABANDONS PC?!

March 4, 2026 | Hosts: Greg Miller & Snowbike Mike

Episode Overview

This episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily is dominated by breaking news about PlayStation’s shift back to console exclusivity, abandoning its recent strategy of releasing first-party games on PC. Greg Miller and Snowbike Mike break down Jason Schreier’s Bloomberg report, discuss Ubisoft's official confirmation of an Assassin’s Creed Black Flag remake, and dissect drama around Crimson Desert’s review embargo. The show also touches on Bungie’s Marathon roadmap, potential international gaming shakeups, and a round-up of other gaming news.

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Main Theme: PlayStation’s Return to Console Exclusivity

(Discussion starts ~04:26)

Key News:

• Per Jason Schreier, Sony will no longer release its major PlayStation 5 exclusives on PC, reversing a six-year experiment with multiplatform releases.
• Ongoing: Multiplayer titles (e.g., Marathon, Marvel’s Souls Fighting) will still launch on additional platforms.
• PlayStation’s PC strategy cited as “muddled and confused” due to inconsistent port timing and requiring PSN accounts.
• Declining PC sales and concerns about diluting the PlayStation brand factored into the decision.
• External releases like Death Stranding 2 and Scars of Kasamura, published by PlayStation but not internally developed, still coming to PC.

Notable Quotes:

• Greg Miller, on the reasoning:
  “If these PlayStation games coming to PC were selling an additional four, five, six million… nobody gives a shit where you’re playing them. They’re lighting cigars [$]100 bills.” (09:25)
• Snowbike Mike, on exclusivity:
  “You want to get players over there, you say, hey, we’re only selling these games on PlayStation. Now’s the time to start taking even more player base away from Xbox.” (08:14)
• Greg Miller, on the PlayStation identity:
  “…it is so PlayStation silo corporate — we publish games that do this thing. I think that identity would help them a lot.” (12:25)

Discussion Points:

• Speculation that PC ports weren’t as profitable as hoped.
• Internal worries about the next Xbox’s rumored Windows-based, PC-game-compatible console.
• Suggestion that, with console market growth stalling, PlayStation is doubling down on monetizing its install base.

Business Impact:

• Possible price increases for PlayStation services or hardware due to increased RAM costs and loss of PC revenue.
  “Do you see PlayStation Online going up in pricing…the tiers going up like we saw with Game Pass?” (12:49)
• Questions regarding the future of Nixxes, PlayStation’s PC porting specialist studio, and broader implications for PlayStation’s studio acquisitions.
  “Nixxes is screwed, isn’t it?” — Kinda Funny audience superchat and ensuing segment (~15:17–18:53)

Secondary Stories and Key Insights

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1. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Remake Confirmed

(32:00–35:38)

• Ubisoft finally released concept art, confirming the much-leaked "Black Flag Resynced" remake is real and coming later this year.
• Hosts are skeptical about its commercial impact:
  “Are people going back to Assassin’s Creed Black Flag…Are sales going to be bonkers for this?” (32:44)
• Black Flag remains the best-selling game in the series, with 15 million copies as of 2025 (35:07).

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2. Crimson Desert Review Embargo Controversy

(Discussion ~38:52–46:29)

• Review codes only available for PC; embargo lifts 24 hours before launch, sparking concern this echoes Cyberpunk 2077’s troubled release.
• Pearl Abyss’s marketing assures “we’re not hiding anything…let us cook,” but skepticism persists.
• Greg:
  “You’re seeing the other side of the coin where we’re going to say nothing…[or] you can say you have it, but then this happens.” (43:11)
• Hosts note that “going gold” means less due to ongoing post-launch patches and that hype/sales for Crimson Desert seem secure.

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3. Bungie’s Marathon – Post-Launch Plans & Live-Service Landscape

(47:12–55:21)

• Season content will roll out roughly every three months with substantial gameplay and story updates, all free at launch to keep the player base unified.
• Marathon launches March 5, 2026.
• Mike:
  “Content is free for everybody, which means the player base is going to stick together. You don’t want to start segmenting the player base…” (49:18)
• Panel is cautiously optimistic but expects retention to decline after launch, hoping for at least a year of health.

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4. Tencent Gaming Stakes Under Review by US Government

(Discussion ~55:42–57:56)

• The Trump administration is reportedly debating whether Tencent can maintain its stakes in Epic, Riot (League of Legends), and Supercell.
• Skepticism that government regulation could be motivated by rivalry and profit rather than genuine security concern.
• Imran Khan (via Barrett):
  “They use Trump to force Tencent out. With added xenophobia, they pick up the pieces financially.”

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5. Quick Hits & “WE News” Lightning Round

(58:21–60:38)

• Mike Bithell announces Amber Spire, a city builder out May 6.
• Everhood Hunters (roguelike, 2027), resident Evil Requiem hits 5M sold, more Nintendo Classics coming March 10, and Unity lays off nearly 100 in its French office.

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• Snowbike Mike (regarding PC gaming for kids):
  “PCs on the lower end that you would be getting a child aren’t as expensive as you think… We’re not buying the child a 5070 here, like, we’re buying a very basic computer!” (25:39)
• Greg Miller on Ubisoft’s PR spin:
  “Stop trying to be fancy. If Youssef was still there, he would put a stop to this.” (32:00)
• On Nixxes and PlayStation leadership:
  “Right now, Herman [Hulst] loading the shotgun, taking Nixxes out back.” (17:07, Greg Miller, jokingly) “My one hope… is that they start pivoting to just being a support studio.” (18:23, Greg Miller)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:26] – Main Story: PlayStation pulls back from PC
• [15:17–18:53] – Deep Dive: Nixxes Studio future
• [32:00–35:38] – Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Remake segment
• [38:52–46:29] – Crimson Desert Review Embargo
• [47:12–55:21] – Bungie’s Marathon Season Roadmap
• [55:42–57:56] – Tencent stakes/US government scrutiny
• [58:21–60:38] – WE News Rapid Fire
• [60:58–66:03] – Extra banter: Platinums, PC advice, and technical tangents

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Tone and Style

• Laid-back, irreverent, and conversational, with the hosts frequently breaking the fourth wall, riffing on chat questions, industry personalities, and each other’s takes.
• Regularly cite personal experiences and history in gaming podcasting for context.
• Mixes serious analysis with banter, running jokes (“little Billy” building a PC, “memory leak/loss,” dragging Ubisoft’s PR, and jabs at industry executives).

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Summary Takeaways

• PlayStation is circling the wagons: Sidelining PC not out of pride, but business, hoping exclusivity and monetizing their install base offsets stagnant market growth and increased costs.
• Industry in flux: Studios like Nixxes face uncertain futures; players brace for higher prices and fewer multiplatform launches.
• Other news: Ubisoft finally admits Black Flag remake is real, Bungie promises dynamic Marathon content to fight live-service churn, and Crimson Desert’s review policies spark skepticism.
• Listeners are left with: A clearer sense of PlayStation’s strategy toggling back to old-school exclusivity, skepticism toward certain industry PR strategies, and a reminder of how tumultuous 2026 already is for gaming.

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In the words of Greg Miller:

“We wait with bated breath.” (53:04)

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For more details, catch the full episode, especially:

• [04:26–19:00] for PlayStation’s PC pivot breakdown
• [38:52–46:29] for Crimson Desert coverage
• [47:12–55:21] for the state of Marathon and the live-service shooter genre

Next up: Stick around for Andy & Blessing’s Resident Evil 9: Requiem review, and more Kinda Funny goodness the rest of the day.

Transcript

[Greg Miller]

Close your eyes.

[Mike]

Exhale. Feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contact contacts to realize the future America needs. We understand what's needed from us to

[Snowbike Mike]

face each threat head on.

[Mike]

We've earned our place in the fight for our nation's future. We are marines. We were made for this. Be like me and head to factor meals.com kindafunny50 off and use code kindafunny50OFF to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Eat like a pro this month with Factor.

[Snowbike Mike]

If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows go

[Mike]

to patreon patreon.com kindafunny today in the nerdy news you need to know about. Shrier's report is in. PlayStation is abandoning PC. Ubisoft finally confirms Assassin's Creed Black Flag resynced and Crimson Desert's review drama is giving shades of Cyberpunk 2077. We'll have all this and more because this is Kinda Funny Games Daily.

[Snowbike Mike]

Foreign

[Mike]

what's up everybody? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games daily for Wednesday, March 4, 2026. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside the master of hype, Snowbike Mike.

[Snowbike Mike]

Good morning, Greg. It is a lovely day. I get to see your smiling face. Everyone has returned to work. There's an energy now.

[Mike]

Oh, you said distaste.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'll just know. I looked back on Monday and it was like Mike and Greg Barrett out here just feeding, looking for anyone's energy. Now they're all back and I'm happy. I can see them.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's nice to see Bless out there showing off those biceps. Flexing.

[Snowbike Mike]

Flexing on us is right.

[Mike]

You got a big day with Bless.

[Snowbike Mike]

I got a huge day with bless. We get to talk Resident Evil 9 look back on their big marathon stream. Him and Andy. I want to know about some of the moments that really got him. You know what I mean? They played off so cool, you know, I'm not scared, I'm not screaming. What were the moments that got him? And then after that, me and Bless will return to the big table. To play magic the Gathering. A fun co op mode. Greg. They got a new one and it's a great way to get beginners back into it.

[Mike]

Are you using the turtles?

[Snowbike Mike]

Easy way to learn the turtles.

[Mike]

I love that.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's really cool. This one's really fun. We're going to do the turtle team up. So it's you versus like a deck of cards that are essentially a boss with X amount of health and then you play magic against it.

[Mike]

The one thing I know, your reviews obviously Andy and Bless reviewing Resident Evil, talking a bit about their stream, yada yada. In the moments I really haven't heard you officially weigh in. How did they do on ordering food?

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh thank you for asking me.

[Mike]

You're the expert.

[Snowbike Mike]

They did a terrible job, a poor job this whole weekend at ordering food. I don't think they took more than 10 minutes to order food. Awful.

[Mike]

I didn't see any big TV screens. I didn't see them looking at burger screens.

[Snowbike Mike]

They ordered food once they got pizza delivered without even telling anybody. Didn't ask me any about pizza. Yeah, didn't ask you about pizza. I was priority selfishly ordered pizza for themselves.

[Mike]

Wow.

[Snowbike Mike]

But yeah, they did a really terrible job at ordering food. Me and Roger will give them that review today during their one on one. We'll talk about that.

[Mike]

We're doing the. We're doing the weekly meeting. You should follow the feedback for that. They did a bad job ordering pizza.

[Snowbike Mike]

Not enough food was ordered.

[Mike]

Here is right everybody. We have a lot to get into so let me remind you if you want to be part of the show. Super chat YouTube.com/kind of funny games you can sound off on the day's news with your thoughts, opinions and more. Of course you can also be like our patreon producers on patreon.com kinda funny. Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney. The song twining who keep the lights and mics on for now though. Let's begin with what is and forever will be the Roper report. Time for some new six items on the Roper report because

[Snowbike Mike]

dozen.

[Mike]

We're not even using them at all anymore.

[Snowbike Mike]

No, I'm just.

[Greg Miller]

I just figured we wouldn't.

[Snowbike Mike]

They're resting today.

[Mike]

Yeah. This guy, he's. This guy.

[Greg Miller]

The left one is just not happy.

[Mike]

He's not been doing it. He's not been doing it. Number one, Sony pulls back from PlayStation games on PC. This is the one, the only the shry guy. Jason Schreier at Bloomberg. Sony no longer plans to Release its big PlayStation 5 games on PC a major shift in strategy that sees the video game maker returning to to console exclusivity for after six years of flirting with multi platform releases, according to people familiar with the company's plans. Online games such as Marathon and Marvel Souls Fighting will still be released across multiple platforms, but single player titles such as last year's Samurai hit Ghost of Yota and the upcoming action game Soros and Jason isn't putting here, but I'll say it starring Supergirls Rahul Kohli will remain exclusive to PlayStation 5, said people who asked not to be identified because they weren't authorized to talk publicly about the company's strategy. The people cautioned that things could change in the future due to the unpredictable nature of the video game industry and that Sony's plans are constantly shifting. Mike is the industry that unpredictable?

[Snowbike Mike]

That's how every story feels like at any moment I could take this all back.

[Mike]

I believe it was Asha Sharma who said the plan is the plan till it's not the plan. But in recent weeks, PlayStation scrapped plans to bring Ghost of Yotei and other internally developed games to PC. Two games made by external developers but published by PlayStation, Death Stranding 2 and the upcoming Scars of Kasamura will be planned for release on PC this year. A spokesperson for PlayStation declined to comment. There are likely a few reasons behind this shift. One is that several recent PlayStation games have not sold well on PC. A faction, I should say, within PlayStation has also expressed concern that releasing the games on PC risks damaging the console's brand, hurt sales of the PlayStation 5 and its successors, according to people familiar with Sony's inner workings. For decades, Sony's tactic of selling PlayStations was to keep tentpole franchises exclusive to its own consoles. In 2020, it pivoted and began bringing games to personal computers via Steam. Since then, the company has put most of its biggest franchises on PC, such as God of War and the Last of Us. But the strategy has been muddled and confused many players. Most PC releases arrived months or years after the games came to PlayStation. The cadence was never consistent and the announcements appeared to be haphazard. The company also upset PC players by asking them to create a PSN that's a PlayStation Network account, Greg to access many of the games. Now Sony is looking to take a more straightforward approach, going back to console exclusives. Another factor behind Sony's pivot may be Microsoft's next Xbox, which is rumored to use Windows and be capable of playing PC games. Some executives at PlayStation might not be thrilled at the prospect of one of the company's flagship games like God of War running on the next Xbox console.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Snow bike. Mike, what do you think?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, Greg, this is a fun conversation to have because we talked about this last week with the rumor of Jason Schreier possibly putting out this story and now here it is in full force it. If we could talk about it, right. Over the past six years, PlayStation has played with this. They flirted with the idea of putting out their games. I thought for sure we'd be getting more into the, hey, we've tested this. Now we want to get a little more solid with this. Whether they be day and date six months a year and just kind of have a little more locked in. We like this, we love selling more games. Let's do this right, because as we constantly hear in the video game market, game price are making, games are ballooning, costs are through the roof, right? There's not enough gamers. We got to get to where the gamers are at. Right? And so I thought a PC port, how much is that really getting put into dollar wise to make and then sell. How much are they selling? Right. And so I guess they're seeing the numbers. It's not enough to keep that going. Then on the flip side, we talk about console exclusivity, right? You have Xbox, who is absolutely down in the dumps right now. You, you want to get players over there, you say, hey, we're going to only sell these games on PlayStation. Now it's the time to start taking even more player base away from Xbox.

[Mike]

Yeah, for sure. Boot on the neck.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Mike]

How much do you buy that has anything really to do with the Xbox? Xbox being a hybrid just a little bit.

[Snowbike Mike]

Not like a huge amount, but just a little bit. Of course, I think the next Xbox sounds enticing when you say, hey, we could also put Steam games on this, right? That is something that PlayStation isn't doing. PlayStation is going to be just your normal Sony PlayStation box that will play the PlayStation games and third party games. When Xbox says, hey, we are going to open this up and make it more like a home PC that you can put in your living room, right. I think players start to perk their ears up and go, oh, okay, that's kind of interesting. Now I can get PC games on my Xbox inside the living room, like that's what I want. But was there going to be a huge shift in the market that PlayStation players would leave an abandoned PlayStation? Absolutely not.

[Mike]

Yeah, that's my take on it really is like to go from the, the bottom of the story back up to the top is like I understand as Jason, you know, alludes to from talking to people, maybe some executives don't like that idea. I think if in reality, if we were in reality these PlayStation games coming to PC, if they were selling an additional 4 million, 5 million 6, you know, nobody gives a shit where you're playing them. They're lighting cigars, $100 bills. I think this really comes down to what Jason leads with of like listen, they aren't doing gangbuster numbers over there. So why yeah are you putting in the work to get them over there and then why are you putting out something again even though Xbox is in such an interesting place. The flip flop, the reverse of it. When Xbox publishes on PlayStation the headlines on IGN are Circado release data in the top seven. Seven of the top ten games are made by Microsoft. Like that's huge. Whereas PlayStation is, hey, concurrents aren't that great and they didn't sell this many units and what are they doing? Why are they doing let alone bringing in the message of we are doubling down and figuring out how we are going to focus on the console player.

[Snowbike Mike]

Of course. And less excuses for any players to get lost on the PC market side of things. Right? I want more and more people to come back and stick with Sony. Right, of course. The more you launch on PC, the more Greg has an excuse of well, PlayStation games are coming to PC. What if I just stuck with that? Right? You got to make sure they're there. I think it is an interesting conversation of like we talk about the console market kind of stagnating and like not finding new players that we've heard Sarah Bond and Xbox talk about because it is dominated by PlayStation. But at the same time, if that market is just kind of getting stuck in plateauing, why aren't you going and chasing.

[Mike]

Because that's not where money is. This morning this news broke and the one, the only Matt Piscatella, the numbers man from Circana. Quote, blue sky or bs. I'm sorry, that's a blue sky. Tim himself and said going back to CFO Lynn Tao's comments during Sony's February 5th earning call, quote our hardware sales strategy can be adjusted flexibly and we intend to minimize the impact of the increased memory costs on this segment going forward by prioritizing monetization of the install base. End quote. And Matt said back then 27 days ago, very interesting. Going to try to goose the ARPU even more. But how is the question. Here's your answer. Yeah, times are tough right now. This RAM thing sucks. We don't need to be worrying. Let's get. Let's all of the agents that are out in the world bring them home. Let's protect the home front of the PlayStation console of the PlayStation fan base which I do think they have over this generation really shed what PlayStation fans what it meant to be a PlayStation fan like PlayStation 4 was such a PlayStation 3 into PlayStation 4 Prime podcast beyond years. So of course I am biased on it. But PSX what it meant Adam Boys, Jack Trenton, Shuhei Yoshida Herman like it felt like PlayStation had this identity that you glommed on to in a way of like yeah, I rock with this thing.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, of course.

[Mike]

And now it is so PlayStation silo corporate we publish games that do this thing. I think that identity would help them a lot. And currently what you're trying to do of batting down the hatches and monitors, monetize the install base. But one of the way they're doing that obviously will be to make sure that they are selling as much on their PlayStation 5 as they can.

[Snowbike Mike]

Of course.

[Mike]

Especially as this memory leak continues.

[Snowbike Mike]

Me and Bless talked about that. Do you expect prices to go up in the PlayStation world then? Right. We talked about them trying to monetize more of the player base to offset the price of RAM going through the roof. Now we talk about PlayStation exclusive only here. So you are now cutting off an extra revenue source here. Do you see yourself with PlayStation Online going up in pricing and those tiers going up like we saw with Game Pass?

[Mike]

Well, it went up not too long ago, right. In the grand scheme of things, I mean, I think all options are on the table. I think raising the price of the PlayStation 5 is probably more likely in terms of getting in that way and trying to do that. And again, that's punishing people coming in. Monetizing who you already have is a different conversation. But in terms of how you're doubling down and what you're doing, what are you having people make? You know, I mean we're coming off of this God of war. That wasn't a full fledged God of war, but it was somebody experimenting with the ip and while, yeah, I would say a lukewarm reaction to it, I still think PlayStation has more juice there of taking their established IP and working with the second part of Studio to make something for them.

[Snowbike Mike]

Of course. Do we see them chase more live, live service games? We see. No, slow that down. No, we still put out multiplayer games. There's only so many that they have lined Up, Right? But do we see an influx?

[Mike]

You are at PlayStation right now.

[Snowbike Mike]

Drop the negative word. Live service games.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Do we see them make more multiplayer games?

[Mike]

I say no. If you're at PlayStation right now and that like we talk all the time about trend chasing and what you're doing. If you are here ready to misread the tea leaves again and say things are going bad here, we need to keep people on the PlayStation ecosystem. I know what we'll do five years from now. We'll have a dope multiplayer game. Absolutely the fuck not. You know what you do right now, Mike? You want to monetize the player base.

[Snowbike Mike]

You make Horizon 4, Last of Us 3, you make Uncharted 5.

[Greg Miller]

You remake the God of War trilogy.

[Mike]

But I mean right now, guys, I don't mean, you know what you do? You get on the phone to Fortnite, to Minecraft, to all these places and you say, what exclusive value can we bring to a PlayStation audience? What is the pack? What is the thing? What is the star?

[Snowbike Mike]

What can I do? What can I do?

[Mike]

Rockstar like and I. That would be the dream. Obviously they're all holding their breath as Legita gets here because they know what they'll do for that. But you go out there and you make fucking deals with people to make them understand. Hey, you should be. We are the best place to give

[Snowbike Mike]

me that timed exclusivity. Give me that special content pack. Let's make sure people know that they got to be over here.

[Mike]

That's the way you got to go and do it now. The big elephant in the room. If you are a kind of funny fan, if you are a longtime podcast Beyond P.S. i love you, Greg Miller person. What does this mean for everything? And kebabs asked the question. Nixes is screwed, isn't it? Acquired in 2021, Oddly says. Do you think Nixes will be shut down next? Let's jump into this. Of course. Well, I'm sorry. BG25800 Super Chats. Where does this leave Nixes as a studio? You might not know what the fuck we're talking about, everybody. And that's understandable. Who's Galactus? We go to the one, the only Joe Scribbles when he still worked at. This is dated July 28, 2021. PlayStation acquires Nixes, a PC porting specialist.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, see ya.

[Mike]

As expected, there's this thing PlayStation has acquired. Nixes, a Dutch studio that specializes in porting games to PC. Announced by head of PlayStation Studios Herman Hulse Nixes has been brought on for an undisclosed fee. The studio will provide high quality in house technical development capabilities for PlayStation Studios, according to a press release. Nixes has worked extensively with Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and IO Interactive since forming in 1999, porting the recent Tomb Raider trilogy and two of the most recent Deus Ex titles games to PC. While no specifics have been given about the work for PlayStation, it feels likely that the studio will support Sony's increased focus on porting its console exclusives to PC. There was an update here because I guess this was like rumored or whatever. As expected, it was acquired to help. Oh, sorry. As expected, Nixes was acquired to help Sony create PC ports. In an interview with Fubitsu, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said via Google Translate, quote, we are happy with our efforts to provide our IP to PCs, although it is still in its infancy and we look forward to working with Nixes to help with that. Right now. Herman Hulse loading the shotgun, taking Nixes out back.

[Greg Miller]

How many would this be with all the studios that they've acquired in the last six years?

[Mike]

Yeah, I was going to say that chart was.

[Greg Miller]

We just talked about.

[Mike]

Yeah, that's true. Whenever they close Blue point, go, you go look at the blue point, run a show. Because we put it in there, I think, didn't we? I don't know. It doesn't matter for right now. But now, of course, what do you see when you die? You dive back in there. There he is, Jim Ryan.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, of course.

[Mike]

You know what I mean?

[Snowbike Mike]

We are riding the ship after what Jim Ryan took us on. The course that he took us on. We got a course, correct on this.

[Mike]

I was talking to somebody the other day and they were. I was. Everybody will remain nameless in this story, but they were talking about how every time PlayStation shoots itself in the foot, Microsoft shoots itself in the head. So it's like blue point. Oh my God, you fuckers. Phil, Sarah, this AI shit. What the fuck? Now we got this. Let's see what PlayStation does in X's to then see what else Microsoft can fucking do right afterwards to steal a spotlight. But again, for as much as you want to sit here about Xbox and go into Phil or Sarah, Xbox everywhere. Every time we trace one of these, oh, this is bad news. There's Jim Ryan. You don't see Jackie T out there. You don't see Jack Trenton's decisions ending badly.

[Greg Miller]

My, my one hope, as we see here, they're doing additional work on Soros, which is coming out next month. So I would hope my. I think the best case scenario here is that they start pivoting to just being a support studio.

[Mike]

And that would be the thing about it. Where Nix is from, what we see and hear occasionally is an incredibly talented studio. So to have been working this long on PlayStation architecture, I could easily see you are hanging out and you are just a support studio helping people get across that finish line.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Mike]

But I would not be stoked if I was over at Nixon's right now hearing all this information. Mike. Yeah, Greg Lucid Dream super chats and says, is it time to cut Herman Holst loose? Really? That's the. That's the question they're asking. I didn't ask him.

[Snowbike Mike]

No, I don't believe so. I think he's trying to write the ship that we just talked about with Jim Ryan and a big course correct is going to take some time. I think you got to give him a little more time and grace here on this one.

[Mike]

I agree with that. You know, Herman, I've known personally through this job the entire way, right from coming on and talking to him about Kill Zone and incredibly smart dude who does love games and does, I think, to me at least speak to what that old PlayStation identity was. I do think that it's always hard, especially with a PlayStation in 2026 that is so closed off and quiet and doesn't talk. Right. Even with a Herman, they don't have a fill. They don't have him making the rounds and going on our podcast and the giant bomb couch and. Yeah, and granted saying stuff, you go back and why don't they. Because every time Phil said something, he'd eventually go back on it six months and ever do get mad. It's like, well, that's business, right? I do feel that, like Herman was dealt a bad hand here as he is picking up the pieces of a bunch of decisions from Jim ryan and that PlayStation that was. Let's chase the trend. Let's be the next Fortnite. Let's make that happen. Now, that doesn't help you right now as you're closing studios and getting rid of this and doing all that stuff. And even in these articles we have Herman in there saying it's a good thing, but it's not like he's had 100% control. And even now it doesn't have 100% control throughout this. So it's like I find it hard to blame him for this. I just feel like I wish there was someone at the head who was grabbing the wheel and being a Little more Phil Spencer Y about it, but this is not what PlayStation's identity is.

[Snowbike Mike]

No, not at all.

[Mike]

Let me see a couple other slow chats in here for you. Okay? Don't get mad. Matt Sanders says PlayStation is getting back to more Japanese sensibilities. I mean, I think that's a broad brush. We'll see. I mean, I would like that. I would like that to be the point. These pitches love Sosa. Oh, like Sammy Sosa. Oh, pitches like bitches. I see what it was. I see where we're going with it. Returnal is an all time favorite and I'm considering holding off on sorrows till PC. And Returnal was $70 on PlayStation 5 and $6 on PC. Maybe Sony sees red flags. Maybe they say so that that is still coming. I thought they just. Jason said it wasn't. Yeah, and the upcoming action of Stars will remain exclusive to PS5. So unless I'm misreading what you're trying to say here, you ain't holding off

[Snowbike Mike]

till P. I wouldn't be holding your breath on that.

[Mike]

I would say, Sammy Sosa, it's time to go over there and just fucking buy it on PlayStation 5. Do you also think that I saw this on BS? That's a blue sky, Tim. From other people in the press of Just like this is Places I forget. God, I wish I had it pulled up. I'm sorry, I want to.

[Greg Miller]

Maybe it was.

[Mike]

I'm not gonna name names because I can't remember, but it was. Somebody was like, this is PlayStation saying they hate money. You are never going to get the PC fan to go buy a PlayStation 5.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So why not just take the moderate returns here?

[Snowbike Mike]

That's what. When I woke up this morning and read that, my thought was, oh, I thought we were over the six years learning about the PC market, trying to get in on that and seeing that players wanted your games, right? But maybe they didn't want to wait a year and a half, right? What would. What could you do to better satiate that audience? Because. And also, you gotta mind you, one of the games they released out on that, right, the banger was gonna be Spider Man. They wanted Spider Man. We knew that, right? Then you get into the conversations of like, well, what didn't do well, right? It's probably God of Wars are in the middle there. They're not Spider man level of hype, but they're in the middle. I think. I think probably Horizon, that was too late, came out there and it's like, that's probably on the lower Tier of it all. So it just kind of depends on, like, what are the game lineup. You're telling me Wolverine wouldn't go crazy on PC day and date? Yeah, day and eight. Or in the first six months.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Like, I think they just didn't test those kind of things because they didn't want to start flirting with the conversation

[Mike]

because you're half and half out.

[Snowbike Mike]

Exactly. Once you go too far, then they're going to start expecting it and then they're. They're going to get mad at you. But at the same time, it's like I do need to really test the market and see would they go crazy for a Wolverine, which we all know they would.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

This came out on PC day and date. That would sell very well.

[Mike]

Yeah, but they want you to buy that box or they want that box. Simple Jack says PlayStation is PlayStation. Saying they are moving away from PC, leaving $2 billion on the table, and also stating they want to monetize their users more means they expect customers to make up the gap. Count me out on that, Herman.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's what me and Bless talked about. And I still, I worry a little bit about that because I do think they're going to try to raise prices. How crazy will that be? We don't know. But yeah, you are. You're cutting off a revenue source and you got to find that revenue somewhere else and saying, hey, all these games are going to be exclusive PlayStation. I think the thought process is, hey, Xbox is in the absolute gutter. These people will leave Xbox on this next generation. They're going to come here when we say nothing. You can't find any of these games anywhere but here. And that is exactly right. We saw that with PlayStation 4 into 5. Now, Xbox One was the time when everybody left. It's like, this will happen again. This will be the next one of like, we're leaving Xbox for sure this next generation and we're going to PlayStation. You're going to see a lot of that.

[Mike]

How I think, you know. Yes, you're not wrong there. How many people do you think are going to make the jump to PC? That's always the real conversation here. Right? And what I continue to hear from the kids, the parents of kids, right, Is that all the kids are watching their favorite streamers play on PC and they're wanting PCs. And I know even Poe's son wanted a PC.

[Snowbike Mike]

The kids want PCs 100%. Right. We're talking about an iPad and iPhone generation now that is growing up with like the tablets and the phones being Anywhere now they're seeing people that they watch and admire. They want to be on the PC market of things. I think the Steam machine is, if that was anywhere closer or more affordable, yeah that would be the alternative there. And I think PlayStation is probably talking about that internally as well of going if this, this thing could absolutely explode in our face here. We can't let that happen. Let's make sure all of our games are here because yeah, we're battling for living room space, right. We know what the PC looks like at the desktop at the big desk and all the computers like no, we're trying to be on the couch and be that other one right there but at an affordable price.

[Mike]

Sort by first name says PC gaming is a choice not easy or cheap. Ye I don't think this makes PC gamers get into the PlayStation ecosystem just gives them no reason to become to become fans of their franchises. There's enough to play, there's enough to play.

[Snowbike Mike]

Steam has plenty of games for you to go get lost in it.

[Mike]

There's always a sale, there's always a sale, there's always some Steam sale going on.

[Snowbike Mike]

And it's like people talk about PCs being very expensive. PCs on the lower end that you would be getting a child aren't as expensive as you think, right? You're not going to get them the Andy Cortez 1200 to $3000 PC right? You are going into the best Buys finding that seven, that five or seven hundred dollar Costco PC like we talked Fortnite and does it run Roblox way too much about like oh man, PCs are super expensive. Walk into your local Costco and Best Buy. We're not buying the child of 5070 here like we're buying a very basic computer.

[Mike]

Costco does sell ones with really nice memory cards in there or you know, RTX cards. I love Costco. I digress Mike. I love Costco. I love video games. Yeah, I love talking about video games, love video. I love kind of funny. I love our audience and if you love us audience you should pick up your kind offunny membership. Patreon.com kinda funny YouTube.com kinda funny games Apple or Spotify. You can pick up the membership get everything we do that's more than 80 episodes a month ad free. Get your daily dose of me Greg Miller in a series we call Greg Way and of course get good karma for supporting an 11 person 11 year old small business. But right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsor. This episode's brought to you by Factor. My go to shortcut for great food fast cold days, big goals and no time to cook. Factor makes healthy eating easy with fully prepared meals designed by dietitians and crafted by chefs. So eat well with without the planning or cooking. I love Factory because I get to pick from 100 rotating meals, get them delivered to the studio, and then have a meal ready to eat in those precious few minutes I get between shows. Factor uses quality, functional ingredients including lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole food ingredients and healthy fats. Always fresh, never frozen. Ready in about two minutes. No prep, no stress. What's not to love? Be like me. Head to factor meals.com kindafunny 50 off and use code kinda funny 50 off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Eat like a pro this month with Factor New subscribers only varies by plan. One free breakfast item per box for one year while subscription is active.

[Snowbike Mike]

Monster Energy Everybody knows White Monster Zero Ultra. That's the og it kicked off this whole zero sugar energy drink thing, but Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise and Vice Guava and they all bring the Monster Energy punch. So if you've been living in the white can branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe and every single one is Zero Sugar. Tap the banner to learn more. This episode is brought to you by White Claw Surge. Nice choice hitting up this podcast. No surprises. You're all about diving into tastes everyone in the room can enjoy. Just like White Claw Surge. It's for celebrating those moments when connections have been made and the night's just begun. With bold flavors and 8% alcohol by volume. Unleash the night. Unleash White Claw Surge. Please drink responsibly.

[Mike]

Hard Seltzer with flavors.

[Snowbike Mike]

8% alcohol by volume. White Claw Seltzer works, Chicago, Illinois. Your little one grew three inches overnight.

[Mike]

Adorable. Also expensive.

[Snowbike Mike]

Sell their pint sized pieces on Depop

[Mike]

and list them in minutes with no

[Greg Miller]

selling fees because somewhere a dad refuses

[Mike]

to pay full price for the clothes his kids will outgrow tomorrow and he's

[Snowbike Mike]

ready to buy your son's entire wardrobe right now.

[Mike]

Consider your future growth Bird budget secured. Start selling on Depop where taste recognizes taste. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details. And we're back. We go with breaking assets to Costco.com gaming computers.HTML There you go. Look at this Mike. All right, you're telling little Billy doesn't want to get that $2,300 unit with a 50, a 5080 in there.

[Snowbike Mike]

Little Billy is playing Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft. I can promise you they're not buying them that.

[Mike]

I mean, the mom and dad, they don't know what they're getting.

[Snowbike Mike]

I saw some writing. It's like the normies are only searching the Internet. It's like. You do know Roblox can run on like a brick, right?

[Mike]

Yeah, look, a straight grand, you get an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 is why not. Little Billy, don't you want to go play PC games with your friends?

[Snowbike Mike]

So, yeah, I mean, I think the PC market will be fine.

[Mike]

Sony doing this, this memory leak shit, who knows?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, well, yeah, that's a whole different memory loss. Yeah.

[Mike]

Thank you. I knew I was saying wrong.

[Snowbike Mike]

PlayStation. Doing this is a very interesting move. I think it's, it's the right move for them and the console space. It's just an interesting one going into 2026. But with the memory loss that we're having, the memory loss, I mean, it's the right move.

[Mike]

All right, we move on to story number two. Ubisoft finally confirms Assassin's Creed Black Flag resynced, the remake we all knew was coming. We go to IGN with Tom Phillips reporting. Ubisoft has just released the first piece of concept art for Assassin's Creed Black Flag resynced, finally confirming its long awaited remake that has been rumored for years. The company included the image in a blog post that offers more detail on the blockbuster franchise's future, including word that post launch support for Assassin's Creed Shadows was being wound down. Ubisoft's focus is now firmly on the future, though the series. Next all new entry, Assassin's Creed, codename Hex. Sounds like it's still some ways off. In the meantime then, Ubisoft has at last begun acknowledging its upcoming Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake, which is expected to arrive at some point later this year. Quote, speculation around Assassin's Creed is not new, but it's worth repeating. Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. Ubisoft wrote. Well, except in this case. Some whispers have been a little more wind in their sails. Some whispers have a little more wind in their sails. Keep your spyglass on the horizon. Parrot emoji. I got more angry as I read that.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, of course.

[Mike]

Fucking speak fucking plainly. We're doing the fucking thing and say it's coming out of this. Why are you dropping a parrot fucking emoji?

[Snowbike Mike]

Look through the spy parents hang out with pirates.

[Mike]

I'm aware No, I know. I understand the references.

[Greg Miller]

Keep your eye on the horizon.

[Mike]

Stop trying to be fancy. If Youssef was still there, he would put a stop to this.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. Ubisoft, just so lost. Like, what world are we living in? Just say it. Let's get this out there. We've had art books. We know this is happening. Just get it out there. Let's start. Maybe instead of this, the teasing stuff, let's start drumming up some excitement.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Because you got a lot of losses. Is this. Are we really banking on Assassin's Creed Black Flag to try to fix the ship? It's not going to sink the ship. Like, are people going back to Assassin's Creed Black Flag that they are expecting

[Mike]

people to jump in and buy this? Because people love Black Flag. I love Black Flag. I don't know if I'll play a lot of Black Flag resync, but, like, it's cool. But no, Ubisoft is clearly putting all their chips on this because it's all they got.

[Greg Miller]

All they got.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's all they got. And I don't think many people. You say a lot of people love it and I. I love it and I get that. Right. But in 2026, are we dropping everything that we're doing to go to this?

[Mike]

If they would have done that fucking whatever they were. Oh, that was Prince of Persia when I was out there.

[Snowbike Mike]

Are sales going to be bonkers for this? What's really going to look like.

[Mike]

Good.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Solid.

[Snowbike Mike]

Not meeting our expectations. Good.

[Mike]

Probably. Yeah, probably. When you like. This has got to save the entire fucking company until somebody else buys them or whatever Weird splintering thing they're doing. Whatever. Yeah. I'm annoyed by Ubisoft in general. Not even just them putting fucking parrots and trying to get wax poetic in there. Well, except in this case, some whispers.

[Snowbike Mike]

So they're just holding off until in

[Mike]

their sales summer to announce on the horizon.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, that's the, like, confusing thing here is, like, how they finally acknowledge this, which is, I think, a really weird first step for this as well, because.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

When do we get an actual first look at this game that isn't concept art for a remake of a game that just looks like concept art for the original game, you know, and then.

[Snowbike Mike]

Exactly. So we're waiting until summer to announce this and then we're going to get into the fall and get mixed up with Grand Theft Auto 6, the biggest entity on planet Earth. Is that the plan here from Ubisoft?

[Greg Miller]

I don't know if they're going to get close to GTA 6, but I could see it being Keely's thing is early June.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

See, announced for June coming out. August something.

[Mike]

I mean I feel there were rumors that this game, you announce it, just release it. Right. Are we gonna do a whole preview cycle and everything else?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, there was a whole like, you know, I think the original plan was at least through rumors is that this was supposed to come out like a month ago or something like that. Like they're trying to get this out before the fiscal year ends. And so yeah, it could just be a shadow drop or something like that. Wherever they finally show it off properly.

[Mike]

Ay. You know, Ubisoft, Assassin's Creed. What is left to say? How is this, you know, just fucking show the game.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Why are we doing concept art for a remake?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, the art books out there. Somebody's got their hands on the art book already as well. We already know that they got the art book.

[Greg Miller]

Black Flag is the best selling game in the Assassin's Creed franchise with 15 million copies sold as of 2025.

[Mike]

There you go. Eat that.

[Snowbike Mike]

So yeah, that was back in 2008 when it was hot.

[Greg Miller]

Well, it was 2013, but it was also for it to still be the best selling one even with Valhalla and Shadow selling very well. You know, I. I get the apprehension. But there is still a fervor for Assassin's Creed, especially for a fan favorite like Black Flag.

[Mike]

Story number three Dive into more news. Crimson Desert Marketing Director responds to review drama Quote we're not hiding anything. End quote. This is Ethan Gotcha over Kotaku. Crimson Desert has been on a slow rolling takeover of online gamer hype. Months of new footage and features trickling out. Yeah. Capped off by a recent glowing pre release assessment by Digital Foundry has players excited, but also worried that the hyper polished looking sprawling open world adventure game from a studio known for MMOs might be too good to be true. Underlying that concern is the recent news that the review embargo for Crimson desert is only 24 hours before launch and outlets have received the code. I'm sorry. And outlets that have received code have been told they can only get a code for the PC version. Is this another Cyberpunk 2077 situation? QUOTE we're not hiding anything. And I'm sick of having to repeat myself. Pearl Abyss marketing director Will Powers wrote on X last night. Quote I've repeated hundreds of times that we'll reveal things ahead of launch to give people adequate time to still pre order the game for themselves. We're saying this Openly. Let us cook. Please and thank you. Rant. So. End rant. End quote. Some are taking it as a sign that Pearl Abyss will release additional deep dives on Crimson Desert's console performance prior to release. Maybe another Digital Foundry audit. But others are writing it off as quote unquote bullshit PR spin. End quote. It's unclear what the holdup on console review codes might be. Games need to pass. I'm sorry? Games need to pass platform certification to come to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series XS. Any delay could signal that there are still last minute issues being addressed before Pearl Abyss can get the console vers into the hands of reviewers. Quote, I don't think that's a good idea wrote Rockstar and CD Projekt Red news account Video to chook quote CDPR did this and look what happened with Cyberpunk. I think being transparent and giving reviewers keys to the console version would show some confidence. End quote.

[Snowbike Mike]

Damn, who's that?

[Mike]

That was Video Tech uk. I apologize. Maybe inter cap your name because I said Video Touch.

[Snowbike Mike]

Exactly. Whoever that is, I guess I apologize. He did call you Video Kachug, so I don't.

[Mike]

Here's the other thing. Maybe you know, if we're quoting a news account, VideoTech UK put some spaces in there, some inner caps or maybe have a fucking person assigned to it. So it's Greg Miller from Video Tech.

[Snowbike Mike]

Let's get something going on instead of

[Mike]

me having to read every night out here on this fucking show. I'm reading fucking Reddit comments all the time where it's like Tudy Hooters 69 said this fucking review. Anyways, back to Crimson Desert. Where are you at with your expectations for this console? Of course, as this calls out and we've said publicly we are the review. Some of the reviewers who have Crimson Desert on PC. It's important to know that we are talking strictly about what we thought about this game before we ever got the review code. You've heard me talk about Crimson Desert quite a lot on these shows.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So we're going to talk that way rather than obviously spoil anything from the review embargo that does lift the day before you can catch our review on the 17th.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I mean let's get real about this. That we've seen up into this is there's so much excitement for the game that can do anything and everything right. There's so many questions of can they do that and then they put out a bunch of pre launch information and videos and you go oh wow. It might actually be doing just that, right? And then you get very excited and people want to know, is this going to run on my console? Right. Too many times have we seen all these crazy PC specs and then it comes to console. It's not quite ready for the showtime of it all. And so yeah, of course people are a little worried or excited to find out how well is this going to run on console. And then when you hear on social media, hey, PR guy, it looks like you're not giving out Xbox consoles. What's the deal? And they're like, well, okay, well like this is how we're rolling this out. Then people start to steamroll that and get really worried.

[Mike]

So let's talk about a little thing called damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Mike]

The amount of times I've answered in my career, but on a Greg way here, kind of funny of whatever, of like, I don't understand why you have to say you're playing redacted. Why can't you say what game you're playing? Why can't. Why do you have to hide your activity? Why do PR and marketing companies want you to do that? Because this is the flip of it. The flip of it is that to Will Powers, marketing director at Pearl Abyss, we're not hiding anything. And I'm sick of having to repeat myself. We had to go to a pre briefing call. They gave us the codes and they said once you have the code, you're allowed to say you have it and you can confirm the review and you confirm the time and you can do all that stuff and it's like awesome. But then that opens a can of worms where suddenly it is, well, I only have a PC code. Why? Well, they don't have consoles. And then it is just wild speculation now for two weeks of gamers who have been burned so many different times. And then you bring in the conversation of, you know, as Ethan calls out here at some point, right, of like the concern that the review embargo is the day before launch or whatever that lines up with, with like Univers International launches, right? Another thing that back in the old days, right, IGN readers used to know, there's no review for this PlayStation or Xbox exclusive a week early. They're not confident it something's going on, yada, yada yada that I don't think holds water anymore in this day and age. Review embargoes are all over the place. Nintendo's usually what, like they release stuff usually on a Thursday and usually you get a review on a Tuesday. Is A Wednesday wiggle room or whatever. That much different. Everybody does their own thing in a different way. I don't think that's. That's no longer a rule of thumb to follow in terms of like, oh, well, it's this, that or the other.

[Snowbike Mike]

But they've been trained on following that. So that's where we get. Yeah.

[Mike]

And I, again, we have the code, we're talking about beforehand. I am so fascinated and cannot wait to see what happens. I have talked openly about this. When we saw it originally and he gliding in this. We're like this game. He's in a robot suit, everything. What are you talking about? No way. Then you saw another trailer. No way. Then I played at SGF and I was like, listen, control scheme was very complicated. They threw me to the deep end of this thing. But by the boss fight at the end, I was like, okay, I'm kind of feeling it. And then of course, there's a preview cycle that just went up where people are interested in it. Pearl Abyss has been not hiding anything and putting up videos of here's what the game looks like and here's what you're doing, and here's what's going on. They did the Digital Foundry thing. They. We talked about it recently. This article that popped of like, hey, PlayStation wanted timed exclusivity on this and they told him to kick rocks. We want to publish it everywhere. It's like I have from the beginning been like, this looks too good to be true. And it looks every time we turn a corner that Pearl Abyss goes, well, we're gonna prove it. We're gonna prove it, we're gonna prove it. And so the console thing here is interesting. I mean, scary again. You look at a game of how good it looks here, running on PCs or whatever specs it's running at, you go, man, can they nail that other thing? But there also is the convoluted thing. We all know extremely well that, yeah, submissions on PlayStation, Xbox do take time. And as Will writes here, right, we're saying this openly. Let us cook. It sounds like they're cooking down to the wire, which of course, as we all know from the past in other games, has blown up in people's faces before where you can't land that plane and you can't get it done. But I don't know, it's. This is what I'm saying is who knows what the fuck's about to happen. But you're seeing the other side of the coin where we're going to say nothing and Let you say nothing or you can say you have it, you can say this. But then this kind of stuff happens.

[Snowbike Mike]

Now we have weeks of speculation. Yeah, people are going to be talking about this. Yeah, it's tough. I mean everybody's gonna point to Cyberpunk. Right. And then now we have to deal with refunds or people playing a broken game. Right. And so yeah, you're just. There's too many great games out right now to be upset and sad that like, oh man, I just bought this game and now I have to refund it or it's totally broken. When it's like I could have just been playing X, Y and Z and waited for this. Right.

[Mike]

And so in the live chat over here, June thou says, I think the game went gold a month ago. Lol. I will also throw this out in 2026. Going gold means jack shit. Going gold and being like we are content complete and that will be the disc you print. Doesn't matter anymore because it's all about fucking, hey, guess what? We're going to have patches and this and that and day one things. And yata like, yes, every developer nowadays publish goes gold and then works on bug squashing in that day one patch forever. And clearly that's what you assume is happening with the console version is that they are working down to the wire to get it as good as they can to put it out there. And clearly again we talk about what can you read from a review embargo and X, Y and Z. Like remember for us in the press and I'm talking not even about Pearl Abyss, but what the window they've given us here. No one is owed a review code. You don't need to do it. And frankly the way y' all are foaming at the mouth for Crimson Desert, they could have said no review codes. Yeah, we want to do right by the fans and put it out there, yada. Yeah. Because like when we did the March game, the every game coming in March, the fervor of people who are like I bought a new PC for this game was like, oh shit. Like Crimson Desert's gonna be just fine sales wise if they have a review or not. The fact that they gave it to reviewers two weeks early. Okay. You know what I mean? They got something to say and they want you to get in there and they want you to get into the figure out if you like it or not. So. So we'll see how it shakes out. But I am very interested to see where we get with yeah. To this thing of what Ethan's reading between the tea leaves here of like, well maybe they're still going the way Will is talking in his tweet. Maybe they are going to still put up videos. Like here it is running on a PlayStation 5. Here it is running on whatever. Maybe they do their own comparisons. Maybe another digital foundry, et cetera, et cetera. What does that look like? What are review scores on this? X, Y and Z. But yeah, Crimson Desert, one of the

[Snowbike Mike]

most anticipated games of the year. Crazy excitement.

[Mike]

And it's that, that's my thing about it as someone who I would still say. And again we are, I'm making this very clear. I'm saying this as somebody pre review code because you've heard me talk about this on shows. I'm just repeating myself as someone who doesn't fully believe. Like I, I again they keep showing up, I keep saying stuff and they keep putting out a video or doing the thing like they're, they're, they're trying to turn me as somebody who doesn't fully believe. I want them to nail this. I want them to fucking crush this and just score the touchdown, be the homecoming king, run off, be carried off the field. Because again, this isn't the story we see a lot in video games like this. Clearly for Pearl Abyss, they want this to be their Witcher 3. They want this to be their breakout. Here we go. We've planted our flag. You may have noticed from the MMOs. Now you know us as a team that can do something fucking incredible. And we didn't do the exclusivity and we didn't do this thing and we've been openly talking to you. Here we go. So I hope they crush it.

[Snowbike Mike]

Could be a great story.

[Mike]

Could be a great story.

[Snowbike Mike]

We will find out very soon. Not that far.

[Mike]

Not that far. You know what I mean? Regular special one says I need to see it running on an Xbox series S. You don't need to see anything running on Xbox series s. You know I got that one over my bookshelf. I look at every so often like, oh thank God.

[Snowbike Mike]

I wanted the toaster.

[Mike]

I understand that. Yeah. You know what I mean?

[Snowbike Mike]

I wanted the toaster.

[Mike]

We move on to story number four. Bungie details marathons post launch seasons which will be free and evolve gameplay. This is the one, the only Andy Robinson at VGC News. Bungie has detailed marathon's post launch content which it says will launch around three months per season.

[Snowbike Mike]

Will last.

[Mike]

I'm sorry, around three months per season. Be free to everyone and change the way players experience the game Marathon is due to release as a premium title on PlayStation 5, Xbox and PC this Thursday. This Thursday, March 5, and for the first time being at and for the time being at least, its new content will be made available for no additional cost. In an update detailing its post launch plans, Bungie and Marathon's seasonal updates will introduce new gameplay gear, runner shells, zones, events and quote unquote change the way you master survival, grow your power floor and progress throughout a season. At launch, players will eventually unlock the game's fourth zone, Corio Archive, an end game area with puzzles to solve and vaults to unlock, Bungie said. Then in the second half of March, a ranked mode will unlock, allowing players to obtain valuable loot rewards. Bungie has also offered some details on what to expect in Marathon Season 2, which will be called Nightfall. That sounds familiar. Your activities on the Lost Colony have not gone unnoticed and the UESC are stepping up their security measures and responding in force to your criminal activities, end quote, it said. Each season of Marathon will have a different theme and a unique combination of new features, content and stories that continue to evolve the world. In gameplay, we'll also be tuning all of our loot and progression systems, creating space for for new metas and ways of play to emerge. Each season will introduce new ways to play existing zones, the developer claimed. For example, Season two will feature a nighttime version of Dire Marsh in addition to what's in addition to its next runner shell, new weapons, mods, cores, contracts and more. Mike High Guards Body isn't even cold yet. And here we come running in as Marathon as Bungee with something to prove. Concord hot on the tip of tongue, yada yada yada. First off, what's your expectation for how Marathon is going to do the audience it's going to find? And then what about this?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, let's we'll flip it. We'll talk about this first. Got it. This is exactly what you want to hear with two days from launch, everybody expecting everyone nowadays in 2026 is what is the roadmap? What is the content I can look forward to? I'm already invested in your game from the server slam or or on day one. I want to know what's next. We always talk about this. Players are going to dive in, they're going to eat up every piece of content you have and they're going to say what is next? And so you have to have that answer right away, if not beforehand, just like they're doing now and they're doing the right thing. They're saying the right things. Right. Content is free for everybody, which means the player base is going to stick together. You don't want to start segmenting the player base and having people get lost because they didn't buy the dlc. That's a big deal. Big deal now in this stuff. So that's. This all looks good. Sounds right. Right. Everything we're talking about from three months per season that's on par with the course of live service games. That's exactly what we want to see. A ranked mode for the sweats out there to grind and get better at. That's what you want to see. A map with puzzle and raid like mechanics. That's exciting and different. Right. That's what you want to see in these kind of games is how do you continue televate the gameplay. Make it more stimulating when you're playing it. Make it more of a team focused game of we got to do X, Y and Z to achieve a goal that's fun instead of just running around and doing the bare minimum.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

On the flip side. Right. How do I think Concord will do?

[Mike]

No, no. Marathon.

[Snowbike Mike]

A marathon. Thank you. I left Marathon a mixed bag of emotions and we talked about this yesterday on the podcast and Paris wanted to call because Paris is high on this. Right. And Andy was high on this. I was like, hey, there's a lot of bungee core here. That is so great. Right. Bungie does a great job creating world. They have awesome first person shooting, gameplay, feel, movement. All of that is great. Right. But during my time of playing, there was too many times where it was just boring. There was 10 to 12 minute segments where we weren't clashing with the team, we were just fighting the AI bots or we were just walking around aimlessly like it just wasn't a fun time for me. And so I left it going. I don't know how I feel about this. I don't know where I really stand.

[Mike]

Is Washy going to play it with you?

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, absolutely not. No. Watch. He is washed though. He's washed like now. Now you look to others and see if they're into it. Right. But for me, I'm. This is my probably second most anticipated conversation wise. Where does Bungie land this? Right. Because there's so much weighing on this for Bungie and PlayStation and there is so much anticipation for this coming hot off of Arc Raiders. Concord High Guard. Right. This conversation of live service first person shooter multiplayer games is so hotly just talked about and you either for it or against it. You hate it, you love it you want to see things fail. It's very weird out there, but like, will this game land will be very interesting. I think it's going to have a much better launch and probably road than High Guard. I think there will be a player base that sticks with this.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Snowbike Mike]

I don't think. I don't see a world where we look at Marathon two weeks from now and go, they lost 90% of their player base.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Snowbike Mike]

But also my prediction here is I don't see. We see a world where they have more than 75% of the player base. I think it dips to about 50, maybe 40. But I think they have a more of a roadmap, more. More of longevity than what we saw with High Guard.

[Mike]

Do you think it's something that sticks around?

[Snowbike Mike]

I think you get. I think you get a year out of Marathon.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Snowbike Mike]

Of like, you get a full year of like, hey, you have time and grace here to build off of this, to learn what the community likes and dislikes, to build and continue to. Hopefully a year from now it can either be a different game that people want or still be a great game that people love.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Snowbike Mike]

So it's kind of right down the middle of the road.

[Mike]

We wait with bated breath. Of course. Like we said, this is coming out Thursday, March 5th. That is tomorrow, Mike. It comes out tomorrow.

[Snowbike Mike]

If you're in the know, you're in the know. We just had a whole weekend with it.

[Mike]

No, I, I don't even mean like, I just think it's crazy that it's out tomorrow. It's not me saying I've heard about Marathon. Obviously it's not me. So it's not. It's not my kind of game. So I'm not going to be like

[Snowbike Mike]

all, yeah, I mean it. We will see. Arc Raiders is still red hot, Greg. Right?

[Mike]

Like crazy.

[Snowbike Mike]

People want to continue and stick around with Arc Raiders. Overwatch is hot right now. There's so many games competing in this. We had such a great conversation about this yesterday with High Guard of like that AAA space of first person shooters is so intense and like it is hard to break into that space. And here it is. Bungie, the team that of course known for their Halo legacy, but really known right now for Destiny and what they did with the live service, MMO first person shooter type vibe of a game. Right now they're saying, hey, we're doing an extraction shooter and we're kind of betting the. Betting the farm on this. That. That's a fun conversation to have.

[Mike]

So now I Want to get inside baseball with you. Are you down for that?

[Snowbike Mike]

Let's get a little bit deeper.

[Mike]

Tomorrow marathon comes out.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You, Andy, Nick, the Jabroni boys.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Riding the bench so we can play Pocopia. Then Friday, you're like, okay, well, sure. Friday, me and Joey do the games, cast plays, do Procopia. Friday, you somebody else, Nick, I'm going to try to get out of the thing I have to come do. We're doing a Pocopia server. Is this, is this a. Is this a comment on how much kind of funny cares about marathon?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, this is a comment on kind of funny and like the interest in marathon. Right. Of like our team is not the die hard first person shooter team. We were back in the day with Call of Duty Warzone. But I think our. We have flown and changed on how we want to put out content, what games we want to play, what games we engage with the most.

[Mike]

And right now, to be clear, don't you know, I'm not. This, I think, is the right call.

[Snowbike Mike]

Want to talk about the team is not like, hey, we're playing marathon.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's very much of like, Mike wants to sweat in marathon. Nick really isn't engaged and interested in extraction shooters. He'll come along for the ride. Yeah, Andy is 5050 on the. He's playing Witcher 3 for the 50th time. We don't know what Andy's doing. Right.

[Mike]

So it's like famously his first.

[Snowbike Mike]

When I look at the, when I look at it more, the thing where

[Mike]

he calls me every. I'm sick, I can't go to work. And then I see him streaming.

[Snowbike Mike]

Are you ready to sweat? And the team is not ready to sweat like that. And so we, we're gonna get out there. We want to put out and we want to. Hey, you're telling me there's a Minecraft Pokemon video game? Yeah, we're gonna play that.

[Mike]

Let's do it.

[Snowbike Mike]

We're gonna play that.

[Mike]

Story number five on the rope report. The Trump administration debates allowing Tencent to keep its gaming stakes. We read from the Financial Times reports via Reuters. The White House is debating whether to allow Tencent to keep its stakes in major video game groups as US President Donald Trump prepares to meet Chinese president who was Jinping. All right, you don't put the, the ginping jingping. Okay. In China in April, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, top officials have held internal meetings to assess whether $0.10 investments in U.S. and Finnish gaming firms pose a national security risk. The newspaper said, citing Several people familiar with the deliberations. A meeting among several cabinet officials scheduled for Tuesday to review the issue was postponed due to scheduling issues, the Financial Times said. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. The White House and Tencent also did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment. Hong Kong listed Tencent holds a stake in video game developer Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, and owns Los Angeles based Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends. In 2016, it bought a majority stake of Supercell, the Finnish mobile game developer behind Clash of Clans, for about $8.6 billion.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, Greg, I don't really know my feelings on this one. It's more like, yeah, you show me. You go have that conversation. Show me. I don't really love this.

[Greg Miller]

This is tick tock all over again.

[Snowbike Mike]

This is like, hey, they got your data. We want your data actually. So we got to get involved here

[Mike]

before I even read this thing because I don't want to. Of course. Regulation looking into these things. That's great. We're going to do it for the public investment firm for Saudi Arabia as well. Oh, no, they're working with Donald Trump's son in law. Of course we won't do that. Throw that. What up are you trying to throw up here, Barrett? This is Imran Khan quoting the article. If I had to speculate, My guess at the order of operations here is Kusher and Saudi invest in ea. They like the prospective ROI and see more gaming companies like Riot as opportunities. They use Trump to force Tencent out. With added xenophobia, they pick up the pieces financially. Oh, shocking. We could have seen that coming.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

This fucking place

[Snowbike Mike]

can't have anything good.

[Mike]

But at least we don't have to use pronouns anymore. Mike.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, Greg.

[Mike]

The fall of democracy and us setting an authoritative authoritarian regime is huge news. If I wanted something smaller, say the tiniest news I need to know about, where would it go?

[Snowbike Mike]

This is huge news, man. I'd take you to our lap news story, the We Do's channel where we cover all the small news items you need to know about.

[Mike]

Number six, the we news. Biffle games, of course. Friend of the show Mike Biffle has revealed a new game, Amber Spire. Amber spire is out May 6. Construct buildings, manage resources and build in harmony with an alien ecology. Beneath the glow of a gas giant, Amber Spire will grow and prosper into a flourishing city atop the ruins of an abandoned moon. Wish list now on Steam. Congratulations, Biffle. We love seeing you make.

[Snowbike Mike]

Congratulations. I love City Builder. He's always doing something I'LL tell you what. I wasn't going to peg him for this. Yeah, I wasn't going to guess on this one. I like it.

[Mike]

You got dice in there too?

[Snowbike Mike]

Hey, my birthday, May 7th. I'll be playing this. I'm hanging out.

[Mike]

Everhood Hunters has been announced for 2027. It's a roguelike based on the Everhood series. We have a trailer. Let's jump in there. I don't know what this is.

[Snowbike Mike]

I don't know what the Everhood series is.

[Mike]

I don't know what that is either.

[Greg Miller]

Ever. Let me bring it this up. Sorry. I think this was added in late. I know Everquest Everhood is very aesthetically very inspired by Undertale, but it's also like a rhythm game as well. People really liked the first game. I had the second game on my Fantasy Critic. I think maybe last year didn't do as well as the first game, but it's got its audience, you know, very quirky, weird world and them leading into doing more kind of like. Like rhythm stuff with a roguelike. Seems fun.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Mike]

From games industry Biz. Baylor Games, maybe. Balor Games, formerly known as Good Games Group, the company from former Humble Game staff has acquired the entire Humble Games and Fire stock back catalog. Mini required reading from Bless Games industry Biz has a full breakdown with the interview with interviews about how Baylor Games wants to invest in Triple I video games. Okay. I like that. Resident Evil Requiem has sold over 5 million copies.

[Snowbike Mike]

Damn.

[Mike]

That's what I'm talking about. Good job, Capcom. More games are being added to Nintendo Classics on March 10th. On Virtual Boy, you get Mario's Tennis and Mario Clash. On Game Boy advance, you can get Mario versus Donkey Kong.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Mike]

From Noble. According to a new report from Origami, Unity is shutting down its office in France. Unity France has nearly 100 employees. Woof. And that's it for WE News. Glad we ended on such a high note here. Yeah, Talking about everything else really took

[Snowbike Mike]

a wicked turn there on story six.

[Mike]

You knew it would. You knew it would. What else is left to say? The entire fucking thing is rigged.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Scorpion Brew says I just got God of War, Sons of Sparta's platinum. I loved the story. 7.5. I love you all. Thank you for doing so much great content and getting me through the overnights.

[Snowbike Mike]

Nice.

[Greg Miller]

I respect the dedication of getting a platinum for a game that you admit is seven point.

[Snowbike Mike]

So. Yeah, way to find the fun way to play through it and have a good time.

[Greg Miller]

I barely like platinum in games that I love.

[Mike]

Yeah, exactly. How outrageous Is that platinum do you even look at?

[Greg Miller]

Seemed just like quick glance 100% in the main campaign and I think doing stuff in like the co op boss Rush, Rogue, like whatever the hell that mode is.

[Mike]

Okay, Foxy C says I personally enjoyed Marathon's gameplay. I did find myself in PvP battles often and the gunplay feels good. I have an issue with the UI as it feels messy.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, the UI is crazy, Greg. UI is crazy, Greg Raleigh says, has

[Mike]

Andy used his honey pack yet as his birthday present? Has he used it?

[Snowbike Mike]

I don't know.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Snowbike Mike]

He wouldn't go to a basketball game with me.

[Mike]

Outrageous. What a fucking comment. Hundreds of monkeys says any risk of Sony delisting games already ported to PC. I wouldn't put it past them. Never say never. But I don't think that's at the top of there to do. No, let the money.

[Snowbike Mike]

Those types so yeah insignificant except for this one executive.

[Mike]

They're gonna put it on Xbox and

[Snowbike Mike]

take a photo of it on the next box. Yes.

[Mike]

Dolphin Corner says little Billy wants to. Little Billy wants to be like Nick with a good PC.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, he does. Yeah, they do.

[Mike]

And then our final two super chats are among our first super chats, the one, the only Radic super chats. And says birthday tax on behalf of my son who turned seven today. Happy birthday, Carol. I love you little buddy.

[Snowbike Mike]

Happy birthday to Radix, son. No.

[Mike]

Happy birthday, Carol.

[Snowbike Mike]

Heck yeah.

[Mike]

Seven years old, homie.

[Snowbike Mike]

Go have some fun.

[Mike]

Buy a gaming PC from Costco.

[Snowbike Mike]

Tell your dad to buy you a gaming PC. Hell yeah.

[Mike]

He must have a great PC. Wondergirl109 says, Mike, please, when are you posting the rest of your Resident Evil 9 playthrough on YouTube.

[Snowbike Mike]

You know the computer broke me this weekend.

[Mike]

I didn't know this.

[Snowbike Mike]

I tried to get into my computer. Duffy try to become Andy. I try to become Roger. I said to myself, I've made nine parts of this playthrough, all about an hour long. Pretty happy with that. Uploaded them all. I said, you know what, forget that. Let's just jam it all into one video. And so what did I do to Adobe Premiere? Yeah, I thought, yeah, this is the move I exported. It takes seven hours. I get to the end, they say, no, no, this part doesn't work. They give you a bunch of code that you don't know what that means.

[Mike]

Nobody knows what I mean.

[Snowbike Mike]

So I look it up, I try it again. Same code, do it a third time. Same code. Now this is like this two days in. Yeah, it's so big. Of a file that the computer doesn't have enough space for the file. And so then I start deleting parts out of it. It's still too big. Then I go to Roger. I go, Roger, what the hell, bro?

[Mike]

Yeah, of course.

[Snowbike Mike]

Because, Mike, you got to go to Shutter Encoder. Just merge them all there. Why are you exporting Go, Roger, that's a brilliant idea. What do I do? I go to Shutter and corridor. I put all the nine and put nine in there. This thing is 575 gigabytes big. What's a massive.

[Greg Miller]

Are people walking you through, like, what settings you should be, like, clicking to

[Snowbike Mike]

make sure it's not a 1640 P videos. Okay? Crystal clear. It's like looking at Lake Tahoe. Sparkling.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, you can do that with AV1 encoding and not have it be 600 gigs.

[Snowbike Mike]

What do I do, Greg? I take half of it. Take half?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

225 we go. Here we go. We're cooking now. Yeah, Go to the second half. Put it together. No, that's 375 too much. Ooh, I don't got do a third part. So I did, after four days, deleted it all and said, I'm gonna go one by one. This is gonna go back to where I was.

[Mike]

When you talk to Roger and you're like, hey, was that a conversation here over coffee? Where are you bugging him?

[Snowbike Mike]

I text Roger and I go, how do you do that, Roger? Leaves me on red. Of course, Roger no help when it comes to making the size smaller.

[Greg Miller]

You know, I mean, that's on Roger.

[Snowbike Mike]

Mike, buy him a hot dog. I'll take him to In n Out.

[Mike]

I'll.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'll put my body down, let him step on me over a puddle, take

[Mike]

him to box seats.

[Snowbike Mike]

Roger can't type in and just say, hey, Mike, to make the file size smaller because it's the size of your whole computer's memory. Let's do this. Also, this computer's got nothing on it. Why is 300 gigs taken up?

[Mike]

Great question.

[Snowbike Mike]

What's inside these 300 gigs?

[Mike]

Nobody know.

[Greg Miller]

What's your, know, solid state drive?

[Snowbike Mike]

I don't know. Okay, I got like. If 300 is in there, I got like 500 available. So it's clearly a terabyte, right? But then, like, it's like, what's the 300? I go through it all. There's nothing that's that big. What's getting eaten up.

[Mike]

Go in there and do the thing where you go into Windows, then you put the greater than and whatever gigabytes and then it shows you everything.

[Snowbike Mike]

What a nightmare.

[Greg Miller]

Are you exporting to the right like solid state drive or hard drive?

[Snowbike Mike]

It just feels like Zoolander.

[Mike]

Sure.

[Snowbike Mike]

The files are in the computer and you just want to smash this thing. That's why I keep it very simple.

[Mike]

Have you ever thought that maybe this is God punishing you for trying to make content outside of kind of funny.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh 100.

[Mike]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Every. Oh. All those long nights.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Wasted.

[Mike]

Right?

[Snowbike Mike]

You feel tired in the morning. Shouldn't have done that. You could have just stuck with Greg's side. Just stuck around.

[Mike]

Just make me money.

[Snowbike Mike]

Exactly.

[Mike]

What if to worry about.

[Snowbike Mike]

What are you worried about Mike? You're fine.

[Mike]

I thought the health insurance was kind of like that would keep you motivated here. But if I have to remove that to get your. To get your 536 gigabytes of files. I'll do it if I have to. You know what I mean? Everybody. This has been another episode of Kind of Funny Games Daily. But our live programming day is far from over. Of course we're going to go from this into Andy and bless his review of Resident Evil 9 Requiem where they're going to have a good time there. After that it's going to be in review Interstellar. Our first time watching. No. I was looking at yesterday tomorrow. It fucks me up every time. So that we did. How did you weasel your way on three shows back to back?

[Snowbike Mike]

You guys. You tried to pull me out. I said nah, I got it.

[Mike]

Fucking hate you. It's Andy Requiem review. Then it's going to be the co op experience for magic. And that is your day because we're recording something else that isn't live. Everybody like subscribe Share pick up a membership patreon.com kinda funny YouTube.com kinda funny games. Apple, Spotify and of course until next time, no it's been our pleasure to serve you.

[Snowbike Mike]

Every act of change begins with a neighbor. With someone saying, we take care of each other. Here in food banks and food pantries,

[Mike]

neighbors pack fresh food and dignity into

[Snowbike Mike]

every box, moving food from farms to families through Feeding America's nationwide network. So when that box reaches a home, it carries more than food. It carries a. A promise that together we can end hunger. Feeding America led by neighbors. Give now to [e-mail].