RIP Xbox Handheld (For Now) - Kinda Funny Games Daily 05.27.25 (Patreon)

Summary

Kinda Funny Games Daily: RIP Xbox Handheld (For Now)
Episode Released: May 30, 2025
Hosts: Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller & Steven Totillo

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1. Microsoft Halts Xbox Handheld Development

Timestamp: [00:00] – [13:36]

The episode opens with Greg Miller breaking the news that Microsoft has shelved its own Xbox handheld device for the time being. Instead, the company is shifting its focus towards enhancing Windows 11 gaming performance and collaborating with third-party OEMs like ASUS on projects such as Project Canon.

Key Points:

• Project Canon: Microsoft's partnership with ASUS aims to release a handheld device, tentatively named Canon, within the year. This device is expected to feature the AMD Z2 Extreme chipset.
• Shift in Priorities: Microsoft is reallocating resources to improve Windows 11 for gaming, possibly in response to competitive pressures from Steam OS.
• Future Plans: Despite the current halt, Microsoft remains committed to developing a native Xbox handheld in the future.

Notable Quotes:

• Greg Miller: "Microsoft has decided to prioritize its teams to improve Windows 11 gaming performance... It still wants to build its own Xbox handheld in the future." [09:34]
• Steven Totillo: "The signal that Microsoft is sending with all their games is that they're gonna be on everything... It doesn't have the same punch as it would have if we were in the world of Halo." [12:35]

2. The Impact of Microsoft's Decision on Gamers

Timestamp: [13:36] – [22:36]

Greg and Steven delve into the implications of Microsoft's decision to halt the Xbox handheld. Greg shares his personal enthusiasm for the handheld concept but acknowledges that existing devices like the Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally are meeting his portable gaming needs.

Key Points:

• User Experience Issues: Greg highlights problems with cross-save functionality between Xbox Series X and potential handhelds, citing issues with titles like Outer Worlds.
• Market Competition: The robust performance of existing handhelds diminishes the unique selling proposition of an Xbox-specific device.
• Future Prospects: Steven notes that as Microsoft's gaming ecosystem becomes more unified, the necessity for a dedicated handheld may further decline.

Notable Quotes:

• Greg Miller: "I'm so gosh darn happy with this [ROG Ally] thing. It's replacing everything for me." [15:38]
• Steven Totillo: "Microsoft has sent every signal possible that hardware is not a priority for the corporation overall." [22:36]

3. Historic Union Agreement at ZeniMax Media

Timestamp: [22:36] – [35:07]

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the groundbreaking tentative contract agreement reached between over 300 quality assurance (QA) workers at ZeniMax Media and Microsoft, represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

Key Points:

• Contract Highlights: The agreement includes substantial wage increases, new minimum salaries, protections against arbitrary dismissal, and clear crediting policies for QA contributions.
• Unionization Efforts: This marks a pivotal moment as it’s one of the first major union agreements within the video game industry, potentially paving the way for broader unionization efforts.
• Microsoft’s Stance: Historically resistant to unionization, Microsoft's recent agreements indicate a shift towards more worker-friendly policies.

Notable Quotes:

• Paige Branson, QA Tester: "Going toe to toe with one of the largest corporations in the world isn't a small feat. This is a monumental victory for all current video game workers and for those that come after." [29:18]
• Claude Cummings Jr., CWA President: "Our members have raised the bar. We're proud to support them every step of the way." [29:47]

4. Elden Ring: Night Rain Launch and Updates

Timestamp: [39:10] – [47:30]

The hosts discuss the launch of Elden Ring: Night Rain, a multiplayer co-op spin-off that has quickly sold over two million units on its first day. Despite strong sales, the game has received mixed reviews, particularly concerning its cooperative features and voice chat functionality.

Key Points:

• Sales Success: Elden Ring: Night Rain achieved 2 million units in pre-orders and early sales, rapidly climbing the Steam Most Played chart.
• Gameplay Feedback: Early adopters have criticized the lack of robust co-op features, leading to immediate patches aimed at improving solo gameplay experiences.
• Future Developments: Discussion on the upcoming patch 1.02, which will introduce bug fixes and enhancements for solo expeditions, addressing player concerns.

Notable Quotes:

• Greg Miller: "They are just being whiny babies as always." [40:27]
• Steven Totillo: "This is an exemplar of change it and meet the customer demand it seems, which is good." [44:26]

5. Persona 4 Remake Voice Cast Controversy

Timestamp: [47:30] – [58:36]

Greg brings up confusing developments regarding the voice cast for the Persona 4 remake. It appears that key voice actors have publicly stated they were not approached for the remake, leading to speculation about potential ulterior motives behind these announcements.

Key Points:

• Voice Actor Statements: Yuri Lowenthal, Aaron Fitzgerald, and Amanda Win Lee have all denied involvement in the Persona 4 remake.
• Fan Reactions: The staggered announcements, following the order in which characters join the party, have led fans to suspect orchestrated publicity stunts.
• Speculation: Potential involvement of other prominent voice actors like Matt Mercer or Troy Baker remains unconfirmed, adding to the mystery.

Notable Quotes:

• Greg Miller: "Are they all back for the Persona 4 remake?" [50:45]
• Steven Totillo: "It's almost like a status symbol, like, oh, this thing has made it." [46:50]

6. Expansion of Game Informer's Archive

Timestamp: [35:07] – [53:56]

In positive news, Game Informer has expanded its digital archive to include all magazine issues dating back to its inception in 1991, thanks to collaborations with the Video Game History Foundation and retro archivists.

Key Points:

• Archive Expansion: Subscribers now have access to over three decades of Game Informer content, enhancing the resource for gaming history enthusiasts.
• Collaborative Effort: The partnership with retro archivists ensures the preservation and accessibility of historical gaming journalism.
• Future Plans: Game Informer aims to highlight specific legacy articles, providing deeper insights into the evolution of gaming.

Notable Quotes:

• Matt Miller, Game Informer: "Enjoy this new level of free access to the rich history of gaming we've covered over the last 34 years." [35:07]
• Steven Totillo: "Journalism overall is in a precarious state and any support you can give to anybody who's reporting news that you care about... it's awesome." [52:58]

7. Additional Gaming News Briefs

Timestamp: [53:56] – [57:37]

The hosts touch upon several other gaming news items, including:

• Weird News Auction: The Concord plaque auction surpasses $3,000.
• Game Releases: New World A Turnum Season 8 goes live on Steam.
• Atomic Heart Milestone: Atomic Heart hits 10 million players two years post-release.
• Fallout London VR Mod: A new VR mod for Fallout 4 offers an immersive experience, though limited to PC VR users.

Notable Quotes:

• Greg Miller: "Reviewers have noted this game is very difficult to play solo and you have almost, you know, this is ready to go for the next week patch or at least small elements that will make it easier for solo players." [44:26]

8. Closing Remarks and Community Engagement

Timestamp: [57:37] – [58:36]

Greg and Steven wrap up the episode by expressing gratitude towards their guest, Steven Totillo, and encouraging listeners to support independent gaming journalism. They also hint at upcoming content related to SGF (Summer Game Fest) and tease future episodes.

Notable Quotes:

• Steven Totillo: "Whether you're here, kind of funny, whether it's game file or when any of the great outlets that are out there, it's awesome." [57:37]
• Greg Miller: "Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you." [58:35]

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Conclusion

In this episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily, the hosts provided an in-depth analysis of Microsoft's strategic shift away from developing its own Xbox handheld, the historic unionization of QA workers at ZeniMax Media, and various other gaming industry developments. The conversation highlighted the evolving landscape of gaming hardware, the rising importance of worker rights within the industry, and the ongoing challenges of maintaining seamless gaming experiences across multiple platforms. Additionally, the expansion of Game Informer's archive was celebrated as a significant contribution to preserving gaming history.

Listeners are encouraged to stay engaged with upcoming events like SGF and to support the gaming journalism ecosystem by subscribing and participating in community discussions.

Transcript

[Greg Miller]

Today, in the nerdy news you need to know about, Microsoft has apparently killed the Xbox handheld in its crib. Are we getting worked by these Persona 4 voice actors? And Game Informer keeps on winning. We'll have all this and more because this is Kinda Funny Games Daily. What's up everybody? Welcome to Kinda Funny Games daily for Friday, May 30, 2025. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller. Alongside Game File Dot News is Steven Totillo. Hello, Stephen.

[Steven Totillo]

Hello, Greg.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you for making the time. It's rare that we have a real journalist on the show. We talk about the news a lot, but you know, sometimes Shrier, he drags himself in here. But to have Steven Totilo in here, I'm very excited. How are you?

[Steven Totillo]

I'm feeling good. Am I your first New Jersey based guest? That doesn't even more important.

[Greg Miller]

Oh my God, what a question. I mean Kevin Smith's been on the show a bunch. But not Games Daily, I guess.

[Steven Totillo]

And I keep the Garden State here.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I know. I can't think of anybody else who's come through to rep New Jersey. No one. Definitely no one's ever made a big deal about. It's like the first thing they've said to the show. So congratulations to our first New Jersey guest, Steven.

[Steven Totillo]

Right?

[Greg Miller]

Stephen, I believe you need no introduction because you are one of those names that's been reporting on video games forever. In fact, you're celebrating 20 years as a video game reporter right now. But if people don't know you, how, how do you introduce yourself?

[Steven Totillo]

First of all, where's my watch? And nobody got me anything from.

[Greg Miller]

Well, you keep leaving companies, that's on you. That's on you. Do 20 years at one place. MTV News, Kotaku, Axios, you know, I mean, come on now.

[Steven Totillo]

Oh, well, I don't think that's a lot of change, but yes. So I've been covering video games as a reporter full time basically my whole career. I have a semi secret previous life where I created Hulk Hogan's reality show. But I try not to talk about that too much.

[Greg Miller]

Yes, I did. I did not know that life. I did not know.

[Steven Totillo]

Hogan Knows Best is the show. And yeah, I remember that idea. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Wow. Okay.

[Steven Totillo]

Co creative.

[Greg Miller]

Sorry. Really? What? That, what? How did I never know that? I don't know.

[Steven Totillo]

I don't know. It happened. It's. It's part of, it's part of the lore.

[Greg Miller]

God damn, dude.

[Steven Totillo]

And then yeah, I joined MTV News and covered games for the first time. Their first ever games reporter Sat on the other side of the wall from Kurt Loder.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Steven Totillo]

To date. To date things a bit. And did that for four years. And then I joined Kotaku and people may know me as the EIC of Kotaku, which I ran for about a decade with an awesome crew of reporters and critics and video producers. Then it went and I covered games for Axios, big mainstream outlet that does a lot of writing and bullet points and what have you. And now I'm doing Game File, which is a newsletter you can read or get emailed yourself, read online and the whole time just try to dig up interesting stuff for people to find out about video games. Maybe the things you're not going to be told by companies through a press release. Maybe something I can get out of an interview, but just doing my best for the. Finding scoops and original angles on things.

[Greg Miller]

How does it feel to be independent? Of course. Game File Dot News, everybody go there right now. Subscribe, put in your email address. Get in there like I have. Are you enjoying the freedom to be out on your own?

[Steven Totillo]

Yeah, I mean, I've always had been fortunate to have good, a lot of editorial freedom. So I know some people, they leave the, you know, the media business and it's like I can finally write what I want to write about. Well, I had the good fortune of, you know, MTV was like, we don't know how to cover games, so we.

[Greg Miller]

Don'T know what we're doing.

[Steven Totillo]

Yeah, yeah, we sort of play music videos, but maybe we'll do these other things too. I remember them telling me they're like, well, we've had like Snoop Dogg come in and play video games and people aren't really into that. So maybe there's something else we can do with games coverage. I'm like, I have some ideas.

[Greg Miller]

What I love about. What I love about Game File is that you, like you said, are breaking out interesting things. But the fact that it comes in my email box and I see it right there and it's like, you had one this past week. Yeah, I'm looking through here of like you may have. You may have missed a terrific new Katamari Damasi. And I was like, I did. I remember the day it came out being like, I gotta resubscribe for Apple Arcade. And I forgot all about it until your headline.

[Steven Totillo]

There you go. I'm. I'm here to haunt you, to remind you, to nag you. Yeah. For all the people out there who love email, subscribe to Game File and you can get more email.

[Greg Miller]

If you're sick of not being inundated by the news, you know, every other place. Why not let it infect your inbox?

[Steven Totillo]

Olivia's before and after contrast. Now, yes, that is younger me, more hair on the head than now from my MTV news era. But yeah, you can get Game File through the app Substack app, you can read it through email, you can read it at gamefile News. But you know, I mean, how, how exciting is that? The stories are what's interesting and hopefully people will find what they stumbled across there. Yes, for free.

[Greg Miller]

Yesterday you had a good one too about the ninth, the Nintendo's most useful news, statistically speaking, I did not even realize that the Nintendo app let you rate it from useful, funny, cool or cute. So I loved this breakdown and I'm sorry I stepped on it. You can get it for free, but you can also subscribe.

[Steven Totillo]

Yes, yes, yes, if you pay, if you pay extra, you'll be able to read all three editions every week in full. But even the free readers will be able to read a hefty amount of the paid editions plus the the free editions. And yeah, one of my weaknesses is just weird statistics, particularly from Nintendo. So like they used to put out charts listing the number of games they released every month or every year or something like that, and for like their whole history. So I made charts of like how often, how many games did they release per year? And lo and behold, the number of games released has reduced significantly since they stopped having both handhelds and home consoles. Turns out that consolidating didn't lead to them making double the games for the Switch. It led to them making slightly more games than they made for any one platform before. But the games are bigger. So I like finding weird stats and stuff. And I noticed the Nintendo Today app, which people may have checked out since it launched in late March, lets you, as you said, put an emotional score rating on every news article. And so I thought it would be funny to find out which ones were rated the coolest, the cutest, the most useful and what have you. The most useful article actually I found useful. So the system works. Apparently the Switch 2 will have a. Yeah, the Switch 2 has a setting where you can tell it only charge the battery to 90%.

[Greg Miller]

Yep.

[Steven Totillo]

And they say, look, the system won't run as long when it's if it only maxes out at 90%. But batteries tend to keep a greater capacity long term if they're not maxed out when you charge. So the trade off is that it'll be good for a longer battery existence and life and time span in the future. Okay, Useful. Definitely not cute. That's definitely not cute.

[Greg Miller]

Not cute at all. Not cute at all. There's enough cute stuff happening over there. Well, I'm excited as we go through all the the news stories today Steven, for you to rate them if they're cute or useful. Because this is Kinda Funny Games Daily. Remember, each and every weekday on a variety of platforms, we run you through the nerdy video game news you need to know about live YouTube.com kindafunnygames, Twitch TV, kindafunnygames and of course podcast services around the globe. No matter where you get the show, please consider like subscribe, share, tell your friends, leave a review and if you think we did a nice job, why not pick up a Kinda funny membership? Remember, $10 a month gets you all of our shows ad free. That's more than 80amonth and it gets you a daily dose. Greg Miller in a Greg way series. That's 15 to 20 minutes each and every weekday adding up to four hours of exclusive podcasting all for you. If you're watching live right now, of course you should be YouTube super chatting. You can be part of the show with your questions, your comments, your concerns. Are you sad that Xbox is turning their back on this handheld already? We'll get to it, but you could start getting your super Chats in right now just like Cognitive Clips did. Who said Birthday tax? Glad to have met so many awesome kind of funny people because of our shared love of kinda funny. Well there you go Cognitive Clips. Happy Birthday and of course congratulations to the community for being so good to each other. Housekeeping for you. Remember we are an 11 person small business all about live talk shows after Kind of Funny Games Daily. Today you are getting the kind of Funny Games cast. It is my preview of Hell Is Us. I went up to Montreal to play it and I will tell you something, I don't think anyone else is in the office yet because I'll tell them because they don't know. It is now my most anticipated game of the year. So I'm very excited for Hell is Us and very excited to finally be able to talk about it. After the games cast is Karate Kid in review and then after that let me read Andy's official thing today. After in review the best souls gamers at Kind of Funny that are currently not out of time out of town are taking on Giant Bomb in an Elden Ring Night Rain showdown. Who will score the most points? How will they score points? Tune in for some chaos at 1:30pm Pacific time today. Twitch and YouTube. Of course you could watch later on YouTube as well if you're a kind of funny member. Today's Greg Way is going to be about if you should go to SGF in person, but I'll be recording it on the way home, so who knows how long it'll be. But you'll get it. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney Twining. Today we're brought to you by Mood, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. Time for some news. Six items on the Roper Report. Number one and it didn't even deserve any fog, let alone just one. But I like that it's not. Two. Number one Xbox's Handheld is dead. Parentheses for now we go over to Jez Cordon at Windows Central Super Chat. I need to know, are you affected? Are you upset? Are you? I'm angry. Steven Totillo are you angry? Did you need an Xbox handheld?

[Steven Totillo]

I'm okay.

[Greg Miller]

God damn it, Stephen. Fuck. We go to Jez and we'll get back to you in a second to tello. I come to you today with some fresh news about Xbox's handheld plans. Previously, I reported that Microsoft was working on a native Xbox handheld alongside an Xbox Series X successor planned to launch somewhere around 2027. It now seems that Microsoft's priorities have shifted somewhat. Just to emphasize here, this is not Xbox's Asus device canon that is being pushed back. Oh, that is being pushed back. It's Microsoft's own internal Xbox handheld that has been shelved. Parentheses for now. I have a variety of code names for this unseen device, but it's unclear as of writing which exactly is the correct one. At the moment, it seems there are three prototype devices in development for Microsoft's Gen 10 effort, with the handheld being parked for now. Indeed, Microsoft still wants to build its own Xbox handheld in the future. But Microsoft has decided to prioritize its teams to improve Windows 11 gaming performance, especially for devices like the Asus partner device project Canon. It's possible that the existential threat from Steam OS, which on paper delivers better gaming performance than Windows 11 itself, has informed these decisions. Our sources have indicated to us that Microsoft is still deeply investing in investing in developing its own Xbox Handheld technology in the future, but it was announced internally today that the priorities are moving more deeply towards third party OEM handhelds in the interim. Project Canon is the codename for Microsoft's partner Xbox Handheld with Asus. We understand that Canon is still targeting a launch later this year. The hardware side is essentially finished tentatively. We believe this device to be among the first using the AMDZ2 Extreme, but we are still working on solid confirmation for that. There's a significantly boosted effort between Xbox and Windows teams to improve the experience. On the software side, devices like the Asus, Rog Ally and the Lenovo Legion Go already run on regular Windows 11. And the Xbox layers and apps have gotten better, but there's still a lot of improvements that could be made. It is always unclear if Microsoft's handheld was designed to be A native Windows 11 PC gaming style handheld or a more native Xbox console style experience. But we potentially now have an answer. It seems that it was indeed meant to be a device that could run full Xbox games. But Microsoft has decided to prioritize its teams on the partner opportunity around devices like Canon, at least for now. I've been told that Microsoft still has big ambitions and investing heavily to deliver a native Xbox handheld, but the shift is about prioritizing and allocating resources. Right now. There have been no layoffs or anything like that as a result of this reprioritization. Stephen, how could you not want an Xbox Handheld? What are you talking about?

[Steven Totillo]

I've got a Steam deck and I have a switch and I hope to have a. How many handles do I need to carry? How many hands do I have?

[Greg Miller]

You need to just come down on one. All right? You just got to figure out the one that would be the one to rule them all, and then you'd be fine. And that's where I'm at with my Rog right now. I love my Rog too much, Stephen.

[Steven Totillo]

Yeah, I mean, I mean, the signal that Microsoft is sending with all their games is that they're gonna be on everything.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Steven Totillo]

So be weird to think that an Xbox Handheld would have anything exclusive to it. So it then therefore becomes the same question to me as what they think the appeal of their next console will be, which is that in a Microsoft games are on every platform world, what is the advantage of buying and playing on Microsoft hardware? And there may well be advantages they may have. They may figure things out technologically that make it so that, oh, that's the box or the handheld I'd rather have. But just the theory or the concept of, oh, an Xbox handheld, it doesn't have the same punch as it would have if we were in the world of Halo. You're only gonna play it portably on the Xbox Handheld, Gears of War and so on. And it just doesn't feel like the world we're in anymore.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And that's been a weird march as we've set off on what Xbox's vision is. And it seems like the dominoes are finally starting to fall. And Xbox Handheld has always been exciting for me, somebody who is allergic to PC gaming because of all the hoops you have to jump through to get it on a big screen and have it running at max best settings and stuff like that and cards and whatever and drivers and I hate it all. But so, I mean, even before the butt I get, my thing had always been like I would, I just want, I, I like my Xbox games, I like my console games and I'd love to be able to take those with me and have the same saves back and forth and everything works great and yay, we're all off to the races. So when the rumors of the Xbox Handheld started, I was so excited about that. But at the same time, I was already playing my Steam deck and then I got the Rog Ally X and then started booting into Windows and then started using Xbox Game Anywhere and using the Xbox app so that my Oblivion Remastered save is on the Rog and I'm playing it here. And then I go home and I turn on the Series X and it's on the TV in glorious 4K and looking amazing. And as that has happened, my excitement for the Xbox Handheld has dampened because I'm already living the future. I want to a degree, we're still in that era of I, you know, I, we just re reviewed Outer Worlds yesterday, sat down, played four hours. When I started a new save on the Series X, I was like, great, now I'm going to put that Game Anywhere to the handheld and went in and realized they were two different versions of the game. That game was not Game Anywhere. I did not have the ability to do that. And that sucked. Right. And for me it was like, well, this is what I'm talking about. Xbox Handheld would fix this problem. But I also feel like that's archaic, right? I'm talking about outer worlds having that problem. But that was a private division game. There was so much different hoops to jump through for that. Whereas with Outer Worlds 2, that's not going to be an issue, right? That's going to be a Game Anywhere title because it's Xbox first party. And so then you get into this really interesting conversation of, well, do I need an Xbox Handheld anymore if this thing is killing it for me? And again, I will remind you all the Rog Ally X is killing it for me. I'm so gosh darn happy with this thing. It's replacing everything for me.

[Steven Totillo]

Steven, I, I interviewed Phil Spencer last November, I think it was, and we were talking about maybe it was October. We're talking about what the fall lineup of games was going to be. And he volunteered almost an apology for some of the lack of play anywhere, support for certain titles. So Vessel of Hatred had just come out for Diablo 4. In that case, it was a honor the purchase everywhere kind of thing, which I think they have another term for that one. And of course they did. He was own it everywhere. I don't remember what it is, but. But he was preemptively apologetic. He's like, of course we don't have that, you know, whatever it is term for it. But I'll be emailing Rod Ferguson about that right now, the exact producer of all things Diablo over at Blizzard. And, you know, then I was interviewing Rod at the DICE convention in Vegas in February and he was like, yeah, well, look, partially that's because that Diablo 4 was built through the Battle.net ecosystem and at a time before, you know, the, the, you know, the acquisition and everything, where things weren't quite all synced up. And so the sort of thing you can infer from that is that some of the stuff that you're talking about, Greg, and some of the stuff that, you know, Spencer and Ferguson were talking about are vestiges of a time when these groups were not all unified. And you know, for better or worse, the swelling size of Microsoft's gaming empire and the fact that they own more and more, you know, studios and have things on the platform level will allow them to create more seamless experiences. And yes, once all that is working in sync, it, it becomes harder to imagine. Well, if, like, if everything you read from Jez's article happens and then all these other handhelds are working great, then really what do you. I mean, maybe they're going to save for the Xbox Handheld, like the special Xbox green color. They will not allow the like patent that color trademark, that color. And so if you really want like a acid green glow in the dark.

[Greg Miller]

Kind of thing, you know, you know, translucent, like an old gamecube, you know, N64, take the old Duke controller, the.

[Steven Totillo]

Famously large controller, and split it apart almost think about what the, what is that? Oh man, the streamable PS5 thing. What is that one called? Oh, I know.

[Greg Miller]

The Portal. Show some respect. The PlayStation Portal, Steven. All Right.

[Steven Totillo]

Hey, if the first ever interview with the creators of the PlayStation Portal, where did that get published? Who had the scoop on the exact game file?

[Greg Miller]

Don't worry about it, everybody.

[Steven Totillo]

You knew the answer.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, and I think that's, you know, we're talking about old games and trying to figure it out. And I think, yeah, especially if this is true, like, and that's something we should have called out, obviously, Jez is rumors and speculation on something that we don't know much about. If that's the case internally, then I'd imagine these conversations are happening there as well. Like, all right, cool, we got to make sure this all works from here on out. How do we do that? How do we expand it? How do we get more partners involved with it? Because again, that's the same thing of like, you know, where you're at now, where, you know, the, the big game comes in for review and it's like, where do I want to play it? And I'm like, well, I'd want to be able to play it on the handheld, but I don't. It's not going to be. I'd have to get two codes and is it cross save and X, Y and Z. And that, that I will also point.

[Steven Totillo]

Out, by the way, that to the extent that this is viewed as bad news and that it's, it's Microsoft saying they're going to do something and then retreating from it, this is the kind of news that tends to break the weak ahead of a showcase or an event. And we know that Microsoft is doing a showcase because you have communications happening within the division, potentially conversations happening with reporters, not suggesting, you know, one way or the other about what Jez sources are. But you tend to have this kind of reporting and these kinds of stories emerge ahead of whatever is planned to be announced. And so it'll be interesting to sort of think about this reporting and this kind of status update of where the handheld development is in light of whatever we learn a week from now when Microsoft is doing its showcases, which they presented as being more software centric. But we'll sort of see, you know, we'll maybe, maybe they'll be talking about a vast partnership with a bunch of, you know, makers, including whatever the, you.

[Greg Miller]

Know, the Xbox crossover with the Asus division and then making their own rog and stuff like that. Like that's. We've seen so many leaked images of it with which is basically this device with like more of controller grips on the side. Like, I think it's a foregone conclusion and an easy layup prediction on next week's gamescast that, yes, it's going to be revealed there. I think it gets more interesting of when is it coming out? What does it do? Is it way more powerful than the raw Ally X or is it basically that that's where I'm at of like, is it going to be enough to make me want to upgrade? I'm in love with this device. Like, my Steam Deck was my OG Steam Deck and I was ready before this one of like, I'm ready for the Steam Deck. Not OLED, but sequel. Like, what does Steam Deck 2 look like? When I got this, I was like, I'm so satisfied and happy and everything works so well on this right now. I'd be interested to see what this Xbox version is going to bring that I can't just. I'm sure I'll be able to get the Xbox OS or whatever they're working on onto this and then be off to the races, right?

[Steven Totillo]

And if they're announcing something like this internally about clarifying where they are and their different roadmaps, you know, that then helps put, you know, as they anticipate that that may leak out to the press, that then helps answer the question preemptively. If that is in fact, you know, that this, this, this Asus handheld is revealed next week, nobody's then wondering, well, wait, I thought you were also working on an original.

[Greg Miller]

You know, get the bad news out of the way. Exciting news.

[Steven Totillo]

That's sort of how it works.

[Greg Miller]

Super chats are all on your side. Nobody cares. Rvb, Jeeps, Super Chats and says, I don't care. No daily Xbox user here. There's nothing they can get me excited for with a handheld. Never been a mobile handheld gamer though, so my opinion is moot. Machine XP says I'm glad Microsoft is allowing the Xbox team to work on the OS for Windows gaming. The Xbox engineers are brilliant and will help get closer to that PC hybrid. Jake writes in and says, honestly, if the Asus handheld runs well, I don't need it. But the next Xbox running Steam is way more interesting. And I think that is something. Another rumor we've heard, right, of what they're doing, of what the next Xbox would be, that it might be able to boot not only Xbox games, but Steam. And you'd imagine Epic and you'd imagine any other launcher along the way. That makes me excited. Does that make you excited, Steven? Are you fine with your PC?

[Steven Totillo]

I don't think I'm much more of a PC gamer. Than you are. I think we both have an allergy, drivers and all that stuff. I mean, I mean, hey, anytime I can think back to all the config, sys, dot, bat, whatever updates. I mean there's a fond, fond memories but you know, I don't need to relieve relive them anytime. I also just point out if you think about Xbox and Microsoft's gaming business overall, I mean it is a software and services centric business. Microsoft has sent every signal possible that that hardware is not a priority for the corporation overall. To the extent to which the gaming division still talks about hardware, sometimes I sense that it's just them kind of swimming upstream against the currents of what the rest of the company seems to be aiming toward.

[Greg Miller]

A couple more super chats before we get out of here. Machine XP says Ally with a more Xbox experience would be goaded. Lucid dream says Greg. Are you really turning your back on trophies? Lucid. I've been very clear about this from the jump. When the rumor, the very first rumor of an Xbox handheld started, I was like, this could be the thing that actually would sway me away from playing PlayStation all the time. And it has happened where multiple I. I had a PR person yesterday hit me up for hey, do you want code for this game? And I was like, yeah, can I get it on PC? Like what? But it's on this platform. Like, no, no, PC is like, when did you become a PC gamer? And I was like, when they made it easy and they made it work. Now eventually the ROG will get in my way and be called and you know, I'll need an actual PC or whatever. But like for all the indie games and small things I'm playing, this is great. Like the next giant big thing. I'd like it to. It would, it would draw me to play on Xbox because I don't want to hook a PC up to my TV and worry about it. For the 4K, whatever giant experience, I'd rather the Xbox speak right to it. But if that's going to be now, if we get to the situation where, well, it's not connected. Xbox is its own platform. In the PC I'm playing on is its own platform, then of course I'm going to go PlayStation and forget about it.

[Steven Totillo]

Remember, the other solution to this is for the publisher or the developer to have some sort of unified kind of access point. So when I reviewed Assassin's Creed Syndicate a couple of months ago, I reviewed it across six or seven different devices. Not because I wanted to, but because I took advantage of the fact that Ubisoft Connect kind of unifies your save files and puts them in the cloud. And so you can go from playing on GeForce now streaming, which is what I initially did because they weren't sending out downloadable codes. And then I went, well, I think they did that to give people more time to play the game ahead of them having the console codes available. So I went from GeForce now streaming to then move the save file to my PS5 and I continued it there. But then I was traveling to Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and I wasn't going to lug my PS5. My Series S is smaller, so I was going to bring that. So I was then able to switch over to have my progress continue there. And so, you know, Hideo Kojima of course, was on top of all this with transferring. Right. That Metal Gear was it Metal Gear Portable Ops. Was that the one where it was supposed to. Supposed to connect from?

[Greg Miller]

No, it was Peace Walker, I believe something. It was after Peace Walker. It was the collection. It was the first collection they put out where you. You could transfer stuff back and forth.

[Steven Totillo]

Your psp, your save progress would. Would transfer into. Into the console.

[Greg Miller]

What it learned to be alive. Mega64 had to explain it a great time. But you bring up something. This is something we're seeing more and more of Cross progression, whatever, but it's slowly rolling. You're not seeing everyone adapt it. But I was shocked last night when I listened to you, the kind of funny audience who said, greg, don't sleep on Fantasy Life. I the girl who steals time. If you like Animal Crossing and these things. So I started it on my Steam deck. But my Rog and I was of course immediately greeted with, remember, this is cross. This is Cross save. So if you want to pick up on Switch later, and I know it's coming out with the Switch 2 edition or whatever, I was like, oh, okay. That's a very nice feature to be able to send it there to PlayStation or whatever. Like it's. We're getting there where everybody's moving to get there. But there's still.

[Steven Totillo]

Yeah, I'm not sure Level 5 does the cross platform save though, so. They do, I think. I mean, you can move your PC progress to Switch.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Unless I chat. Keep me. Unless keep me. Wrong. It was a whole thing last night about like, you can send your. Yeah, it does. Okay. They're with me. Yeah. Yeah, you can. You can. Yeah. Oh, I didn't investigate.

[Steven Totillo]

Doing great.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. You know what I mean? That's my thing.

[Steven Totillo]

Worried about them.

[Greg Miller]

When I get this, when I get the switch to next week I'd try it out over there, kick it over there. So yeah, we're moving, we're doing it. So I like that you don't have.

[Steven Totillo]

A switch to yet. Greg. Kind of funny didn't get the exclusive.

[Greg Miller]

You know what I mean? Well it's funny I we had one in super chat here and they all know obviously that none of us, no one has it but inner jet stream super chatted early in the beginning of the show and said got to hold multiple Nintendo Switch 2 systems today. Granted they were in shipping boxes and I was delivering them to my local Walmart. So hyped. So now start looking for your Walmart though to break street dates. See who screws that up because that'll be out there and then you have a brick until the day one update. But you understand there's a guy in.

[Steven Totillo]

Russia who has one he's been putting.

[Greg Miller]

Posting videos and they keep taking them down as fast as you can put them up. Like get out of here. We don't want that at all. Let's move on to story number two. It is another Xbox story Speaking of Microsoft Video Game Workers Reach Historic Tentative Contract Agreement with Microsoft I'm getting this from the CWA union site. In a first for the video game industry, over 300 quality assurance workers working at Microsoft subsidiary ZeniMax Media represented by Communications Workers of America Locals 20, 121 OH and 6215 announced that they have reached a tentative contract agreement with the company. ZeniMax Workers United CWA and Microsoft have been negotiating for a first contract for nearly two years. QUOTE QA workers from across the country continue to lead the charge for industry wide change, said Paige Branson senior to QA tester and zenimak Workers Union CWA bargaining committee member, quote Going toe to toe with one of the largest corporations in the world isn't a small feat. This is a monumental victory for all current video game workers and for those that come after, end quote. For those that come after, a nice little Expedition 33 reference snuck in there. I appreciate that. Quote Workers in the video game industry are demonstrating once again that collective power works. This agreement shows what's possible when workers stand together and refuse to accept the status quo, said CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. Quote, Whether it's having a say about the use of AI in the workplace, fighting for significant wage increases in fair crediting policies, or protecting workers from retaliation, our members have raised the bar. We're proud to Support them every step of the way. The new contract sets new standards for the industry and includes substantial across the board wage increases as well as new minimum salaries for workers. The agreement also includes protections against arbitrary dismissal, grievance procedures and a crediting policy that clearly acknowledges a QA workers contributions to the video games they help create. It also incorporates a previously announced agreement on how to artificial intelligence is introduced and implemented into the workplace. Contract explanation meetings will be held for members over the next few weeks with a ratification vote expected to be concluded by June 20. Over 2,000 Microsoft video game workers have joined CWA under a groundbreaking neutrality agreement that enables them to freely and fairly make a choice about the union representation. Hell yeah, unions are great. I'd like to see everybody credited and not abused in the video game industry.

[Steven Totillo]

Stephen, you asked for so much.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you. Stephen, you called this out when we, when we were getting the show together. Like you see this breaking news and I'm like, I didn't. Did you say you were talking to people over there?

[Steven Totillo]

Well, I didn't. I didn't talk to the unionized people yet, but I did get a statement from Microsoft, so I'll do some reading as well. They said they appreciate the dedication and engagement of the ZeniMax QA team and the bargaining committee throughout the process. Tentative agreement represents a meaningful step forward and reflects a shared commitment to constructive dialogue and a common goal of fostering a positive workplace. They said they look forward to the outcome of the ratification process. So the reason that this is such a key step in all this is that people have probably seen a lot of headlines and recall you reading out news for years now about game studios unionizing. Famously, there were barely any unions in gaming even just a couple of years ago, particularly in the United States. And there had been some unionized efforts in France, in Sweden, in some countries where unionization is just more common and widespread amongst the population. And one of the consequences of the kind of 2020 workplace reckonings that were happening a lot of studios was particularly a lot with Activision and Blizzard was a rising up of workers to say we need to be stronger together. A union is the answer to that. To push back against management to protect each other in various ways. And you first started seeing developers form these unions in late 2020, or maybe it was 2021. And so it's been a long time coming. The ZeniMax union was not officially the QA union wasn't. They didn't vote on a union until I think January of 2023. So as you read it's then been over two years of negotiations. On April 1st of this year, they voted to authorize a strike. So what happens is you have a group of workers, they vote to have a union and then just a select number of people are sitting down at the table with the company, in this case Microsoft and ZeniMax, to try to hammer out a contract. And if they don't like the way the negotiations were going, then the heads of the union are going to be able to say we're going to go on strike. The rest of the, the union group was agreeing on that by voting for that. And so the threat of a strike was now there for Microsoft and ZeniMax to reckon with since April 1st. And is that what finally got them to this point? Possibly. And that's one power of a union, is the threat of pulling your labor. But of course the other important value of a union is what guarantees it can secure workers. And you just read through a bunch of those that include the credit and guarantee agreements over the usage of it. AI it sounded like there was something in there about pay, not the full details. And that's obviously a key thing. And those are, you know, those are the elements that ultimately stand to benefit workers long term with all these unionization efforts. So if this gets ratified, then we will have one union, a big one, 300 plus people at Zenimax with hundreds, possibly up to 2,000 just through the CWA, as you read, sort of coming next into unionization and having all that they have union. But in terms of having a bargaining agreement with Microsoft, Zenimax, Activision, you name it. And really largely that's where a lot of this has happened. We've seen some unions crop up with other studios and publishers, but largely it's happening within the Microsoft family of studios. And hopefully this will lead to better situation for workers who certainly get the short end of the stick a lot of the time.

[Greg Miller]

100%. Yeah. Do you see that happening? It seems like, you know, I remember when the initial calls for unionization started and there were so many naysayers that would just be, oh, it'd be impossible. It's to this, it's too fractured that, that. Do you see this? Are we five, ten years, you think from this being a more accepted, viable reality for video game developers.

[Steven Totillo]

I think when, when people get a sense of what's in the contract and what the union secured, they will either be impressed or they will say, oh, that doesn't seem, you know, worth it. Right. And so you, you have some of the vague contours there. I mean, union is not a panacea. And it doesn't stop companies from, you know, making decisions to shut the entire operation down because they can't. You know, if all the workers are unionized, as we see this happen in many industries, including media industry, they'll be like, oh, well, we can't lay off three people because the union bars that. So we're just going to shut the whole thing down. Right. So, you know, it can be treacherous in a whole other way. And then people have their, their feelings about a union, but if you have a good contract, if they try to do that and shut the whole operation down, you in theory are at least guaranteed a high amount of severance if that's been bargained into your contract. So I think we'll see. But certainly over the last couple of years, all you had was people voting to form a union, and you weren't seeing any of the benefits or drawbacks to contracts manifest at all. So this is the beginning of the next phase of it where, and my guess is that people will say, well, this is better than what the workers had without being unionized.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Steven Totillo]

So therefore it is. It is better. And they'll go through the. The same process.

[Greg Miller]

Well, we wish them luck. Congratulations. CWA and Zenax over here. Of course, I know ign. Currently, their IGN union is trying to expand as well. IGN union Blue skied. I'm going to start calling it BS Yesterday and said it's been one week since we asked IGN Entertainment to recognize our friends on the product engineering and Humble Bundle teams as part of the IGN's CRE IGN Creators Guild. The sooner that happens, the sooner we can start working with management to build towards a stronger future for all of us. So lots of good moves happening out there right now, but the best, it's good.

[Steven Totillo]

At Kotaku, you know, we were part of Gawker Media, and we were the first digital media company in the United States to unionize, and that's the dominoes to a lot of other, other companies. At the time, the only reason that it seemed to sort of get a blessing from our owner, Nick Denton, because usually the owners are completely against the workers unionizing.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Steven Totillo]

Is that he thought that this was going to be contagious and that the writers, editors, reporters at other digital media companies like Buzzfeed were then also going to try to unionize, and he assumed it was going to annoy the owners of those companies. So he's like, I'll tolerate whatever discomfort I have because it'll just drive My competitors crazy when this happens. And similarly, if you look at the genesis of this like it comes from Microsoft announcing in early 2021 that they wanted to buy Activision Blizzard. And initially several US Senators, including Elizabeth Warren, were against the deal because they were hearing from unions that this was going to be bad for labor. And the way that Microsoft was able to get the unions on board and the senators off their back was to make a pledge, this neutrality pact that was referenced in what you read where Microsoft said, we will not stand in the way, we will not push back against any of our worker groups trying to unionize. I mean, they're allowed to try to unionize, but companies are able to go through a lot of processes that slow the process down. And they said, we won't do any of that. They honored that. And in exchange, the CWA said, we approve of this mega merger, which, which was itself unusual because usually labor unions and workers are not in favor of large corporations getting larger through $69 billion acquisition. So make of what you will the deal. But one of the seemingly positive outcomes of that is that Microsoft, which for 48 years or whatever before that had never had a union and in fact to try to break up unions that were forming, has now had unions. And it's the gaming developers of all the constituencies and workers at Microsoft who are the ones who were able to sort of get the camel's nose under the tent, as it were, and begin to spread unionization, I guess through the, through the company. So it's weird how these things happen in this case. Ultimately the byproduct of Microsoft wanting to buy another company and own Call of Duty and Candy Crush, but it gets just a unionization movement that's showing some signs of success.

[Greg Miller]

Well, awesome. And congratulations everybody involved. Of course there's more news to talk about, but I'll remind you that we couldn't do this without your support. You can pick up a kind of funny membership on patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com kind of funny games, Apple or Spotify. It would get you, of course all of our shows ad free. That's more than 80amonth. And of course your daily dose of me, Greg Miller and a 15 to 20 minute podcast I do in my car for you. That adds up to a four hour podcast each and every month. But you're not using your benefits right now. So here's a word from our sponsor.

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[Greg Miller]

And we're back with story number three. It's a rock block of Elden Ring news. Steven, are you a Night Rain person?

[Steven Totillo]

No.

[Greg Miller]

Good. Me neither. So that's fine. Don't worry, we're in good company. We can report the news and get the hell out of here. Of course, it's officially out today for everyone. You can go get it. You can do the dang thing. But IGN reports over there from Wesley Yin Pool. That's right, WYPN Elden Ring Night Rings Night Rain sells 2 million units on its first day Elden Ring Night Rain sold 2 million copies on its first day quote pre orders and early sales have pushed the game beyond the incredible 2 million unit sales milestone. Publisher Bandai Namco announced the multiplayer co op spin off released overnight and soon shot up the Steam Most Played chart with an impressive 313,593 peak concurrent users. That doesn't tell the whole story, of course, with both Microsoft and Sony withholding Xbox and PlayStation player numbers. But FromSoftware has now given an idea of just how big Elden Ring Night Reign is with the announcement of 2 million copies sold already. But it's not all great news. In a separate IGN article they had this one paragraph, but it also came with a number of negative reviews. 67% of the reviews are positive so far, most of which point out. So that was in parentheses. So it all came with a bunch of negative reviews, most of which point out that Elden Rings Night Ring lacks duos or two, player co op and voice chat. So they're just being whiny babies as always.

[Steven Totillo]

Steven, I just pulled up the press release. I just want to share this because it's amusing. If I may, please.

[Greg Miller]

Of course.

[Steven Totillo]

This is what Bandai Namco said. They said Elden Ring Night Reign, the standalone multiplayer co op action survival game by FromSoftware, Inc. And publisher by Dynamico Entertainment Inc. Is now available to players having already surpassed the milestone of 2 million units. Having already surpassed a milestone of 2 million units. No, they're not using there sold.

[Greg Miller]

They didn't say sold like what?

[Steven Totillo]

And yet I don't think this game is on any subscription service. So I don't know why they're avoiding using that word. But it's interesting they're not using that word.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, you're right. I guess because they would have shipped more than 2 million past the milestone.

[Steven Totillo]

Of 2 million units. I don't know. It's just a weird way that companies, game companies talk. They want to do everything they can to avoid just telling you.

[Greg Miller]

They don't want to give you an actual fact. They don't want to give you a hard fact. They want to give you a little bit of. This is what's happening over there. This is happening over there. We surpassed it.

[Steven Totillo]

We surpassed 2 million units. Maybe people looked at the box art 2 million times.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Interesting one on that one, to say the least. Good numbers, obviously. Of course. Review bombing. I'm so over review bombing.

[Steven Totillo]

You're not doing it anymore.

[Greg Miller]

It didn't do anything I wanted it to do, it turns out. So I was like, I don't got time for this. It's just like, come on, do your thing. Let's move on to another Elden Ring Night story. Elden Ring Night reigns. Next patch will improve the experience of playing alone. This is Thomas over at GameSpot. Bandai Namco Entertainment and From Software have just released Elden Ring Night Rain and are already teasing its first post launch update. Patch 1.02 is scheduled to release sometime next week and will improve the solo experience of playing this co op game. Next week, patch 1.02 will be released and will include several bug fixes as well as improvements for solo expeditions. The official Elden Ring account on X explained while the full patch notes won't be released until next week, the account did tease some important updates coming to Solo expeditions in Night rain. After patch 1.02, solo players will be able to revive themselves Once. I'm sorry, once per night, Boss Battle and gain more runes form of in game currency while playing. This has been ongoing conversation here at Kind of funny. Of course Roger was one of the folks who picked up Night Rain during the review period, but he kept trying to jump in and play it solo and he disliked it so much he's like I'm just gonna stop. So I'm glad to see they're trying to fix that.

[Steven Totillo]

I guess it's this the second straight Elden Ring related release where so quickly after release what seemed to be the prime design element about it seems to now be getting walked back a little bit through almost immediate patches. Right? Elden Ring was uncompromising, as were FromSoftware's prior games. Pardon me if I'm ignorant of rapid kind of course correction patches, but it does not ring a bell. By contrast, Shadow of the Erdtree comes out. Reviewers are crushed by its difficulty and very quickly you have from saying oh okay, we'll make it easier. And now you have a game that is ostensibly a co op game. It's how it's been promoted, it's how it's been designed. Reviewers have noted this game is very difficult to play solo and you have almost, you know, this is ready to go for the next week patch or at least small elements that will make it easier for solo players. You know there's been a kind of a meta discussion around game difficulty and FromSoftware has been at the forefront of that discussion about developers vision versus player demands and requests and desires and where should the two meet and how uncompromising should either side be from. Formerly the exemplar of don't change it make people kind of meet you where they are now is becoming the exemplar of change it and meet the customer demand it seems, which is good.

[Greg Miller]

And I think again launching an online game, a multiplayer game, is such a different beast than a giant single player open world which I know there's a little bit of co op, but you know what I mean in terms of like you need to be Johnny on the spot with patches, updates, this, that.

[Steven Totillo]

And the other, tuning it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean you got Marathon coming, you got to be ready.

[Greg Miller]

Oh man, Marathon is going to swing in here and just be a huge success. I'm sure it's not going to be another colossal PlayStation failure. And moving on to another Elden Ring Night Rain one for you. This is actually I lied, it's an Elden Ring movie. One it could reportedly star a warframe actor. This is Justin Kroll over at Deadline, the highly anticipated Elden ring movie at a 24. And video game company Bandai Namco Entertainment is gaining momentum as director Alex Garland may be zeroing in on a familiar face to lead the epic adaptation. While it is unknown where things stand in negotiations or if a formal offer has been offered, sources tell Deadline that the director has talks with Kit Connor, who recently appeared in his War. Pick Warframe to star in the adaptation. Sources stress several factors still need to be worked out, including scheduling, but both Garland and Connor want this to happen. In it is Warfare. Thank you. Demon Hacker said it's Warfare, not Warframe.

[Steven Totillo]

He made a movie about Warframe already.

[Greg Miller]

He's like, when I read it, I was like, oh, the headline on GameSpot was War for Warfare. But I read Warframe and I was like, I never knew they made a Warframe movie or. Or that's amazing. Or that Hollywood stole the name Warframe and now you're telling me it was a war picture called Warfare. And I've never heard of this motion picture in my life. Life, Never. But I'm not a big movie guy, but I don't know what's going on.

[Steven Totillo]

Yeah, yeah, we're, We're, We're. We're hauntingly similar people in that regard, I gotta say. I mean, I. I guess I'm just a hater in this episode and unimpressed with so much of the. The news being shared. I am weird. And that I do not get excited about the games that I like being turned into movies. Like, okay, I'm gonna still play the game. I don't.

[Greg Miller]

But you. I mean, I love Zelda.

[Steven Totillo]

I'm not, I'm not. I'm not psyched for the Zelda movie. It's like. It's a game I want to play. Play it as a game. So I don't know. But again, that's. That's. I probably lost the entire audience.

[Greg Miller]

Did you. What about Last of Us? You care about that? Is that working for you?

[Steven Totillo]

No.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Steven Totillo]

Oh. I mean, I mean, look, the Godfather is a great movie and it's, like, hypocritical to say because, like, for me to make this position, because it was suggested, I think it should have just stayed a novel. Right. And never become a movie.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Steven Totillo]

But overall, like, people are like, kind of lose it when it's like. It's almost like a status symbol, like, oh, this thing has made it. And so I always feel like there's. There's this kind of a baked in inferiority complex that, like, oh, well, game. This game Wasn't good enough or major enough until it became a movie or became something else. It's awesome as a game.

[Greg Miller]

I like getting into new audiences, I guess I like seeing, you know, I mean, in a world where so many things are being snuffed out because it didn't make enough money for the shareholders, the idea that, yeah, we're getting more people into it and you're seeing it. And I hate the idea of a transmedia property, but like the idea that you can expand it beyond the art of group. I'm like, okay, cool. Like, whatever.

[Steven Totillo]

Hey, look, we praised transferring. We've played praise. Now transmedia. This is a trans positive show overall. I hope so.

[Greg Miller]

It is. It is. Oh no. Overall we are trans positive. Don't worry about that. Demon Hacker agrees with you with a super chat. Elden Ring has a promising crew as a movie, but I agree that I'm just not excited. Don't need them. Don't need a movie version of this. I'm still interested to see what they do with it. Like, obviously people creating movies are a lot more creative than me, so I'll be interested, but I just like, I don't want you.

[Steven Totillo]

Some movies are not created by people more creative than you, Greg.

[Greg Miller]

Sure. Thank you. I appreciate that. But what? We're just fighting. We're just. How? What's the narrative of this? What's this? What's this? Dude, these games are so weird about their stories. How are you gonna put that in there? I don't know.

[Steven Totillo]

I mean, like, should it be a movie where, like, people who watch the first, like, run of the movie can put messages into the movie for the people who go see it the next day?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, cool jump here. And a final Elden Ring rock block story for you is just a stupid, fun one. This comes from Eric Van Allen at ign. Some Elden Ring Night Rain players are fight fighting their muscle memory from the original Elden Ring's controls and chugging flasks by mistake. Elden Ring Night Rain is out and players are already diving into the shifting lands to fight the Night Lord. If they warmed up a bit on the original Elden Ring, though, they might be finding themselves a little turned around by some control changes. While the controls in Elden Ring Night Rain are mostly the same as the original Elden Ring, a few changes have been made either to accommodate new abilities or simply move things around a bit. Some of these are just for new moves or updated versions of old tools. One in particular, though, seems to be causing at least a little confusion. The Flask and FromSoftware's Souls games and Elden Ring. The flask is a mainstay of your kit, a refillable potion holder that acts as your main source of healing in combat. Usually the flask is one of several consumables, and you'd cycle through them and use them mid combat. In Elden Ring Night Rain, the flask is a static element. You hit the leftmost face button, X or square, depending on your controller. Drink it by default while up on the D pad becomes your use item option. And so everyone right now is confused, apparently. And there's a million things they had in this IGN article of people accidentally drinking flasks, and I thought that was very funny.

[Steven Totillo]

I like that. Yeah. Eric Van Allen's a terrific reporter as well for Kotaku. Once he did a whole story about how somebody had duct taped themselves to a ceiling. And it's like a famous photo from like a Counter Strike Land party.

[Greg Miller]

I remember that one.

[Steven Totillo]

He found the guy who was duct taped to the ceiling.

[Greg Miller]

I remember this article. Good stuff. Moving on to number four. Okay, are we getting worked by the Persona 4 cast members? If you've been following us all week, you've got Yuri Lowenthal coming out. Be like, hey, everybody's asking, but I'm not the voice of Yasuke in the game. Usque sorry, Aaron Fitzgerald yesterday, hey, everybody, I'm not the voice of Chie in the game. And then today, Amanda Win Lee, Blue sky bs. Since I've had several people ask me, no, I wasn't asked to voice yukiko in the P4 reboot remake. To which there was a quote tweet from Oscar Explosion who said, well, there's a third. Interestingly enough, the way these announcements are being made is weird because it's been done in the same order that your characters are added to your party. First Yosuke, then Chie, now Yukiko. I'm going to call Shenanigans on this. If Matt Mercer makes an announcement next, it could also be Troy Baker, but I digress. Mike Minati, of course, surfaced this to me, who said, oh, my God, they're doing it in the order their characters join your party, Steven. Is this all fucking fake? Are they all back for the Persona 4 remake?

[Steven Totillo]

I mean, you're. You're a wrestling guy. You know how this is.

[Greg Miller]

I am. But it seems odd for Atlas, for Sega Atlas to do this for Persona one of their big. And why make the audience mad? I guess just to make them then be happy. But, like, you're going to Take a week of getting hit over the head with the the your stupid bet bar. Like what's going on?

[Steven Totillo]

I mean how many consecutive installments of this show have they now been mentioned in?

[Greg Miller]

God damn it, they played us like a fiddle. Keep your eyes peeled everybody, because if this, if it is Mercer or Troy on Monday, then you're gonna get somebody each and every day till the Xbox Showcase or sgf, I guess when they announce it. But that would be such a weird but fun. I guess in the long run, low key way to do this, it would.

[Steven Totillo]

Be kind of funny.

[Greg Miller]

We'll figure it out. Number five, good news, which is always nice. Especially about Game Informer. Game Informers Archive just got bigger. This is Matt Miller over at Game Informer. Today we're happy to reveal an expansion to an already exciting perk we provide to Game Informer account holders. Since Game Informer's return in March, we've offered a backlog archive of all of our magazine issues going back to 2012. With today's expansion of that archive, we're now growing that archive to include all Game Informer magazine issues going all the way Back to issue one, first published in 1991. The expanded archive was put together with the help of the Video Game History foundation, the preeminent organization chronicling, celebrating and teaching about the history of the video game medium. In particular, special thanks are due to the website retromags and fan scanner Bogus Frank, whose efforts to track down issues and preserve gaming magazine history now help us access our own company's history and share it with you. In the coming months, we plan to surface specific legacy articles we believe are worth exploring. In the meantime, enjoy this new level of free access to the rich history of gaming we've covered over the last 34 years. And thank you for signing up for an account. New print and digital magazine subscriptions are coming very soon, and a Game Informer account opted in to receive our newsletter is your best window into securing early bird pricing. So much bad news Usually, Steven, this is great news.

[Steven Totillo]

The whole Game Informer story and just some of the struggles we've seen in games media overall have been having these kind of of happy twists. Or at least not as bad as you feared it was going to be elements to them. And it's good to see that that Game Informer team that got a raw deal when GameStop shut the magazine down have been able to pick themselves back up and you know, not just do new things, but as you said, just, you know, they've been able to preserve the heritage and the history of their magazine which I know meant a lot to a lot of people.

[Greg Miller]

So and I hope the numbers are huge for them when they go I'm I'm waiting with bated breath to get my Game Informer subscription and admittedly had let mine lapse years and years ago cause I stopped going to GameStops and it was one of those like ah, I wish them well and I love it but then have it taken away be like oh that sucks. I'm all in for a physical subscription. We get back up and running. But Steven, good Game Informer. Having a magazine again and putting every issue back to number one up as a digital thing is big news. If I wanted something smaller, say the tiniest news I need to know about, where should I go?

[Steven Totillo]

I think you'd go to our last story, which is the WE News Channel, where kind of funny covers all the small items that you need to know about.

[Greg Miller]

That's right, number six, we news. The Concord plaque is now over $3,000 in that goodwill auction we've been talking about for a while. There's still four days in nine hours to go though if you want to get in there and get that New World A Turnum Season 8 is live via Steam. Nine Souls has sold 800,000 copies across all platforms from IGN. Atomic Heart has hit 10 million players Two years after its 2023 release from GameSpot, Rebellion Developments has revealed the release date of Atom Fall's Wicked Isle expansion dropping June 3rd. This story based DLC will send players to a new location called Midsummer island and then your final piece of Wii news for the week is from Blair Marnell over at GameSpot reporting team Folon's Fallout 4 mod. Fallout London is one of the most impressive fan made creations in recent memory. Now fans of Fallout London have taken it even further with a new mod that brings the game into virtual reality. Fallout London VR is now available on Nexus mods and while it wasn't created by TeamFolon, it builds upon the creation and allows PC VR players to experience the mod in a brand new way. Unfortunately, it is not playable on Quest VR because Fallout 4 isn't on that platform. But as noted by video gamer Quest owners who have gaming PCs can use their quest headsets to play Fallout London VR on Windows. And that's it. That was it for the Wii U, but I was happy to have that. I fall out. London still getting more stuff's pretty cool.

[Steven Totillo]

That's good. I got two puffs, two puffs to.

[Greg Miller]

Smoke because we like that one so Much. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you.

[Steven Totillo]

Double the Xbox Handheld.

[Greg Miller]

Don't. It's still a source subject for me. Don't bring it up, please. I'm gonna jump into the super chats before we get out of here, see what's going on. If there's anything more handheld talk. We did all that Michael James says. Steven, can we get an opinion on the classic Moonwalker game, Where's Dot Emu or Night Dive to figure that out?

[Steven Totillo]

Again, the unnecessary adaptation of a great work of art from one medium to the other.

[Greg Miller]

Fair enough. Fair enough. I mean, it's already out there. You could go get Moonwalker and just play it and have your thing, you know, Allegedly.

[Steven Totillo]

Well, I'm saying just like. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

[Greg Miller]

Fair enough. Kebab says big Brain. There is no Persona 4 remake. It's a remaster. But again, I mean. Yeah, still a weird role.

[Steven Totillo]

Yeah, that would be. That would be weird if it's a semantics technicality like that.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, Gotcha. And the final one I'm gonna read here before I go to your wrong comes from Motorworld Hype. Yo, where's Paris at? Feels like it's been too long since he popped in love to the kind of funny crew. We, of course, love Paris, but if you didn't know, he digitized himself and became. No, Paris has a real job, as you know. And so at, like, the beginning of May, he was like, yo, I can't be on any shows this month, pretty much, because I. I'm all over for work. But post sgf, we should have Paris back on a pretty regular clip. I know. Next or no? Yeah, post week. Not next week, the week after sgf. I have him booked at least on one reaction thing. So you'll hear from Paris. He'll come in.

[Steven Totillo]

I have Paris's hairline. Does that count?

[Greg Miller]

No, no. You're. You're trouncing Paris and hair. You got way more. I got a little bit. There's a little bit of embarrassing. That guy, how bald he is. We asked people watching live to go to Condofunny.com you're wrong. And tell us what we screw up as we screw it up. Kebabs wrote in with just one and said a simple one. Stephen said he reviewed Assassin's Creed Syndicate a few months ago. He meant shadows. And yes, he did.

[Steven Totillo]

I did. I did.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you for keeping us honest, Kebabs. And of course, thank you, Stephen Totila, for joining us today. People can keep up with you at gamefile News, right?

[Steven Totillo]

Indeed.

[Greg Miller]

I love it. I really do. You're doing great work over there, Steve, and I hope you know that. I hope, I hope you're seeing the fruits of that labor and people are telling you that.

[Steven Totillo]

I appreciate it and I appreciate all the support. Anybody checking it out, whether you're a paid reader or even a free subscriber. Free reader. It's awesome. It really means a lot. You know, journalism overall is in a precarious state and any support you can give to anybody who's reporting news that you care about, whether it's here, kind of funny, whether it's game file or when any aftermath, any of the great outlets that are out there, it's awesome. You know, just pay attention to the bylines and who's telling you the truth about things and give them your support if you can.

[Greg Miller]

Hell yeah. Am I going to see you at SGF next week?

[Steven Totillo]

Indeed. Sure.

[Greg Miller]

Fantastic. Of course. Everybody, there's so much coverage next week on Kind of Funny for the Switch 2 for SGF. You've heard us rant and rave about it and if you haven't, you won't be able to escape it on Monday. For now, you can't escape the Gamescast which is hurtling at you next. It of course is our preview, slash my preview of Hell is us. So strap in for that. Steven, thank you so much for your time today.

[Steven Totillo]

Thanks Greg. It's great.

[Greg Miller]

Everybody, thank you for watching. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.