Xbox Boss Explains Rog Ally X $1,000 Price - Kinda Funny Games Daily 10.20.25

Summary

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Kinda Funny Games Daily 10.20.25: Summary

Main Theme:
Today's episode dives into the latest news in the world of video games—focusing on the controversial $1,000 price tag for the Xbox-branded ASUS ROG Ally X handheld, rumors of a Resident Evil 0 remake, the surge of extraction shooters like Arc Raiders, and all the essential (and weird) industry updates. Regular hosts Blessing Adeoye Jr. and Andy Cortez guide listeners through both headline news and entertaining tangents, blending insight and humor in KFGD's signature style.

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Episode Overview

• Hosts: Blessing Adeoye Jr. & Andy Cortez
• Date: October 20, 2025
• Key Stories Covered:
  • The ASUS ROG Ally X price controversy and Xbox's response
  • Resident Evil 0 remake rumors and casting leaks
  • Extraction shooter boom: Arc Raiders and Escape from Duckov
  • Industry culture deep-dive: Mind's Eye post-mortem
  • Weird & wild news bits (WE News), including Ninja Gaiden 4 stunts, a new handheld, and more

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The ROG Ally X $1,000 Price Tag (Starts ~13:45)

• Who Sets the Price?
  Xbox boss Sarah Bond clarified that ASUS, not Xbox, determined the ROG Ally X's $1,000 price.

  • Quote (Sarah Bond via IGN):
    “ASUS used its insights into the market into the feature set, into what people want to determine the ultimate prices of the devices.”
    (15:09)

• Xbox’s Position:
  Despite the price and initial pushback, Bond cited "overwhelming demand," with devices selling out at launch.

• Hosts’ Take:

  • Surprised at how directly Xbox shifted blame to ASUS.

  • “It’s kind of weird to say it without saying it... You still want to do the quarterback thing and go, well, I control all... but she’s just like, well, it’s their product, whatever.” – Andy Cortez (15:42)

  • “If so much is your fault and something happens that’s not your fault, you’re like, ‘Hey man, fuck, you. Lose ‘em. This one wasn’t us!’” – Andy Cortez (17:03)

• Price vs. Value:
  Discussion on whether sales validate the high price, and speculation on intended production volume and target audience.

• Community Reaction:
  Playful suggestions that “people listening to Xcast too much” are primed to blame ASUS. (15:35)

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2. Resident Evil 0 Remake Rumblings (42:00)

• The Leak:
  Voice actor John McLaren’s resume—referring to a project called “Chamber”—hints he’s playing Billy Coen, strengthening remake rumors.

• Hosts’ Perspective:

  • Interest piqued due to Capcom’s strong track record with previous RE remakes: "Capcom hasn’t really missed with the Resident Evil remakes." – Andy Cortez (28:47)
  • Discussion about the original being a GameCube exclusive, later ported.
  • Excitement for a technical facelift and modern gameplay treatment: "To get the massive shift to third person would be awesome... a massive dub." – Blessing (31:06)

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3. Extraction Shooter Boom: Arc Raiders & Escape from Duckov (36:15 & 41:33)

• Arc Raiders' Impressive Playtest:

  • 190,000+ concurrent players during the “Server Slam.”
  • Poised as “the biggest extraction shooter ever on Steam” (so far), rivaling Escape from Tarkov upon its Steam launch next month.

• User Experience:

  • Crossplay excitement and accessible design heralded as a gateway for new players.
  • “There’s a groundswell of enthusiasm and hype for this and momentum.” – Blessing (39:43)

• Extraction Genre Era:

  • “Are we entering into the extraction era?” – Andy (39:57)
  • Arc Raiders seen as more approachable than Tarkov; console adoption broadens the audience.

• Escape from Duckov’s Surprise Hit:

  • Parody of Escape from Tarkov, “half a million sales in a weekend, 173k peak concurrents.” (43:21)
  • Comparison to indie breakout hits with viral surges (BattleBit, MegaBonk, Schedule One).
  • $15-20 “impulse buy” price point cited as key to indie multiplayer success.

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4. Industry Debacles: Mind’s Eye Studio Culture (49:00)

• BBC Feature Recap:
  Former MindsEye/Builder Rocket Boy staff allege chaotic management, constant “Leslie” (the boss) interruptions, and a discouraged culture.

  • "They started calling, like, bugs and bug reports ‘Leslie’s’ after the CEO." – Andy (50:54)

• Hosts’ Angle:
  Both hosts see it as another entry in the “yearly disaster” genre (like Gollum), with the BBC article providing valuable insight into failed AAA launches.

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5. Rapid-Fire WE News (52:11)

• Over-the-Top Marketing:

  • Ninja Gaiden 4: Xbox & Koei Tecmo fly a 26-foot giant video game display via helicopter over Miami for a Guinness World Record.
    “Basically a billboard that’s playing Ninja Gaiden 4.” – Andy (53:00)
  • “The latency’s gotta be not great... how am I supposed to parry this?” – Blessing (53:13)

• New Handheld Announced:

  • Anbernic RGDS, a $100 DS-style clamshell for emulation, divides Andy and Blessing on its stick placement and appeal to those who missed the DS era.

• Sleeping Dogs Movie Update:

  • Simu Liu tweets the first script is finished, accompanied by a “sleepy dog” pic.
  • Hosts lament the lack of Shang-Chi or Eternals sequels.

• Major AWS Outage:

  • Recent morning saw PSN, Xbox, and Roblox down due to AWS issues.

• Gaming Industry Notes:

  • The Sims Mobile to sunset in 2026.
  • Football Manager adds FIFA World Cup rights.
  • Absolum hits 200,000 copies sold in a week.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Xbox Blame-Shifting, Price Setting:
  • “I think any rational person gets that. But kind of odd in a press release... ‘That’s ASUS’s price. Sorry.’” – Andy Cortez (15:42)
• On Resident Evil Remakes:
  • “Capcom seal of approval... pretty high bar for what these remakes are.” – Blessing (29:53)
• On Extraction Genre’s Ascent:
  • “Holy, you gotta be worried if you’re a Bungie dev right now.” – Blessing (39:43)
• On Indie Hit Phenomena:
  • “It’s the lottery. Sometimes it just hits for no real reason, sometimes it just takes the right people playing it.” – Blessing (43:41)
• On Studio Culture Trainwrecks:
  • “We were working on five high priority bugs, but now Leslie has sort of taken hold of everything else.” – Blessing (51:02)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• ASUS/Xbox ROG Ally X Price Story: 13:45 – 20:58
• Resident Evil 0 Remake Leak: 42:00 – 31:24
• Arc Raiders Breakout: 36:15 – 41:33
• Escape from Duckov Viral Success: 41:33 – 48:07
• Mind’s Eye Studio Exposé: 49:00 – 52:00
• WE News Lightning Round: 52:11 – 63:02

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Additional Highlights

• Steam Next Fest: Hosts chat indie demos like Luminesce Arise, ReAnimal, Demon School, and Skate Story, sharing streaming impressions and fantasy league stakes.
• Extraction Shooter Story:
  Andy shares a hilarious betrayal mishap involving in-game alliances in Arc Raiders (65:53).
• On AI in Game Art:
  Listeners ask about using AI for sprite creation; both hosts are wary, favoring the “human soul” in creative work (70:25+).
• Snack Chat:
  Blessing praises Costco cookies and Reese’s Oreos; Andy laments fruit gummy temptation.
• Marvel Movie Tangent:
  Both hosts bemoan the lack of Shang-Chi or Eternals sequels, vividly recalling favorite scenes (57:22+).
• Community Shoutouts:
  Super chats engage topics from Arc Raiders streams to AI usage, sprinkle in humor and “awkward middle child tax.”

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Tone

• Casual, witty, and genuinely gamer-focused.
• Frequent playful banter and inside jokes
• Open, sometimes self-deprecating—a hallmark of Kinda Funny's rapport

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In Summary

This episode blends meaningful industry news (the reality behind hardware pricing, rumor sleuthing for big-name remakes, and the cultural winds behind extraction shooters and indie hits) with the hosts' authentic, lighthearted takes. Their chemistry keeps things fun even amid deep dives, tangents on classic Pokémon debates, accidental betrayals in extraction games, and snack confessions. If you’re looking for informed but enjoyable video game talk—current, community-driven, and meme-laden—this is essential listening.

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Memorable Outro:
“Game Daily. Shake her hand.” – Blessing (78:27)

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(For a deeper dive, consult timestamps above for each main news segment.)

Transcript

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Tito's handmade vodka is America's favorite vodka for a reason. From the first legal distillery in Texas, Tito's is six times distilled till it's just right and naturally gluten free, making it a high quality spirit that mixes with just about anything from the smoothest martinis to the best Bloody Marys. Tito's is known for giving back, teaming up with nonprofits to serve its communities and do good for dogs. Make your next cocktail with Tito's, distilled and bottled by 5th Generation Inc. Austin, Texas. 40% alcohol by volume. Savor responsibly.

[Andy Cortez]

When I was there, you had to have a knife. One of you's gotta take turns carrying it up your rectum. Wait, it's up your butt. That's the prison wallet. You never leave home alone and you have something protected around it, I'm assuming.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, or else you'll be bleeding out your coolo.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm Mariana Van Zeller and after reporting on black markets for my Emmy winning National Geographic show Trafficked, I'm launching a podcast.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're getting emotional on me.

[Andy Cortez]

Intimate conversations with those operating in the shadows. The Hidden Third is out now with new episodes every Wednesday. [e-mail] marianneville Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Today's stories include Xbox basically says blame asus for the ROG ally Price Resident Evil 0 remake is seemingly in the works and the extraction shooter wars are heating up. We'll have all this and more because this is kind of Funny Games Daily yo, what's up? Welcome to Kinda Funny Games daily for Monday, October 20, 2025 presented by Five Hour Energy. Blast through the Outer Worlds 2 in style with an exclusive skin for your raptodon in Game pet brought to you by five Hour Energy. When you purchase a Purple Berry punch or mock Melon Brew five Hour Energy products, you receive a unique code to unlock exclusive the Outer Worlds 2 in game content. Of course, I'm one of your hosts, Blessing Adioa Jr. Joining me is the nitro rifle, Andy Cortez.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Good morning, Blessing. You would think Tim would have left us some of them Low five energy shots. Just.

[Andy Cortez]

I think we do have them.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Really?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I. Listen, I don't know if I need.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

To want to make anybody drink them at 10am yes. No sane person would do that.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, are you trying to drink? I mean I usually wait till like later in the day before I even.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, really?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, because like it's a good kickstarter.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This isn't part of the app, by the way. I'm just like, like, come on, Tim.

[Andy Cortez]

Like, you know, I mean, listen, if you want to go back there and.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Take a five hour energy, go rummage to his desk. Also shout out to Tim. Another not sponsored thing. Went on a trip on Thursday to go play a game somewhere. I was like, tim, can I borrow them X Real glasses for the flight? Ooh. He said, sure thing. Oh, lend me the X ray glasses. And now the Y button does work. Sticky, sticky glasses have a little sticky.

[Andy Cortez]

All the Mountain Dew, man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's. Yeah, it changed the game, really. And it's unfortunate, you know what I mean?

[Andy Cortez]

Like, how much are these x real?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They're five. They're 500.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, I don't know if I'm down. Well, maybe I borrow them and see this 500. That's like the price point where I'm like, steam Deck, it's got to be life changing for $500 for me Steam.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Deck in my lap, not having to do the fucking, you know. Oh yeah, it's so nice, dude. So nice.

[Andy Cortez]

Hear that? Me on a plane with that and Hades too. Forget about it. Forget about it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm going to go to Tim's house, do the little like. Is it chloroform with the white. Yeah, with the rag.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Knock him out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Take glasses. And he's like, they were in your bag the whole time. You have them.

[Andy Cortez]

We got to talk about Steam Next Fest.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Of course. Steam Next Fest comes around six times a year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Twice a year.

[Andy Cortez]

Is it really only twice a year?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's twice a year.

[Andy Cortez]

No way.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes, it's twice a year. This is.

[Andy Cortez]

This has to be at least the first, fifth Steam Next Fest in the last.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, we've been over this. It's because you open Steam every time and it's like RPG Fest where they sell RPG games on sale. And then the next one would be like, here's a party game, bundle pack party or whatever, and all the party games are on sale. And then it's like Roglide Mania Fest or whatever. But those are all just sales for existing games. Steam Next Fest is twice a year and it's always for games.

[Andy Cortez]

Let me tell you, nobody loves fests.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That are not out yet.

[Andy Cortez]

Nobody loves fests more than Steam and the Republican candidate for mayor in New York. Like this. So that's a reference to the debate. He was there talking about parades. Forget about it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was hilarious.

[Andy Cortez]

It was. It dominated my feed and I had to watch every single fucking clip of like Mamdani just being like, you know, given. Always giving the straightforward answer. Like he's is the smart dude in the room. Obviously you cut to Cuomo, who just copies the last parade and then cut.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

To sleep and be at every parade at the same time.

[Andy Cortez]

He's like, I want to go to every fucking parade. Like, who is this guy?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I made a joke comparing sleeve. It's a chicorita. Picking my Pokemon this weekend. Yeah. Because like, it was between Totodile and Tepig the whole time. It was just like, who's it gonna be? And Chikorita is just over there in the corner being like, excuse me. I thought this was a three person debate. This is.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I thought this.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I thought, you know, why am I not getting to say here? Yeah, like, someone photoshopped the Sliwa hat onto Chikorita. Oh, that's. That's so perfect.

[Andy Cortez]

You see the clip where he was like. They were like asking him like, oh, yeah, a lot of people don't like the hat. And he was like, well, I wear the hat in honor of like, people who, who died, like, you know, in the 80s or. But if y' all vote for me, I'll take off the hat. I was like, this motherfucker has fucking no honor. But Steam Next Fest happened.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

I assume every Steam Next Fest, I always assume that you're checking out the game stuff. My. The hierarchy of my most anticipated game for the rest of the year has changed because of Steam Next Fest. When I tell you Luminesce Arise is fucking different.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Luminous Arise, I was streaming it yesterday. I was streaming a bunch of Steam Next Fest games. When I started playing Luminous Arise, I went non verbal for about 30 minutes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yep. It was hard to stream that game.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hard to talk.

[Andy Cortez]

Hard to talk.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And I just lost myself. And I'd be like, every 10 minutes I'd have to go, I'm supposed to be entertaining you all, but I'm just like, in it.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm just mesmerized. Yeah, it's. It's incredible. Tetris effect, I love. I think we all play Touches effect. Right? And like that game obviously does a lot of the same things as far as what it's doing, visuals and sound and bringing all that together and like creating something that's as much of an engaging puzzle game as it is, like just a work of art and experience that you're going through. I feel like Luminous Arise takes what Tetris effects did and like, levels it up even further, which I wasn't expecting. I thought it was just going to Be more Tetris effect, but this is almost like better Tetris effect. Not saying that Luminous is better than Tetris, but you get what I mean as far as like the visuals and all that stuff.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The club bit was great though. Andy. Thank you. Jump was just trying to find any way to entertain. So while the loud music was playing, I was just like, so where are you from?

[Andy Cortez]

It does feel like that. Yeah, it feels like a rave.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Music is pumping. I was like, no, no, no, no. I. I review video games.

[Andy Cortez]

You come here often?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, no, I don't. I don't play FIFA. I don't play FIFA. You know, just like a lot of that, you know. But yeah, the game is fantastic. Shout out to Wasp and the homie for telling me like, hey, play the demo. This thing's amazing. And because I just played the demo for Reanimal, I did that too. Which. Fucking awesome. Yeah, really, really good. Scariest Shit. Uneasy Unsettling. Looks like it's going to be a scarier sequel to Inside from the Play Dead devs that we never got a sequel for. You know what I mean?

[Andy Cortez]

Like, whatever happened to them?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It was awesome. I really enjoyed that experience. And then was looking for another demo to hop on, hop onto and for the video watches. This is Re Animal right here from the devs who made Little Nightmares 1 and 2. Yep. Reanimal, they're brand new co op or single player. Little spooky experience. Really, really good looking, really good looking game.

[Andy Cortez]

And also I like how dynamic the camera angles are in this game. I know that's such a specific compliment to give it, but I did the preview event for Little Nightmares 3 and that was my first time playing a Little Nightmares game and I thought it was really cool. But you can tell that when you're playing Reanimal that this is a team that's worked on the first two Little Nightmares and. And they're learning and doing things that are pushing that forward. Right. Like it doesn't feel like a. It doesn't feel like a 2D platformer.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right, right.

[Andy Cortez]

Like it feels like it is this puzzle, adventure, horror thing that you're going through. And so yeah, did Skate Story as well.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, nice.

[Andy Cortez]

Skate Story was cool. Skate Story, though, I. I had ups and downs with it where I. It doesn't play the exact way I thought it was going to play, which I think is just going to make it an adjustment for me learning the game because you would look at this game and think that it plays like skate. I guess far as the control scheme the control scheme is not like skate. You're not using the right analog stick for your ollies and tricks and stuff. Instead you like hold circle to jump. You like use R1 and like your shoulder buttons for modifiers for chicks and stuff. And it's a weird learning curve that I couldn't, I couldn't all the way get there. I'm sure once I play the full game and spend more time with it, I'm sure I'll get there. But the compliment that I'll give this game is it does feel like what if the devs that made Tetris effects made a hate game where it is so much about the audio experience, the visuals, like guiding you through this really curated. Oh, we're making you feel feels just by visuals and audio. And there's like story there too that gets into weird abstract shit. But this is a really cool demo to experience as well.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This one looks fantastic. Need this one to hit for Fantasy critic for me.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, this is on your fantasy critic.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Know what else you need to hit for you? Demon School. Picked up Demon School. Oh, you did threaten to take away this parking spot, so I had to. Wow. Do it. Yeah, wow. Really have to do it. Is. Is Ninja Gaiden 4 out today? I haven't seen any type of reviews on it. Good news for you all. We will be reviewing it live on the Gamescast today at 4pm because that's the embargo. And we were like, should we wait to review it till the next day? No, let's just push Gamescast to 4pm because today's a bit of a, you know, we're kind of reshuffling the day. Yeah, it's, it's a more. You know, I'm sure you all are going to pop into the kind of funny podcast live feed today and go, Where's Gamescast at? It's at 4pm Remember that we're going.

[Andy Cortez]

To say it multiple times throughout the course of this episode. We're going to get questions from people in chat and I need y' all to answer the other people in chat that came in late.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes, maybe pin the message. But yeah, we all, you, me and Roger have all played and I believe beat Ninja Gaiden 4.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, I know me and Roger have.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I beat it yesterday.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, well, it's going to be a conversation, but we'll save that conversation for later because for now let me remind you that this is kind of funny Games Daily, each and every week, they run you through the nerdy news you need to know about live on YouTube, Twitch and on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify and Apple podcasts to get all of our shows ad free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show for a chance to be a part of the show. Some of your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Some housekeeping for you. We're an 11 person business all about live talk shows. Like Andy said, we've been playing Ninja Gaiden 4. The review embargo is later today. So today's programming goes like this. After this episode you're getting the kind of funny podcast. Then after that the stream is Nick and Andy playing Pokemon Z to a. Then at 4pm we'll review Ninja Gaiden.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

4 on the Gamescast, 4pm Pacific Time, 7pm Eastern.

[Andy Cortez]

If you're a Kind of Funny member, today's Greg Way is 20 minutes of Roger's review of Splinter Cell Death Watch. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining. Today we're brought to you or yeah, today we're brought to you by what I mentioned earlier, Five Hour Energy and the Outer Worlds 2. But we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. It's time for some news. We have six stories today of Baker's Dozen.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I also have a very important story to tell that I will be telling on the stream today. Oh, so I'm really nervous about this story. Yeah, I. In a rare moment, you know, Andy doesn't often take care of Lulu. But in a rare moment of need. We were out for a majority of the day on Saturday and I was like, hey, around five, can you take Lulu out to the backyard so she can go potty and then feed her and that's all you need to do.

[Andy Cortez]

We'll be back a little bit later.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But we come home and he's like, I have a little adventure to tell you, but I'm gonna save it for content. And I was like, what not? Why not just tell me now? Did she escape and run free in the city? Find out.

[Andy Cortez]

Whoa.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Today on the stream, that's the last.

[Andy Cortez]

Dog you want to escape. Let me tell you, Lulu is a threat to society.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm more scared for the world around me.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. No, I'm not scared for Lulu. I'm scared for everybody else. Get out the way, guys.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

She just knows you're fearful of her and that's why she bullies you. Bless. I love her, guys. I love her.

[Andy Cortez]

And there's a reason for me to be fearful of her.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Here's the thing. Bless.

[Andy Cortez]

I tried to pet her one time.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You were alone in the house with her. Not a, not a defensive growl to be seen or heard. Yeah, she only does that if Barrett or Alyssa are around. She doesn't do it. So if she, if you, like, run into her on the street and you're like, yo, what up, Lulu with her dog walker, she's like, I'm cool, but it's only if they're home. Yeah. When she's alone, she's just like, what? Chilling, Chill. Lets me pick her up, you know, Fucking.

[Andy Cortez]

He, like, puts away her friend. A guy, friend group, a personality goes away. Yeah, exactly. God. Store number one Xbox boss says Ally X Handheld's eye watering $1,000 price point was set by Asus because this is their hardware. This is from Tom Phillips at ign. Xbox has addressed the Rog Ally X handheld's controversial thousand dollar price point and said it had been hardware maker ASUS that ultimately decided how much to charge while released as Xbox branded devices with access to your Xbox library and Game Pass built in. The $600 Rog Ally and $1,000 Rog Ally X are ultimately Asus made handhelds and because of this, Asus set the price. That's according to Xbox president Sarah Bond, who told Variety that Asus had used its insights into the market into the feature set, into what people want to determine the ultimate prices of the devices, end quote. Despite the price, response to the Ally X in particular has been positive. IGN dubbed the device as the new handheld gaming PC to beat in. Our ASUS Rog Ally X review, though, noted that its cost was the elephant in the room with the handheld handhelds now available. Bond has suggested that sales of the devices, at launch at least had not been impacted by concerns around its cost quote. The reaction was overwhelming demand for the device, Bond said. We sold out on the Xbox store. We sold really quickly at a number of place, a number of other places around the world. I feel really good about the value that we're giving gamers for the price based off the reception to the hardware, end quote.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

A lot of people in chat already.

[Andy Cortez]

Saying shift blame Mike, shift blame Sir Bond.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Chad, Chad, put Asus. That's. Don't, don't look at me.

[Andy Cortez]

That's their hardware though. Don't look at their hardware.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They've been listening to X cast Too much. You know, hey, look at Asus. Blame them.

[Andy Cortez]

That's hilarious.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, so this is kind of a fascinating thing that I wouldn't have expected to hear. I would have just expected, like, hey, that's what the market calls for. You know, it's usually you. I. I'm not saying that Sarah Bond ever said blame Asus. I'm saying that she's just like, well, it's their product, whatever. But, you know, usually you still want to do the quarterback thing and go, well, I control all. You know, I. You know, the responsibility lies with me. And that's, you know, also the market dictates, blah, blah, blah. It's kind of weird to say it without saying it. And we know what she's saying. I think any rational person gets that. But kind of odd in a press release, like, it's not a great quote to see. Well, Asu, that's Asus Price. Sorry. Like, fuck. But it's like, okay, well, you all were also, like, really, really tied into a lot of the marketing, and you all were showing this thing off. And, you know, this is like kind of your baby as well, ownership there. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Because I do read it as, like, just a very frank statement of like, hey, it's their hardware. Like, I kind of get that energy, especially as Xbox, where you're, You're. You're getting hit from all sides as far as pr, as far as marketing, as far as all these.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sick of this. Yeah, yeah. And I feel like.

[Andy Cortez]

I feel like, you know, it's that thing where so much is your fault, then when something happens that's not necessarily your fault, you're like, hey, man, fuck, you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Lose them. Like, this one wasn't us.

[Andy Cortez]

This one wasn't us. The other ones, no, those are us. But this one, this one right here, this on Asus. Look at the other Rog. Ally.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know what I mean? That's expensive, too.

[Andy Cortez]

Why are we mad about that?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Go buy a Legion. Go. That shit's 1400 doll. Whatever. I get it. Like, you're totally right. And it is just. It is still kind of. Kind of weird to. To see it worded that way. And I think maybe it wasn't even worded that way necessarily. It's just the way that this quote looks on paper feels a bit of like that's their. I don't know, like, don't get, you know. You know, it's not like you're only our logo on it. Yeah. Like, it's, it's, you know, it's. It does have our logo. That we gave them permission that we like and we debuted it on our own. We.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, we, we, you know, we had it in the Xbox Showcase and we.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Kind of tied it with one of the biggest indie games coming out this year. Even though it. That was a really weird thing to do.

[Andy Cortez]

We had it at the press thing at Pax for people to play in our Microsoft tech world. Yeah, I mean, but hey, hey, hey.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know, this is Asus kind of get it. And I think at that, I think at that point I would have just said, you know, that's the, that's the, that's what the hardware goes for these days. That, that's kind of. When we talk about terrorists, we talk about processors and chipsets and all of that stuff. That's kind of where the price needs to be for the power that you're getting. Is. Would have been my statement, but I'm not PR all the time.

[Andy Cortez]

And she also does. Chloe, in the final part to the statement in the article at least, right. She talks about how the. When you go by the sales of the device, right, like it's doing well, saying it outsold on the Xbox Store and they're all. And she's also saying here that when you look at another number of other places around the world, like the. It's flying off shelves apparently. And I look at that, I'm like, all right, cool. Well then maybe you did set the price point where it needs to be.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right?

[Andy Cortez]

Like, I think there's a level of. From the manufacturer side. Hey, what are our expectations for this thing? I remember going back and forth with, I think Tim, talking about how much do we expect the Asus Rog Xbox Ally X to actually sell.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think I know that you crushed it, bro.

[Andy Cortez]

How much do we actually expect that to sell? To sell? And I'm over here, like, I don't expect it to sell. Got to sell that much. Like, I, I'm looking at this as a conservative. Hey, it's a partnership with us in a very particular PC manufacturer. Like, at the end of the day, this is a PC handheld with Xbox branding on it. What is the audience for that? And how much of these are we actually going to make? I look at this and I go, okay, well, they probably, they probably set their expectations in the right place. I'm very fascinated to see what the numbers are at the end of the day of how much this thing sold. I want to bring in some super chats for you. Kyle Booth says, writes in and says, bold of you to assume that people consuming gaming News and media are rational, Andy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, if so true, that's. You always kind of have to start off with that, you know, you have to preface every statement with that. Yeah, it's why you always want to. Like, whenever I talk about everything, I always wish that I just had floating lower thirds everywhere. Oh, every statement that I'm making, you know, like, if I'm talking about difficulty in games to get people to not make fun of me and be like, you know, oh, you suck. You know, like just have a floating third beat sort of nation and 12 tries, you know, like, you know, like, I always need just info so the outer context of where you're coming from.

[Andy Cortez]

I want. I want gamer stats just always. And I want it to be like watchdogs, where I look at Andy and then the gamer stats pop up.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like Andy, that stuff pops up and then Blessing talks about something. It's like, I played X amount of Sonic games.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Or like, I. It'll be X amount of Sonic games. I'm this my exact rank in Tekken. And like, I don't. I need a speedrun seiro so I can add that as. As a stat because I want to do that someday.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hovers over, like, my little, like, character avatar and it says has a cool story about what happened this weekend on the kind of funny stream.

[Andy Cortez]

It's a cool story.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Pokemon crazy.

[Andy Cortez]

Are you on the. Are you on kfpod?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No. Okay. I'm really nervous about this story.

[Andy Cortez]

Let's see here. More super chats. We got one from Raymond K. Hessel, who says, I just started yote and I don't get why the reviewers are hating on it, which I'm gonna get back to. Ghost was a steak dinner and people are complaining that we got another steak dinner. Come on, y'.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

All.

[Andy Cortez]

Learn to appreciate.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Before you do anything.

[Andy Cortez]

Before you do anything before you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because they say reviewers are hating on it. Where.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, that's my exact question. Where Barrett's brought up the Metacritic where reviewers are hating on it. The lowest that I think I've seen is an 8 out of 10.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Eurogamer with a 3 out of 5. Is probably the lowest that I. I've seen. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah, I guess so. But that's not even hating. I'm pretty sure that's probably okay to good on their scale, which I'm not hating on anybody for saying okay to good for. For Ghost of Yote.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Raymond, thank you for the 10 super chat. If you were a content creator like us, you would also Be looking in the comments of focusing on the two negative comments. Yeah, yeah. You know, like, I, I, I get it. I get, I understand the mentality. So, you know, sometimes it just gets to you and you, you go, what? You know, I saw a couple of negative tweets about it or whatever. But very, very largely, you know, widely loved video game, I would say.

[Andy Cortez]

I will say the Street Shadow chat says, I think he's talking mainly about the Skill up review to which I watched the Skill up review. I think Skill up had a very fantastic review of Ghost of Yote. Here's my thing. Be okay with people having different fucking opinions than you. You know what I mean? Like, if you really think video games are art, then you should also think it's okay for people to have their own interpretations of that art. Not everybody needs to be on the same page as far as how they take in something.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Damn, 100%.

[Andy Cortez]

Why are you watching reviews if you're mad when people review something in a different way than you would with different opinions than you would have. Grow up.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Grow up.

[Andy Cortez]

Thank you for your super chat. Thank you for the money.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Grow up.

[Andy Cortez]

But thank you for the money. Zeke Speak says, is it a slow news day? Because I have off topic Rex for you. It's kind of a slow news day. What's funny is that WE News is popping. I can't wait to get to WE News because there's some popping in WE News, but throw. Throw Matis.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Exciting. Calvin Perez with a $5 super jet says, last week I said I had a dream Andy was arrested for murder. And Tim said Andy didn't have it in him. I. I saw him shoot an innocent raider live on stream. Okay, that was, that was a tough one. The. We'll get to, you know, arc raiders talk later on in today's show because we have some arc Raider stuff to talk about, but, you know, I'm not proud about what happened this weekend.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, no. A lot of stories from this weekend.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

A lot of stories this weekend. A lot of stories.

[Andy Cortez]

Story number two, Resident Evil 0 remake casting seemingly found as lead actor refers to Project Chamber in his resume. This is from Chris Scolion at Video Games. Chronicle reports that a Resident Evil 0 remake is in the works. Have been given more weight following the discovery of a possible reference to the project in an actor's resume. Last year, Dusk Golem, who has a history of reporting on the Resident Evil series, claimed that remakes of Resident Evil 0 and Resident Evil code Veronica were in development, something VGC also understands to be the case. Now, MP first has found further evidence which appears to confirmed who confirmed who will play one of the leads in the Resident Evil 0 remake. Under the voice section in the online resume of actor John McLaren, who played star Lord in the video game version of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. Oh, that dude rules. McLaren refers to project Chamber, which he says is an upcoming AAA video game in which he'll be playing the lead role. Resident Evil 0's main protagonist is Rebecca Chambers, and McLaren bears a resemblance to its other playable character, convict Billy Cohen, making it possible that McLaren is playing the character in the Resident Evil 0 remake. Lending further likelihood to. This is McLaren's confirmation that his Project Chamber work was done at Beyond Capture Studios, a casting and capturing studio which specializes in video games. Beyond Capture Studios previously undertook casting, performance, capture, and motion capture work for. For the Resident Evil 4 remake and its separate ways DLC, making it likely that Capcom would be using its services again for future Resident Evil remakes. Feel like we're doing a little bit of reaching, but I. I believe it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, yeah, it's not like Capcom doesn't have a resume for remaking their old classics. Exactly. Resident Evil is one that I am extremely unfamiliar with. I. Was that like, a GameCube exclusive, I believe.

[Andy Cortez]

Ooh, Resident Evil 0.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I can look it up because I just don't quite recall the.

[Andy Cortez]

I think you're right. It originally, I believe, came out on GameCube, but then later on came to, like, PS4 and other things. I have it listed here on yes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Chat says yes for GameCube. Yeah, the trailer I was showing was when it was. When it launched.

[Andy Cortez]

Was that part of the Capcom 5 chat? There's the Capcom 5, right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, it.

[Andy Cortez]

Wasn't that, like, five exclusive games coming to GameCube?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Do you take on the Yote 6?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, this is Yote 6. Capcom 5, the Elite 4, the Big 3, the.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I got nothing for you. Terrible Twos.

[Andy Cortez]

Terrible, Terrible Twos.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And the Dynamic Duo. Says someone in the chat. Dynamic Duo. That's a good one. Yeah. No, but you need the number. You. You can't just say duo.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, and I feel like you need to have, like. Who is the Dynamic Duo? You know what I mean? Like, all those that I listed are.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Referring to specific things, and the one is the movie with Jet Li.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, that's good. I like that. I like that. I'm looking up the cap.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Number one two is not a number three. Nobody remembers. Remember that one?

[Andy Cortez]

No.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You don't remember that song? No, I am number one two. Who's not a number. And three, nobody remembers. Oh, Nelly.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, wait, maybe I do. You don't sound like Nelly.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He's doing it very. Okay, he's not doing it.

[Andy Cortez]

Just. When you say Nelly, now I can hear it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, like what you want me to.

[Andy Cortez]

I get anime. You know, Nelly's not. Nelly's not that chill. Because that's that one song.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Nelly's not that Chill.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, Nelly's like. You know, he gets up there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Thank you. Guitar by Chances. I thought Andy nailed it. Yeah, exactly.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm looking at the Capcom 5 here, but it's only when I click into.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I've never heard of Capcom 5.

[Andy Cortez]

I only see four games for all the Capcom 5 stuff. Did the fifth game never come out? Chat. But I see Beautiful Joe.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Pretty sure they made of Resident Evil 4.

[Andy Cortez]

Killer 7 product number piano 3. Is that one of them? I've never heard of that game. And then beautiful Joe 2, is that the Capcom 5. One got canceled. Okay, one of them got canceled. Dead Phoenix never came.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hero of Time said something really funny in chat. It's graded on accuracy, not musical ability.

[Andy Cortez]

You know what?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Fair. Okay, back to the story.

[Andy Cortez]

What story were you on? Capcom for Resident Evil 0.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Resident Evil 0?

[Andy Cortez]

Does that excite you if you see Resident Evil 0 remake get announced?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The only reason I would say yes is because of where that software is tied to and stuck on and held back by. You know what I mean?

[Andy Cortez]

I will say, I do believe that there have been remasters. Like you can play it on PS4, which means you can play.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, shit.

[Andy Cortez]

Word.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, yeah, I didn't know that.

[Andy Cortez]

Like there's. Yeah, it's been port ported, I guess.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, well, damn.

[Andy Cortez]

But also, like, I. Here's my thing. Is that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Is that why the footage was looking so damn clear? I was like, damn, this is just like a PC. Yeah, that was the PS4. Looks like somebody like, you know, fucking pirated on PC or something like that.

[Andy Cortez]

What I will say is that Capcom hasn't really missed with the Resident Evil remix. Like, I feel like the only one that I'll kind of call a miss. But also, I wouldn't even say it's a miss. Is a Resident Evil remake 3 or Resident Evil 3. I mean. Yeah, and that's like. I think that's just them doing what they could with what they had.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That felt like a side project. They were like, hey, we have a free weekend. You know what I mean? Yeah, but. But quality wise, obviously, the visually looks stunning. It was. It added the dodge, which is really, really nice. Like, I, I, that's one that I haven't fully played through. But I, Yeah, I think we also just maybe think that because Resident Evil 3 is a shorter game. Yeah. In scale and it's not quite as grandiose as two or four is. It's kind of like the little awkward middle child, you know? But yeah, I think a Zero remake, I think any of these remakes with what Capcom can do quality wise, knowing that Capcom seal of approval, like, it's a pretty high bar for what these remakes are. Yeah, I think it could be really, really awesome to see those characters reimagined and how they would look nowadays.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm pro remake in general. I'm gonna go my presidential run. 2020.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay. All right.

[Andy Cortez]

We're doing it early. 2026, I think will be the year of me evangelizing remix and preaching the good gospel about remix.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay. I thought 2026 was what was tactical. Tactical, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

But then, you know, the more I.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Say I'm not a one issue voter.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm not. Yeah. I can have multiple platforms here.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

If Mumdani can do it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're running out on everything.

[Andy Cortez]

We're running on everything.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think that could be really, really neat. But I, I also do really like the voice actor who was John McLaren, who was star Lord. I thought he had an awesome voice. So that could be a really cool little combination there.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Also, I mean, I guess that means new vo, which is exciting. I know, I'm sure. I assume that's not a new thing for these Capcom.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. But like, that signifies that it's more than just like a remaster or anything. Right. Like you're going in and you're actually making this align with what your other remakes look like, which I think is exciting.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. But Zero was also in the like, zero was still a similar to three and two. Like a fixed camera, right?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, probably.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm pretty sure. So, yeah, that, I mean, to get the massive shift to third person would be awesome. Like, I think that's a massive dub. To see it get the same treatment that 2 and, well, 4 didn't get it. But the same treatment that 2 and 3 got could be really cool.

[Andy Cortez]

You know what else is a massive dub subscribing to patreon.com kind of funny and YouTube.com/kind of funny games where you can get the kind of funny membership which allows you to get shows ad free. And speaking of ads, let us tell you about our sponsors. Greetings taste buddies. Wishing you could sip the bold taste of tomorrow today. Now you can with the ripest flavor creations from your friends, the makers of five Hour Energy. First up, we've got Mock Melon Brew five Hour Energy Shots. Inspired by the new video game the Outer Worlds, two Mock Melon Brew five Hour Energy Shots have entered the flavor verse.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Why bother with messy vines and sticky.

[Andy Cortez]

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[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's got sweet juicy grape, zealously zesty lime and a warm ginger kick.

[Andy Cortez]

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[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You'Ll receive a unique code to unlock.

[Andy Cortez]

Exclusive the Outer Worlds 2 in game content. Blast through the Outer Worlds 2 in style with an exclusive skin for your Raptodon in Game pet brought to you by Five Hour Energy. Get your real mock flavor online at Five Hour Energy.com and Amazon while supplies last. This episode is brought to you by Battlefield 6. Battlefield 6 is the ultimate all out warfare experience. Rip through the skies in aerial dogfights. Demolish your surroundings for a strategic advantage.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

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[Andy Cortez]

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[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

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[Andy Cortez]

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[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the.

[Andy Cortez]

Secure messaging app that brings the whole group together.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with N2 encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn [e-mail] Limu game and Doug Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating.

[Andy Cortez]

It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com Savings very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company affiliates.

[Andy Cortez]

Excludes Massachusetts. When I was there, you had to have a knife. One of you's got to take turns carrying it up your rectum. Wait, it's up your butt. That's the prison wallet. You never leave home alone. You have something protected around it, I'm assuming.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, or else you'd be bleeding out your cooler.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm Arianna Van Zeller and after reporting on black markets for my Emmy winning National Geographic show, trafficked, I'm launching a podcast.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're getting emotional on me.

[Andy Cortez]

Intimate conversations with those operating in the shadows. The Hidden Third is out now with new episodes every Wednesday. [e-mail] Marianavan Zeller Follow Us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Yeah, like for me it's. It's Ride with Me. Hot in here. The hits. Like Nelly. I was never like. I think I was too young at the time to really dig deep into the Nelly bag. And so for me it's the hits.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Huh.

[Andy Cortez]

And like number one. I'm sure that came on, but I don't think that was. That wasn't on repeat. Like just the dream was. Remember just a dream. It was only just a dream.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, I don't remember that.

[Andy Cortez]

Thinking about her, thinking about me.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, that's a Nelly song.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it came out later though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was like in his country era.

[Andy Cortez]

Yes. It was like 08.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's where he lost me.

[Andy Cortez]

It was only just the dream.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Middle school was. Middle school was like Nelly Creed and Jay Z. I was very diverse. Blink 182 as well. You know, you're like underground king over here. Like I with Arms Wide Open. Hit next on the track and it'd be.

[Andy Cortez]

You know, that was a song right there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Very, very diverse thoughts.

[Andy Cortez]

Story number three, Arc Raiders is already the biggest extraction shooter ever on Steam and it's not even out yet. This is Wesley in Pool at ign. Arc Raiders has ended its Server Slam playtest with a big peak concurrent player number on Steam, suggesting a strong launch is ahead. The open Server Slam ran over the weekend on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PS5 and Xbox Series X and S. It offered the final chance to play Embark Studios extraction shooter ahead of its October 30th release date on Steam. Arc Raiders hit a peak concurrent player count of 189,668, making it one of the most played games on Valve's platform over the weekend. That's enough to make Arc Raiders the Biggest extraction shooter ever on Steam. Escape from Tarkov might have something to say about that when it finally launches on Steam in November. However, Arc Raiders true peak concurrent player number across all platforms will be higher than the Steam figure. But neither Epic, Sony nor Microsoft make their numbers public. Still, 190,000 on Steam for an open beta is very strong. Not Battlefield six strong. It's open beta peaked with more than half a million players in August. But certainly strong enough to suggest Arc Raiders has a decent chance of making an impression on the gaming landscape at the end of the month.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Massive.

[Andy Cortez]

So Escape from Tarkov isn't on Steam.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Escape from Tarkov requires their own launcher.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's one of them special games.

[Andy Cortez]

God.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

If you. You may have been headphones on during the drama of them trying to purchase the game where. Wait, they have. No, no, no. I'm sorry, Nick and Mike. Sorry. When Nick and Mike were going to stream the game, there was a lot of going to the website, signing up, waiting for an email confirmation, you know, sending of money. Like it's. It's a weird kind of concept of money. Yeah, you know, it's. It's one of those kind of fascinating games similar to. I'm trying to think of any other company that like. Similar to when Dark and Darker was taken off of Steam and required you to go to their website and kind of like download their own launcher, download their own executable file.

[Andy Cortez]

He took kind of an obscure example they were talking about. I found it even more obscure. Obscure example to share with me. It's kind of like a Dark and Darker situation. Oh yes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I know all about it.

[Andy Cortez]

I know all about Dark and they.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Got taken off of Steam. But yeah, you have to. You basically just get emailed an e.exe file by some random dude in no. Russia or something. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

That's crazy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Somebody in chat says like Minecraft.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh yeah, Minecraft is a much better.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I feel like back in the.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Day, like better example, I wanted to.

[Andy Cortez]

Play Minecraft one time and it just got weird. I was like, what are we doing here? Let me just play the game. Why am I doing all these different weird things?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, buying it from the window store and all this sort of stuff. But yeah, this is. I mean this is like really, really big news for something. Like the amount of enthusiasm I've seen on not only just social media, but from a lot of people who were able to play this most recent server slam along with Crossplay Ready to Rock with everybody on console playing as well. It Just felt like a. Like. Oh, shit. There's some. There's a groundswell of enthusiasm and hype for this and momentum.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And. Holy. You gotta. You gotta be worried if you're a Bungie dev right now.

[Andy Cortez]

Are we entering into the extraction era? I know we're kind of already there because everybody's trying to make an Extraction shooter or whatever, but I feel like it's always kind of been dominated by Tarkov in a few games.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, I'd say it's only really been. I. I think because of the player unfriendliness of the genre, it can feel that way now. I think that. I think Embark Studios has kind of found some really cool happy mediums for how to. We did a. We did a sponsored interview with them last week, me and Greg, and talked about some really happy mediums that they found so that players don't feel like complete shit when you lose your. Your gear or whatever if you go out for a run. But I. I think the game is just. I think it's really solid and. And fun so far. And the amount of, you know, running away from people, communicating with people in the world, getting scared, I think it's like. I think it's opening up a new genre for a lot of people that haven't really hopped into a genre like this, especially on the console side of things.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

For people on console to go. I'm just used to battle royales and the whole, you know, try to be the last one standing. And this is a. The risk reward of we got to leave now. We have no gear. If we get into a fight, we will lose. But we have a couple of cool things that I really want to bring back for this mission. We need to extract right the hell now because the robots are going crazy and they're off on a fight right now. Quick, now's our time to bail. Like, there's just so many dynamic situations that happen in this video game and I'm just really, really pumped up that more and more people kind of were awakened to it this weekend.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Well, let's shift gears and talk about a different kind of extraction game. With story number four, Escape from Duckov ah is blowing up on Steam. That is Duckov spelled D U C K O V. Escape from Duckov. This is Wesleyan Pool at ign. Escape from Duck off is an unlikely hit on Steam. After half a million sales and in big concurrence over the weekend, the parody of extraction shooter Escape from Tarov is riding high with 173,394 peak concurrence players on Valve's platform. That's enough to make it the sixth most played game on Steam right now. Only Delta Force Battlefield 6, PUBG, Dota 2 and Counter Strike 2 are more popular right now. Escape from dukov is a PvE top down looter shooter game in which you scavenge for resources, build your hideout and upgrade your gear. Quote Start from nothing and rise to the top, reads the official blurb. Outwit hostile, Hostile Ducks survive or make it out alive. Following its launch on October 16, Team Soda's game sold an additional 500,000 copies. Over the weekend, its Steam user review rating is sitting pretty at overwhelmingly positive. At this moment, the entire dev team is quacking with joy and flapping our wings in excitement, reads a statement. Escape From Tarkov, meanwhile, hit steam on November 15th. This is hilarious because I my entire exposure up until now to Escape From Duckhov has been seeing it in my emails non stop for the last few months. And every single time I see it, like I, I at first I'm like why am I getting emailed about Tarkov? And I ignore it. And then I'm like, oh wait, this is the duck game that wants to be Escape from Tarkov. Oh that's cute. And then I move on with my day. I had no idea it was going to be on this level.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's a weird one because this feels like a really late surge of momentum because this game came out, I don't know, maybe two months, three months ago, something like that. It's been a while since we've sort of seen this game be talked about at least. Or maybe it was just out in early access demos.

[Andy Cortez]

I think it was early access because I think it only officially came out the 16th.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, because yeah, it must have been early access then, which is usually when a lot of games like this kind of find a random explosion of, of fanfare, right? And it's, it really is kind of. It's the lottery. Sometimes it just hits for no real reason, sometimes it just takes the right people playing it and word of mouth sort of spreads. And this is one that I was like, okay, this is, this is kind of cute. Maybe we play this on a kind of funny stream, but to see that it's still like just massively popping off in this way is I think really surprising and cool. And it's another one of these big success stories that you see in the indie space, that it's a cheap game that just happens to hit with the right amount of people at the right time. And you know, I always go with the multiverse theory. You know, in other multiverses this is not popping off and it's another random game that happened to hit. But in this universe it's like all of this shit, it just happened to work right now. Reminds me of battlebit Remastered. If you remember that video game which was Battle Bit Remastered was a battlefield sort of looking Roblox type of video game that was super lo fi with a lot of destruction because all the characters were so blocky and the environments were also blocky. But battlebit Remastered was another one of these massive success stories from a couple years ago that blew the hell up and was one of these similar like 120 concurrents on Steam selling a shitload of copies because it's a, you know, ten dollar game or under ten dollar game. And it just kind of finds a groundswell of enthusiasm. A lot of people just sort of hop in. So another one of these stories for this year because this has happened a lot.

[Andy Cortez]

This Mega Bonk peak being another one of those. Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like I feel like there's this section one.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Or section schedule. Schedule one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Schedule one. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. I feel like there's. I feel like you can never tell you're right about you never know theory what's gonna pop off.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Or. Or not.

[Andy Cortez]

And I. I wonder if there is something that all these games have in common. What's the price? What's the price point on Duck Off? I'm looking the up.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. I mean how much is schedule one? It's got to be under $10. I'm assuming. I don't see that many people like when they. When it's a purchase that you can make. Similar to buying bubble gum in the aisle.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

When it's just like the added aisle. When it's just you're. You're looking through Steam you got disposable income. Or if you don't have disposable income, but you're like oh it's 8 bucks or it's 11. Sweet. I'm hopping in right now.

[Andy Cortez]

It's 15.83 the. And that's like on sale. That's a 12 discount. Or it'll be 18.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, gotcha.

[Andy Cortez]

Full price. How much is schedule one? Schedule one is 20 bucks. I feel like that $20 range like sub $20 does a lot.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Silksong also was $20. Right. And that made a lot of waves for being at that price point as.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well also just gang, you know, I mean that game Also just had massive amounts of hype. Oh, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, that game could have came out at 30 bucks and still I think went crazy. But I think that $20, I feel like $20, is that like kind of what you're talking about? It be being at the store being like, oh, I'll grab this too.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's.

[Andy Cortez]

I can swing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. I would rather buy two $20 games than one $70 game.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Is where most people are probably thinking and, you know, looking at that price point. This is one of those type of titles where if you're the developer, you just, you ride this wave and you start working on that next game now, because this game won't be alive in, in a year. This game won't have these numbers, you know.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And maybe on the 1% chance that it decides to just kind of continue, it's like, oh, shit, that game still has. Is doing numbers. But we've seen this happen time and time again where, you know, maybe you, maybe you pour a lot of resources into the continued development of Escape From Duck off and then you go, oh, shit, we hired, you know, six people to continue working and making this game bigger and better.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And seven months in and now our player count is down to 6,000. You know, don't, you know, obviously, who am I, your laurels. Yeah. Who am I to give you financial advice? But I would like, I would just think about all the other games that have had this explosion of success out of nowhere and then disappear from the public conversation three months from now.

[Andy Cortez]

What's the word on peak? I'm looking up the peak. Steam db. I've been seeing Steam DB pop up more and more on social media as a way to like, I guess, judge how a game is doing when that could be very hit or miss. That I've seen. I mean, peak right now, so has 15, almost 16,000 people. But you're talking. But like at the peak, right, it had like 170,000, which kind of, I think lends a little bit to where you're saying of, hey, like pun intended, you're not always going to be at your peak.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. But also, you know, peak is a game that doesn't. Oh, wait, did you say Duck off was a PvE game?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Isn't that a PvP PvE? Okay. Damn. That's a different story then. Because I'm just thinking of not needing a massive player base with matchmaking and all that.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah, I get what you're saying. Where's the rematch at? I hope rematch is doing well. How you not look up the Steam, DBS or everything. It's not my business.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not my business.

[Andy Cortez]

It's not my business. As he talks about video game news, Start number five is a required reading for you. Let's talk about what went wrong with Mind's Eye. An article went up this weekend from BBC DC written by Tom Richardson. The title of the article is Grand Theft Auto made him a legend. His latest game was a disaster. It's kind of a breakdown of what went down with Mind's Eye. And talking about Leslie Benzies, the founder of the studio here. The beginning of the article reads, an open letter recently signed by 93 current and former builder Rocket Boy employees alleges studio management made radical changes without properly consulting workers. Former lead data data analyst Ben Newbin says it was common for staff to be caught off guard by knee jerk decisions from upper management without proper explanation. The letter further alleges that leadership repeatedly refused to listen to its experienced workforce. Ben, whose team was tasked with collecting feedback and presenting it to management, says there was rarely any response when they flagged issues. Quote, a lot of the points that we were hammering home, home on were just ignored and just never actioned, he says. His former colleague, associate producer Margarita Marg Peloso, says the studio's culture was discouraged and also discouraged individuals from speaking out. Marge, who use, who uses gender neutral pronouns, says their own attempts to raise concerns were laughed at in meetings with bosses. It's a longer article, but one that's very interesting. I mean the main things, I think the biggest thing it points to is as part of the studio culture, they started calling like bugs and bug reports. Leslie's after the CEO of the studio because he would just come in and like prioritize certain things even though there's a certain workflow they have and so that would interrupt their workflow and they're like, ah, we gotta, we gotta. Leslie coming through.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And like that was, that was one of the big things they harped on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We were working on five high priority bugs, but now Leslie has sort of taken hold of everything else.

[Andy Cortez]

Exactly, exactly. But Mind's Eye, the. We had it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We got a game that keeps on giving.

[Andy Cortez]

The game that keeps on giving. I feel like once a year, maybe once every couple years we get one of these where it's the, the disaster of the year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Gollum.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, the Golem. Exactly.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. I think it's a fascinating read. I read the article this morning. You know, kind of expands on stuff that we've already known but also now coming with actual like kind of reports from people who worked there and fascinating of just kind of learning a little bit more of like what happened with Everywhere, Mind's Eye and all that. Because originally this was supposed to be everywhere and then I don't know what the hell happened to that game. But then they were like, ah, no, we're just going to just focus on the GTA clone.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Listen, Barrett, if Everywhere actually existed and came out, could have been a big game, could have been huge. But if I wanted something smaller, say the tiniest news I need to know about, where would I go?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You'd go to the official list of upcoming videos.

[Andy Cortez]

No, that's the wrong. We'd stop using that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like you need go to our last story, the Wii News channel where we cover all the small news items you need to know about.

[Andy Cortez]

There it is. It's the weird throw to Barrett.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, that. That really threw me off.

[Andy Cortez]

Story number six is some weed news for you from Xbox Wire. Xbox. Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja joined forces for a record breaking stunt in honor of Ninja Gaiden 4. We flew two helicopters across Miami. One carrying. Oh, Bear. You got to bring up the video of this. One carrying a 26 foot screen and another transporting a player dominating Ninja Gaiden 4 while airborne. The event set a new Guinness World Records title for the largest video game display flown by a helicopter. Bear has the video up. It's going to. You're going to get to the point where you see it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, I see.

[Andy Cortez]

So yeah, on here, basically like a big. Basically a billboard that's playing Ninja Gaian.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

4 playing extra stretch wide screen.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it's being.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But I think it's just like stretch. I don't think it's like, I think the. I think it's like a 16:9 ratio just stretched out.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Oh, you're right, it is.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Golly, man, I can't. I mean, imagine looking up and seeing this. The latency's got to be not great.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean they didn't show much the gameplay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So I'd be, I'd be complaining.

[Andy Cortez]

I'd be like, I'm like, show me a full battle sequence.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Response time.

[Andy Cortez]

Not great.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Guys, I'll be real with you. How am I supposed to bury this?

[Andy Cortez]

They would be so mad at Andy because you would be in there in the settings the entire time. You're like, we didn't get any gameplay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're like, I. I got my own controller. Does that work? And they're gonna be like, I did that, by the way, I did that over the weekend for the kit for the game I flew out to LA for.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Oh my God.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Of course I got my own controller, if that's cool. They're like, yeah, nice. Thank you. Nobody ever says yes.

[Andy Cortez]

Video game explodes. Next one for WE News, Ian Bernick. Not a name.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, I guess that's the name of the company.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Anbernic.

[Andy Cortez]

Anbernic. Thank you. I said Ann Bernick. It was a first name and last name. Anbernic has shared footage of its upcoming RGDS dual screen clamshell handheld playing a selection of emulated games including stylus driven titles like Kirby Camera's Curse from the Nintendo DS and 3DS games like Shovel Knight. Anbernic announced the RGDS earlier this month with a price tag that will be under $100 and four color options including red, blue, white and translucent white.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's pretty, pretty little clamshell.

[Andy Cortez]

I kind of like this and I.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Just don't like the dual sticks down there. Even though not many games are going to require that. But you put other stuff on this maybe. Who knows?

[Andy Cortez]

Wait, what don't you like about the dual sticks?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The location of them.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, like you have to like kind of hold.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, your thumbs are going.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, they're.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They're like the opposite of the Steam deck.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Which is because most of these games on the platform wouldn't require them. So.

[Andy Cortez]

I've mentioned before how I never owned a DS or a 3DS and so there's kind of this gap in my gaming knowledge for Nintendo.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm. I was very, very similar. Well, I, I bought a 3DS. Oh. But you know, it's not like I was gaming on it a whole lot. It was my Pokemon machine. Oh.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I wasn't like, this is my console I'm taking with me everywhere. It was like, I really dig the Street Pass concept and I'm playing the first two hours of every Pokemon that comes out on this thing. Yeah. You know, because I was like really busy with college and work and I just wasn't gaming a whole lot. That was like, for a little bit of time, like all I had was the 3Ds and the 360. I did not make enough money to be able to buy a PS4 or Xbox at launch. Dude. If they, if the red. If Redbox near, like the Walgreens and CVS had 3Ds games, I probably would have been gaming a lot more on.

[Andy Cortez]

That Dude, I. I realized that that was an option way too late in life of, like, just renting games. Like, because I did that as a kid.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Like, my parents would take me to Family video and I'll rent Wave Race or Paper Mario. I don't know why I was renting Paper Mario.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm sure. I'm sure there's like, a trillion family videos that. That not one of them are tied together in any, like, business IP way.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Just like every city has a family video. Yeah. And they're like, well, I went to this family video to the other city. Like, oh, we don't. We're not associated with it.

[Andy Cortez]

No.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We just have the same name.

[Andy Cortez]

This is our mom pop family video. But, like, I didn't. I don't. I don't know why I stopped doing that as a kid. Like, as I got to an adult.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Gotcha.

[Andy Cortez]

Because it wasn't until 2015 where I would read until dawn reviews, and I'm like, man, I really want to play Until Dawn. And I was like, wait a second. I can just go to a. I was gonna say Blockbuster, but I don't think. I forget if Blockbuster is still around.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They were like, on the Edge of Death.

[Andy Cortez]

I must have went to video. I think I went to Family Video, rented Until dawn and went. I should have been doing this the whole time.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And you know what you can still do.

[Andy Cortez]

What's that? Like libraries?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Wow.

[Andy Cortez]

Smart guy. That's a guy who's in touch with his community. People are doing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He votes in the midterms.

[Andy Cortez]

He votes in midterms. One of those. One of the few. You know, what do they call it? Third spaces. Third space.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, right. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

One of the few third spaces that are.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're right.

[Andy Cortez]

Still available to us. Next one for WE News. The first draft of the script for the movie adaptation of Sleeping Dogs is done. This is from a tweet from Simu Liu. We tweeted out in honor of our sleeping dog script wrapping done. Here's my sleepy dog. And he has his little dog.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, that's funny, because who's the. Is it Wario that always posts. When they post, like, a deal about sleeping dogs, they always say, sleepy dog.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. I think that's Wario.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's funny.

[Andy Cortez]

Here's.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Here's one thing that I was just thinking about randomly every time I see a tweet from Simuliu just what a crime it is that we got one Shang Chi movie. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

What the fuck?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Five years. Five. 20. 21. I.

[Andy Cortez]

Too long ago, like, and it was.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Such a banger and just been cricket since, like.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I think about that bus scene often.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Dude, how good that scene.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, my God, dude.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think about the very, very end fight scene when he puts his. Jesus. You didn't know who's here.

[Andy Cortez]

He's been here the entire time. That's terrifying. Put her there. I put her there on Friday and.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I was like, oh, this will with Andy or somebody. I saw it pre show when I was putting my.

[Andy Cortez]

My cable down for audio listeners is. I don't even know what they're calling this little doll anymore. It's the freaky, scary baby Jesus where.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He kicks back the leaves and, like, you know, is doing his, like, his mom's fight move. Oh, dude, that was so fire. Yeah. How Dragon Ball that, dude. It was Subway Rocks.

[Andy Cortez]

So they decided to make Ant Man Quantumania instead. Yeah, it was Shangchi, too. Come on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's. It's right there.

[Andy Cortez]

It's right there. And honestly, while we're here, let me give a hot take. Let me hear it. Bless Eternals. Decided Eternals deserved another chance.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It did.

[Andy Cortez]

Eternals. We should have got Eternals too. Thank you. Like, imagine a world where we got Shangchi Chu and Eternals2man instead of all this bullshit you gave us.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Beautiful, like, beautifully shot movie with what I said in my interview. Bless a lot of these movies. Don't look at chat. Don't read chat.

[Andy Cortez]

Don't be afraid. I'm not even looking at you. Don't let.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Don't let.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm not seeing it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Don't let chat angry. A lot of these MCU movies, a lot of these DC movies, you know, before, you know, James Gunn took over, it was only done one movie, but you know what I mean? Every about 80 of these movies has the dumb CG bad guys. Oh, yeah. Where it's like you're just fighting hordes of dumb CG bad guys. Eternals had the best of the dumb CG bullshit bad guys. The coolest fight scenes like Flash, lady, the Beam, and then you got Kingo, what's his name? Kumail Nanjian.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Awesome movie. Had aura.

[Andy Cortez]

Come on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's a solid six and a half out of 10.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it was a solid one, though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

From VGC, Amazon Web Services says it's seeing significant signs of recovery following a massive outage that affected numerous websites and apps. The outage, which mainly affected the US Eastern one region of AWS, saw a sizable portion of the Internet going down for that region due to the widespread use of AWS for Cloud computing services that includes a lot of video game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Like PSN went down. Xbox went down. A bunch of places went.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Roblox. Very important.

[Andy Cortez]

Yes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Some. Some websites that, you know, maybe you look at at night just to kind of see what's going on like in the world.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That were also down. They're like, what's going on here in the world?

[Andy Cortez]

From Polygon. The Sims Mobile is. Wait, it was down last night.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Allegedly. I don't know. That's what I've heard. That's what my friends are texting. Blessing didn't.

[Andy Cortez]

Didn't experience this from Polygon.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was just in our neighborhood. Andy.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I was like. I was like, why was it down for you?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I use the offline version. I used an archive version.

[Andy Cortez]

I think you. What time were you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Damn.

[Andy Cortez]

From Polygon. The Sims Mobile is being sunset early next year. EA announced over the weekend football manager has signed a deal with FIFA and will add official World cup competitions. Should have got that on your face.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Critic. Damn it. You could drop skate story, pick it up.

[Andy Cortez]

And then finally, absolum has sold 200,000 copies in one week.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Nice.

[Andy Cortez]

Hell yeah. That is it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I played a lot of absolute. That's what I was playing on the flight with the not sponsored dude.

[Andy Cortez]

They.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They changed the game.

[Andy Cortez]

X real or absolute?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

X real. Why'd I say like that? X real.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean that's how they want you to say. All right, cool.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And. And Burnick.

[Andy Cortez]

Amber. I knew what Amber. Nick once. Chill. Chill, lady. Let's hop into super chats before we get out of here. Sambra says, blessing, check out the demo for Big Hops. I did check out the demo for Big Hops. I thought it was fine. It seems like a cool like kids game. So Big Hops.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The frog one.

[Andy Cortez]

The frog one. Yeah. Barrett, if you can find like a trailer or something for Big Hops. Because I do think that there's going to be a sizable amount of people that might actually be into this because it's a 3D platformer that feels equal parts inspired by Mario 64 as it is like Zelda Ocarina of Time. There's like a lot of Zelda love in here in this game, but very charming art style, very colorful, bright and vibrant. The main character here, cute frog guy, I think really well designed. Like it reminded me so much of playing an N64 platform.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This art style is lovely.

[Andy Cortez]

Art style, super lovely. Music. Music felt like such a nice throwback to that era as well.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You use your. Your tongue to kind of like grapple yes. Stuff.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like a tongue button.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

You eat a lot of bugs in this game, which kind of threw me off. Felt a little bit violent. Because you would. Because you would essentially, like, use your tongue to grab a bug, and then it's like, oh, you caught a new bug. And then you would rotate the bug to kind of scan it and, like, add it to your notes or whatever of like, oh, you just discovered this bug. And then right after you have a button that's like, do you want to eat the bug?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh.

[Andy Cortez]

And I'm like, oh, I just. I just rotated the bug.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You are a frog.

[Andy Cortez]

But I got so familiar with the bug. Like, why would you introduce me to this bug and then allow me to just fucking devour it?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, it's just the reality of, you know, living out there as a frog. Blessing. Yeah. But you have to learn to live with it.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't want to eat. I don't want to play with my food before I eat it. Just eat the food. Just eat the bug.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Did they make you name it before as well?

[Andy Cortez]

No, but I did in my mind. I was like, oh, this is a little Freddy Crunch. I'm like, oh, no. Claw Master says added Wii News. Just listen to the latest Fat Man Beyond. And Mark Bernardin announced he's one of the writers of the God of War show. He plays games, folks. Don't worry. Yeah, Mark Bernardin.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I. He.

[Andy Cortez]

He works. Slash worked on Marvel 1943. 1948.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right.

[Andy Cortez]

The High Rise of Hydra.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

1942.

[Andy Cortez]

1942. He worked on the Marvel Rise of Hydra game with Black Panther and Captain America as a writer with Amy Hennig.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

1943.

[Andy Cortez]

1943. I know. The first time I know because I got to interview him at Disney and Marvel Showcase at D23. Him and Amy Hennig. Very wonderful time. Tam Al Thor says awkward middle child tax. Thank you so much, Tam. Michael, happy birthday. I assume happy birthday. I don't think it's their birthday. Michael Limos says watching y' all play Arc Raiders is top content. That was a fun time. That was my first time really trying out an Extraction Shooter outside of Hunt Showdown, because I played a little bit of Hunt Showdown back in 2020, but I thought it was a good. I thought it was a really good time. I was very impressed by Arc Raiders. I'd play it again.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. I was asking Mike how the experiences. One. How the experience was with Nick, and he was like, well, you know, Nick didn't really understand what was happening at all for all the time.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't think it was like that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I, I would, as someone who's directing that stream, I would say the person who is going off on their own a lot and you know, not being with the team and you know, not doing call outs. Come on. I mean, you know, you know, Nick was actually like, for an extraction shooter, I think Nick was doing a solid time of like pulling his weight. There was a moment where like we had just had an awesome team Fight Me Kevin, ASA X and Snowbike Mike. And we're all, we're all hurt. We don't have bullets. But I'm like, I gotta go do this side quest because we've died the last five times fighting people and we never did this stupid little side quest. Let me just, I'm gonna go run over there. And I see a squad. I'm like, oh, there's people here. Pingdom. Pingdom. Pingdom. And we're, we're hiding and we talk to him. We're like, hey, we're just getting, we don't have anything good on us. And, and they're like, all right. And they like just decide to walk by. And then I just hear firefight. Mike goes down, he goes, I'm a idiot. Oh. And we're like, Mike, why? He's like, mainly micro decision. Sometimes you gotta shoot, sometimes you got. And like, dude, we're no, we don't have any bullets. It takes forever to reload. In this game right now with our shitty guns, we would not have won this fight anyway. Ah, you know, sometimes you just gotta fight, you know, man, it's just the. And it was like an interesting moment of self reflection for him to immediately go, I'm a idiot. Like, why did I even do that? He didn't try to shift blame. That's interesting.

[Andy Cortez]

First time for everything.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

When he tells the story on his own, he will blame it on you somehow. Well, I mean, look, there's a very, very great clip out on, on instagram.com Andy Cortez clips. It's the most recent one. And the video starts off with, with Mike saying, we're all right, we failed the last many runs. We're gonna get these guys in our web, we're gonna get some guys in our web, we become friends with them and we betray him. We shoot him. And then Mike goes, and I'm gonna blame you, Andy, when we eventually shoot them. Haha, funny moment. Whatever. We meet some guys.

[Andy Cortez]

Hey, what's going on, guys?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hey, this is, this is me, Captain Sunburn. We got Captain Crunch over there. What are yalls? Call signs. Call signs. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what are your names? All right, I'm going to give you. You're Evergreen, and you're Flame Hawk. All right.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We decided to take on a big spider robot, and we decided, like, let's all.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, so you really made friends with these guys?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We made friends with these guys. We start shooting them or we start shooting the robot or battling it out. It's like, intense as hell. Take it down.

[Andy Cortez]

Fuck yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We did it, dude. We're all looting. Mike's just shooting the. You know, probably. He was probably five seconds away from giving these guys his phone number to hang out with him or to give him hopes of hanging out with them at a time that he would just let them down. And then we start getting shot by somebody random. So rewind a bit, Barrett, if you can. Oh, that's as far as back as it goes. All right. So the. So what unfortunately happens. We get pushed by a random other team. So it's us five. And I'm like, oh, dude, all of us are thinking the same thing. The squad that's pushing us has no idea. Yep. That we have five with us right now. It's like a squad of three and then two other randoms that we've become friends with. We've our friendship forged in fire after finding this robot team pushes us. We're shooting. I'm trying to get cover. One of us went down. I should go.

[Andy Cortez]

Go.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know, taking her, and I see a body. I start shooting. I'm like, have this little single shot thing. I ended up shooting Evergreen.

[Andy Cortez]

No, I. I knew this was gonna happen as soon as you started saying it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And so this guy was like, you betrayed us.

[Andy Cortez]

And I was like, what?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I thought you were the bad guy. And then Mike's like, andy, I can't believe you killed them, bro.

[Andy Cortez]

No.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Michaels, you can just listen right here.

[Andy Cortez]

No, Andy, no. Not Flame Hawking. Evergreen.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Andy, how could Traders.

[Andy Cortez]

No, dude, I was just.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I thought you were the best. Go follow him right now.

[Andy Cortez]

You can watch Proof, Kevin. ASEX is finishing them off.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I felt so bad. That was your best, like, Rick and Morty character. Just doing something really up and, like, trying to come to terms.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, man. No. Geez. So.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So the guy ended up coming to my chat. He was like, I can't believe you. I was like, I'm sorry.

[Andy Cortez]

Rewind it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I just like. And the thing is, I thought it was, like, a bad guy, and I was like, I felt so awesome because I was hitting my shots and, yeah, he was shooting me, but I was shooting him. And I was like, yeah, I killed the guy. And he was like, we're both down. We. I was like, oh, no, no. If I felt so bad, dude, Evergreen and Flame Hawk, man.

[Andy Cortez]

RIP Evergreen.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Miss you guys.

[Andy Cortez]

That's crazy. It's a good story.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Have a better one telling the stream later on.

[Andy Cortez]

Speaking of Rick and Morty, I. Let me tell you, Silent Friends is back.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, dude, I got it started back, y'.

[Andy Cortez]

All.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

God.

[Andy Cortez]

I got two episodes in. I think they just dropped the third episode last night, so I gotta watch that too. But, man, TV's in a good place. I like TV. Shout out television. I watched an episode of Psych this weekend. Just plus.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Just, like, a random one.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it was a good show.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It was a good show. Like, it was a concert. It was a good show.

[Andy Cortez]

This is a great time.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They threw on a random concert.

[Andy Cortez]

It was the episode where they all went out to celebrate, like a work thing. But then they woke up and they couldn't remember anything, and so they're trying to, like, retrace their.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Love that troop. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

So good.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Michael Lemos or. I'm sorry, Alex Fraser says, throwing Andy some bones for the Gatsby's American Dream shirt. What a throwback. Thank you. Throwback.

[Andy Cortez]

Calibuff says, can Taste Buddy be at. What does that mean, Taste Buddy?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't know.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm scared to, like, read the rest of it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means.

[Andy Cortez]

Can taste Buddy be added as part of Tim's intro? It's a tia.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, Taste buddies is how he refers to the audience at the beginning of the ad read.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, okay. We didn't. I didn't hear the ad.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Gotcha. Gotcha.

[Andy Cortez]

That makes sense. Thank you. Let's see. Mr. Straight Fire says, sprite artwork is expensive. So how do you guys feel about real VG artists creating their characters but then using AI to transform them into sprites?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Real VG artists?

[Andy Cortez]

Video game artists.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, are you making a CG model? And.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I think they're making a 3D model and then having AI just turn that into sprites. I don't like it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't like it either. Yeah, I mean, I don't know now. Now we're getting into questions like, well, are you okay with this? And it's like, I'm not on. I'm not on trial.

[Andy Cortez]

It's like, why am I catching that? I think, like, for me, as. As somebody who's not an artist. Right. For me, as somebody who's somebody who appreciates art, I tend to judge any, like, anything that's. That I view as a creative, like, art form. Something that requires skill and something that I, I think is made better by the. By expression via an actual, actual human soul. Anything that's. That's done through AI. In that regard, I feel bad about. I don't like that. Like, you know, I mean, they mentioned here, right? And the Super Chat even mentions pixel art is. Is difficult. Pixel art is tough, which is why I appreciate pixel art. That's why I like. I look at pixel artists and what they do as something that's worthwhile and special and something that, like, I look at and I'm like, damn, y' all out here doing it, like, doing great work out here. If you do that through AI, I'm like. I'm kind of like, okay, well, for me, it takes something.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Not the same love and crafting that a person had spent actually making that thing. Which goes beyond just pixel art, which I get is what you're getting at as well, of like, you know, in general, the use of AI.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Bug below me has never used CHAT GPT. How about that?

[Andy Cortez]

There you go.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Never use once, never will, never will. The whole point of art is to have human connection and share your experience and your, you know, like, your view of the world with others. Putting something else in that, that does it for you, you lose that. That's my grandstanding. That's my. What do they call it?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, something signaling.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Virtue.

[Andy Cortez]

Signaling.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. It's my virtue signaling. I get one star. You have virtues.

[Andy Cortez]

Let me tell you. I'm giving you T minus two years before you use ChatGPT because, like, it's. It's gonna end up being that at a point where it's almost required of us. Because in what sense? Like, in the sense that, like, if I put on. If I. If I log into Facebook right now, they've already made AI photos of me without my. I'm gonna say without my consent, even though I'm sure I checked the box somewhere, I feel like it's gonna be like that, where it's automatically you're using all.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But I'm saying I'm not gonna go. I'm not going to download an app and say, you're not going to go to chatgpt.com. write a statement for me. You know, like, write a. Write a departure letter for when I quit. Kind of funny for social media, you.

[Andy Cortez]

Know, because kind of funny has to come to the AI.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, exactly.

[Andy Cortez]

I guess. And also in the other case of if I Google anything already, Google's like, found the AI. Answer is, then put it as the first thing. Right. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if you see chat GBT integration into that as well.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They're trying to take down Google. Oh, they're fighting Google. They would never.

[Andy Cortez]

Like, they're gonna do like a references back when it happens. Chat GBT and Tick Tock are gonna merge at some point and it's gonna be the thing where, like, if you want to scroll, if you want to look up anything, it's gonna be through that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We're all gonna get dumber.

[Andy Cortez]

God, it's already happened. I can already feel in my brain, Trevor says shout out to blessings wedding fit at China's wedding. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Tam Al Thor says, awkward middle child tax. Thank you for the $2.

[Andy Cortez]

What do I told you? I already read that one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And. Oh, sorry. And Sky Forsland says, do I play Battlefield 6 or Ghost of Sushima next?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, that's a good question.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, two very completely different experiences.

[Andy Cortez]

Should I have a chocolate cake or a sandwich for lunch?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. I'll tell you what I didn't know. I didn't. I told this to Greg the other day. I didn't know Costco chocolate chip cookies had it like that.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, really?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, I didn't know.

[Andy Cortez]

They're really good.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, I know. I've always heard, you know, I'm more. I was a Sam's Club kid growing up.

[Andy Cortez]

Same.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So, like, we didn't have Costco's, and I just. Obviously, I know the deals of the pizza. Right? It's always super affordable. Great place to work, great benefits. Get a pizza and a Coke for, you know, a $20, and they'll make. They may give you the money back, who knows? But then the chocolate chip cookie is like, I didn't know it was that good. Yeah. So impressive. I'll tell you what, these Reese's Oreos are just the end. Like, oh.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah, you've had more of them.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Problem.

[Andy Cortez]

You just have a stash. Where are you getting these from?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I just buy them at corner stores.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, you can't do that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's becoming a problem.

[Andy Cortez]

Can't do that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm like, we never see him. May never see them again. I'll have to buy the whole stock out right now.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm so happy that we're out of the gummies. The Welch's Fruit. Fruit gummies. I said, when I. When you say gummies. You usually think it's the cool kind of make you high, but no, I'm just eating Welch's Fruit Gummies for kids. They were from Ben's birthday party. I've been feeling up on those.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I keep on telling myself, you know, all right, we'll start to. We'll try to trim down a bit more for this Verso Exposition 33 Halloween costume. I just keep on eating these Reese's Oreos. It's a problem. A big problem.

[Andy Cortez]

Maybe that's what I do. I need to train. I need something to train for.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

A costume. It's always a costume. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't know. I'm going to be for Halloween.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm going to be shirtless.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm going to find a way to be shirtless. Somebody roasted me on Reddit the other day where. And like, I hate it when I don't expect the roast because it was in a post about d' Angelo where somebody was like, can somebody show me. Can somebody find the episode where they talked about d'? Angelo? Because we talked about Dangelo a while ago because he has a music video called for a song, Untitled.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Come on. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Where you see, you know, and in that video, in that conversation, put that on Mount Rushmore. God, you have to put the. Never mind the cum gutter.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

End this show.

[Andy Cortez]

End the show.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And this show.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay. It's kind of like outside, you're wrong. And let us know what we got wrong as you got it wrong, so.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We can correct it.

[Andy Cortez]

For those watching later on YouTube, listening later on podcast services around the globe, Jeppo 1457 says blessing once again. You said 2026 would be the year of Yakuza, and now it's the year of remakes. Just pick one and pick the year of Yakuza. I need the evidence. I don't remember saying that. I probably did, but I don't remember saying that. And if I did, why would I say that? But also, I can run on multiple issues. I will not play Yakuza, though, next year. I lied. If I said it, I lied. How about that?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He lied, I lied. Do you want. Do you want this lying politician as your president?

[Andy Cortez]

But I. But I'm honest. I'm honest about the fact that I lied, though, so that should count for something.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, I never said that.

[Andy Cortez]

The Portland Kevin. I guess we already figured that out. Dead Phoenix. Let's see. Oh, that's cool. Kebab says Ms. We News industry legend Cab Bailey has announced her new role as storytelling lead at LYRIAN Studios.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Whoa.

[Andy Cortez]

Wild. I didn't know about that. That's super cool. Eric Allen K says Steam Next Fest happens three times a year. February, June and October. Yeah, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see. That's. That's for Game Showdown. That's not for here. That is it for Kind of funny Dot com. You're wrong. And that is it for this episode of Kind of Funny Games Daily, where each and every weekday we run you through the nerdy news you need to know about live on YouTube, Twitch and on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad free. Watch, record them live and get a daily exclusive show. Enjoy Kind of Funny Podcast next gamescast coming at the end of the day at 4pm Pacific Time. So stay tuned for that until next time.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Game Daily Shake her hand.

[Andy Cortez]

When I was there, you had to have a knife. One of you's gotta take turns carrying it up your rectum. Wait, it's up your butt. That's the prison wallet. You never leave home alone. You have something protected around it, I'm assuming.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, or else you'll be bleeding out your coolo.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm Ariana Van Zeller and after reporting on black markets for my Emmy winning National Geographic show, Trafficked, I'm launching a podcast.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're getting emotional on me.

[Andy Cortez]

Intimate conversations with those operating in the shadows. The Hidden Third is out now with new episodes every Wednesday. [e-mail] marianavanzeller Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.