Xbox Leadership Shake-Up, Sarah Bond Responds - Kinda Funny Games Daily 02.23.26

Summary

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Kinda Funny Games Daily 02.23.26

Podcast: Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast

Date: February 23, 2026

Episode Theme:
A seismic week in video games as Xbox faces unprecedented leadership upheaval. Hosts Blessing Adeoye Jr. and Roger McCorney break down Sarah Bond’s response to her (and Phil Spencer’s) abrupt exits, explore new reporting on the inside story of the Xbox shakeup, and debate the future of Xbox as its direction is thrown into chaos.

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Episode Overview

• Focus: Deep dive into Xbox's massive executive shakeup: the surprise simultaneous departures of longtime head Phil Spencer and President Sarah Bond, their implications, internal reactions, and a look forward under incoming CEO Asha Sharma.
• Tone: Informed but candid, with plenty of banter and healthy skepticism about corporate messaging—especially around AI, exclusivity, and the challenges facing Xbox as a platform.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Xbox Leadership Shakeup: What Happened

[05:11 – 11:11]

• Phil Spencer retires as Head of Gaming; Sarah Bond resigns as Xbox President; both departures were sudden and left Xbox’s future in doubt.
• Asha Sharma (former Microsoft AI exec) steps in as the new Head of Gaming.
• Matt Booty is promoted, further signaling a major reset.

Quote:
"This feels rushed. This feels weird... It does not feel like this was a succession plan that was ready to go here. This fell out of nowhere."
— Roger McCorney [09:42]

2. Sarah Bond’s Statement & Media Coverage

[06:09 – 13:44]

• Blessing reads Sarah Bond’s official LinkedIn message, focusing on her pride in Xbox's transformation and optimism for Sharma’s leadership.
• Notable that Bond’s statement came hours after the news broke—fueling suspicion she was “pushed out.”
• Reporting from The Verge paints Bond as a polarizing figure: lauded for closing the Activision deal, criticized for implementing the “Xbox Everywhere” pivot (cloud/mobile over consoles), and for management style.
• Internal chaos: Xbox teams learned the news from the press before internal comms; even Bond’s social account had a mismatched message queued when the word broke.

Quote:
"I've decided that this is the right time for me to take my next step, both personally and professionally. We're living through a transformative technological era that will shape the next generation of our industry, and I'm energized by what's ahead."
— Sarah Bond (reading from LinkedIn) [08:23]

• Some employees relieved by her departure; several cite her cloud/mobile-first strategy as deeply unpopular and ineffective.

3. The Verge Article: Inside Story & Fallout

[13:44 – 23:23]

• Reporting from Tom Warren/The Verge reveals the shakeup was meant to be announced Monday, but leaks forced an early reveal Friday.
• Key Causes:
  • Bond’s “Xbox Everywhere” campaign confused consumers and upset staff loyal to console hardware.
  • Marketing message (“This is an Xbox”) deemed muddled; the planned Xbox Mobile store failed to materialize.
  • Exec turnovers and declining hardware sales snowballed into a leadership crisis.
• Spencer’s decision to retire was known internally for months; Bond was passed up for CEO, insiders saw it coming.

Quote:
"The result has been a classic case of chasing tomorrow’s customers by neglecting today’s."
— Reading from The Verge [17:50]

Barrett’s Insight:
Noted how execs (except for Phil) failed to mention Bond in their internal memos, suggesting internal politics and scapegoating.

4. Xbox’s Direction at a Crossroads

[23:05 – 36:05]

• Can Xbox recover “console brand” energy, or is multiplatform reality too entrenched?
• Sharma signals “the return of Xbox” and vows to recapture the brand’s “renegade spirit,” but has no gaming background and is seen as an “AI-first” leader (with staff fearing she’ll overload Xbox with forced AI initiatives).
• Hosts question whether Xbox can reverse course on going multi-platform/exclusive, given financial realities and consumer loyalty to existing ecosystems.

Quote:
“She brings deep technology and commerce experience... but Xbox employees I've been speaking to have been concerned. There is also concern about her lack of industry experience in entertainment and gaming.”
— Reading from The Verge [30:59]

Quote:
"I want to return to the renegade spirit that built Xbox in the first place."
— Asha Sharma [31:14]

5. Debating “Xbox Everywhere” and the Console’s Future

[25:03 – 45:20]

• Blessing and Roger dissect pitfalls of the “play on anything” strategy—arguing it made sense on paper (phones are everywhere) but failed to attract core gamers or generate new loyalty.
• Discuss parallels to Steam/Epic: gamers’ ecosystem loyalty is a powerful force that’s difficult to disrupt.
• What could work? Hardware innovation (a “Steam Machine” approach), but only if backed by can’t-miss IP and exclusives—yet financial incentives keep pushing multiplatform releases.

Quote:
"Unless you're able to figure out, hey, we're going to put Game Pass on Nintendo Switch—which they will never do—and if they do, that is the biggest red flag that Xbox will go under in the next six months."
— Roger [26:23]

Quote:
"The only way that you're going to get people to buy that hardware... I don't think we're at the point now where you can go back and make this exclusive."
— Roger [45:20]

6. Game Pass and IP Strategy: What Comes Next?

[46:51 – 51:52]

• Hosts predict:
  • Refocus on “hits” (Halo, Gears, Call of Duty, Fable, Forza).
  • Cut back on experimental and smaller IPs.
  • Game Pass price may rise; “day one” for big titles could waver to recoup costs.
  • Fable’s success or failure could pivot future strategy.

Quote:
“We're just playing the hits now... we're not trying any of that nerdy indie stuff anymore. We're just playing all—we're doing Gears of War all day.”
— Roger [46:51]

Quote:
"I think probably not super soon, but within the next couple of years, I think you see the [Game Pass] price go up again, maybe dramatically, or you see them pull out some of those bigger exclusives."
— Blessing [51:27]

7. Community Response to Reporting

[39:21 – 40:25]

• The KFGD audience, via super chats, is split: some see The Verge article as a hit piece unfairly blaming Bond, others as transparent reporting.
• Hosts defend Tom Warren’s credibility but acknowledge the article lays more blame on Bond than on Spencer.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• "This is essentially an argument for, oh yeah, get humans out of here then."
  — Blessing (re: AI exec claims) [32:33]
• "We're going to have some clips, we're going to be able to take this moment and then we're going to find, I'm sure, some moment where you're going to freak."
  — Roger (on Resident Evil marathon, lightening the vibe) [03:25]
• "[On Twitter replies]...it strikes me as baby's first day on Twitter."
  — Blessing, on Asha Sharma’s awkward early social media engagement [34:13]
• "You have to kind of steer it in this direction—because I don't think we can ever be in this place now where you are competing with a PlayStation properly."
  — Roger [36:45]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Xbox Leadership Shakeup Primer: 05:11 – 11:11
• Sarah Bond’s Statement & Inside Story: 06:09 – 13:44
• The Verge Exposé Deep Dive: 13:44 – 23:23
• Xbox’s Crossroads: Brand Direction & Sharma: 23:05 – 36:05
• Debate on Xbox Everywhere & Platform Loyalty: 25:03 – 45:20
• Game Pass & IP Future: 46:51 – 51:52

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Additional Headlines

[57:01 – 67:00]

• Roger gives a quick report from WWE Headquarters and impressions of WWE 2K26 (Inferno and Dumpster matches!).
• Assassin’s Creed’s new leadership team (“Billy” jokes ensue).
• Ubisoft Montreal layoffs; Saints Row dev’s claim of franchise “dead.”
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 leak and gameplay explanations.

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Memorable Light-hearted Moments

• Titanic References: Multiple extended metaphors for Xbox’s “ship heading toward an iceberg”—with Blessing laughing at how wild the film’s second half is and saying “that’s Xbox right now.”
• Asha Sharma’s tweets: Laughed off as “baby’s first day on Twitter,” especially replying to questionable fans.
• WWE Banter: Playful exchange with Xavier Woods (“What’s your name, Roger?”) and Greg Miller getting “sunned.”

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Summary: Takeaways for Xbox’s Next Era

• The simultaneous departure of Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond marks the most tumultuous Xbox leadership transition yet.
• The “Xbox Everywhere” strategy failed to win fans or grow the business as hoped, and new CEO Asha Sharma faces skepticism as an outsider from AI, not games.
• Despite talk of “the return of Xbox,” structural forces heavily favor continued multiplatform releases and diminished hardware focus.
• The fate of Xbox may (paradoxically) rest on their biggest IPs, the success or failure of first-party tentpoles like Fable, and the evolving Game Pass model.
• Internally and externally, the brand faces an identity crisis: can it be both “everywhere” and a powerful platform, or is it doomed to become just another app in a world loyal to PlayStation and Steam?

In Blessing’s words:
"As a team, I don't know who to blame—but I don't know if you had hope here." [26:23]

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For further details and in-depth debate, skip to the timestamps highlighted above. The next year will be pivotal—KFGD will be watching.

Transcript

[Roger McCorney]

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[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Trust me. Grab a confetti craze five hour energy shot instead.

[Roger McCorney]

Vanilla E, cakey flavor, caffeinated cake and no sugar.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

It's party time.

[Roger McCorney]

Order now at 5hourenergy.com or Amazon.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Today's gaming news stories include Sarah Bond breaks her silence, the inside story of the Xbox shakeup, and Roger went to the WWE headquarters in New York. We'll have all this and more because this is Kind of Funny Games Daily. Yo, what's up? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games daily for Monday, February 23, 2026. One of your host, Blessing Addy Oye Jr. Joining me is the tastemaker, Roger McCorney.

[Roger McCorney]

How are you doing, Blessing?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I'm doing very good, Roger. How are you doing?

[Roger McCorney]

I'm so happy that I escaped the east Coast. I want to shout out everybody on the east coast. I'm getting live texts from my mom and she's miserable. It is horrible out there. So much snow. An insane nor' easter of snow is going over there. So I was able to slide through the security doors as they were falling down.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I saw the Zoron momdani video of him being like, guys, don't go outside. Like, please just don't go outside. It's gonna snow, and then it's gonna. It's gonna be warm enough that it melts, but then in the night it's gonna freeze. And if you go outside, you will die. So just don't. If you're in New York, just don't go outside. They canceled school. Like, you're. You have no reason to leave your home.

[Roger McCorney]

Call out.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Call out of work. If your work's not letting you, just work from home. Be safe out there.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah. How long were I was there From Wednesday to Sunday.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, so you just got back yesterday?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, so I just got back yesterday. Yeah. Again, it started at noon, and I. I left at like 7, 8am So I was like, right there. And if. If it was just an hour later, I'm sure they would have canceled my flight and moved everything over. So, yeah, so I got out there. I was able to go to WWE headquarters. We'll talk about that in a second. And some fun reveals and some little videos for you.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, video.

[Roger McCorney]

A little video for you.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

But I'm excited for that. For me specifically.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, for you. For you specifically. Specifically. Are you excited for the rest of this week?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Hold on. I want to know. You talk to Liv Morgan. Like, what's. What's going on here?

[Roger McCorney]

I got a video for you. I got a Video for you.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Okay. Okay. What's up?

[Roger McCorney]

Are you excited for this week? Are you scared for this week? Because, of course it is. The Resident Evil Requiem launch and our marathon.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I'm feeling a little scratch in the back of my throat.

[Roger McCorney]

Oh.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

So we'll see if I'm.

[Roger McCorney]

Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's opening his mouth in public trying to get people to cough.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah, please cough in my mouth. Yeah, Like, I don't know. My grandma, my diet. I don't know. Listen, it's not a terrible joke to make. It's okay. She's already gone. She's been dead for a while. That's okay.

[Roger McCorney]

I'm not gonna lie.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Okay.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

No, I'm excited for the stream. I'm excited because, like, you know, Resident Evil has been a franchise that I've grown to fall in love with over the course of the past, I guess, seven years, which doesn't. Which feels longer than it feels in my brain because essentially it's been since Resident Evil 2 Remake. When I played Resident Evil 2 Remake, I was like, damn, a really good game. And then I got to do those streams on kind of funny. Which is why we're doing this, right?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, seven.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

You know, I got to stream seven with Andy. We also streamed some of eight, which didn't go as well because we kept making fun of Ethan Winters. People. People were mad that we're making fun of Ethan Winters.

[Roger McCorney]

Oh, Ethan Winter. I love Ethan Winters. He is. He is boring, though. Yeah, he's annoying.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

But I'm excited because, like, I, you know, I'm locked in for Resident Evil now, where I want to play whatever new Resident Evil game is coming out. And so I'm excited about. Play through it all in 24 hours. Hang out with Andy. I'm not as much of a scary cat as Andy is. Andy's going to be where the entertainment is at.

[Roger McCorney]

I can deal with, say that. And then, you know, we're going to have some clips, we're going to be able to take this moment and then we're going to find, I'm sure, some moment where you're going to freak.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Resident Evil doesn't scare me as much as, like, non scary games scary, you know, like, I'll play Bloodborne and I'll be terrified. But Resident Evil, it's the.

[Roger McCorney]

Well, that's the Elden Ring.

[Barrett]

I was trying to.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I was trying to find the Elden

[Barrett]

Ring hands clip, but it's. It's hard to find.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah, no, the. The hands in Elden Ring do something Crazy to me. I will say it's. It's spiders in particular because this weekend I've been playing Mugen X.

[Roger McCorney]

Okay.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

And let me tell you, yeah. When I started playing Magenics this weekend on Friday, my hour count was probably at like three, four hours. And then I was looking at it yesterday, but it's at like 12 now. Okay. I'm loving this game.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I am. Like, I'm locked into this thing. But they do have a level in there, like a certain boss fight that has spider shit going on. And there was a big spider that appeared. I was like, oh, shit. And even in Mugenics, in the Mugenics art style, it still got me. So I think it's just an arachnophobia thing.

[Roger McCorney]

Okay.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

What's up, Barrett?

[Barrett]

I was just.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Roger.

[Barrett]

Do we plan on, you know, maybe getting Blessing, like a little drunk and then like, you know, maybe get him lost in cavern?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I mean, listen, just like RE7. This is what I want. Can someone help me? Give me a. Give me, give me. Give me some whiskey.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Get me ginger ale.

[Roger McCorney]

Okay.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

And you'll get what you want. I was gonna do a whole Keenan. Have you seen Keenan and Kell? Did you watch Keenan Kell?

[Roger McCorney]

No, not really.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

At the end of every Keenan and Kel episode, Kenan would turn to Kel and be like, give me this, give me that, give me some bread, give me sticks and give me some breadsticks. Meet me out back. And then that's how they will close every episode. I was going to try and do that with you, but you know, all I need is a whiskey and ginger ale.

[Roger McCorney]

I'll get you that. I can get you that.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That's all I need. Okay.

[Roger McCorney]

I'm excited. We're going to have a good one, everybody. Friday that is going to happen on twitch and on YouTube. So that's going to be after KFG D. So look out for that and watch the buzz if you want more. No games guest.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, snap.

[Barrett]

We're getting the games cast will be that morning.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah. Damn, that's a really exciting day.

[Roger McCorney]

Hell yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

You know what else is exciting? Video game news. Remember, if you're watching live, be a part of the show by super chatting in on YouTube.com kind of funny. Games. We couldn't do this of course without our Patreon producers. So shout out and thank you to Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney. The song twining for now. Let's begin with what is and forever will be. The Roper Report. It's time for some news. We have five stories today, Baker's dozen, starting with our number one, which Roger, today's KFCD is a big follow up to Friday's kfgd. Because if you didn't know, Roger, because you weren't here, Phil Spencer is retired.

[Roger McCorney]

What?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah, I know. No, it's crazy. You predicted.

[Roger McCorney]

I thought I. Yeah, I thought I just dreamed this.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, my gosh.

[Roger McCorney]

Wow.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Phil Spencer stepped down from Xbox.

[Barrett]

Yeah.

[Roger McCorney]

And even Sarah Bond's there, right? She's head.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Well, now Sarah Bond's also gone. Yeah. No, no. And that's what the focus of this KFG is going to be about. It's going to be more on the overall picture. We got more inside scoops coming out from Tom Warren at the Verge, which I've saved for story number two, because story number one is a primer for it. Okay, we're going to start off with the Sarah Bond piece of the puzzle here because after our KFG on Friday, Sarah Bond finally posted her message to the world following her departure from Xbox. So let's start with story number one. Outgoing Xbox president Sarah Bond breaks silence after exit news. I'm going to read from Andy Robinson at Video Games Chronicle. Xbox President and COO Sarah Bond has spoken for the first time since Friday's news that she's leaving Microsoft alongside head of gaming Phil Spencer. Asha Sharma, who was previously head of core AI at Microsoft, was named as the company's new head of gaming and surprise announcement on Friday, replacing 35 year company veteran Spencer Bond's departure from Microsoft was equally unexpected. The executive joined Microsoft in 2017 overseeing gaming business partnerships. In 2023, she was promoted to President of Xbox, reporting directly to Spencer. Writing on LinkedIn, Bond said she'd decided now is the right time for me to take my next step, both personally and professionally. That's a quote. And shared praise for the incoming CEO Sharma, quote. I know there's a lot of news to take in today. Bond wrote. I'm incredibly proud of what we've built together over the past eight plus years. PC and cloud gaming are growing faster than ever. Our next console is well underway, and together we've helped lay the foundation for a more open gaming platform that spans devices and reaches players around the world. The post continues. Quote, when we announced our intention to acquire Activision Blizzard In 2022, I committed to helping lead helping lead Xbox through what would be a critical period of change. Over the past four years, we've navigated that moment together and positioned the business for what comes next. We took on some of the biggest challenges this organization has ever faced and did it as one team. With that, I've decided that this is the right time for me to take my next step, both personally and professionally. We're living through a transformative technological era that will shape the next generation of our industry, and I'm energized by what's ahead. End quote. Bond said she feels there is a unique opportunity for fresh eyes and new leadership at Xbox to guide the team into its next chapter. And confirmed she will maintain maintain some contact with Microsoft as a special advisor. Quote I've had the privilege of spending time with Asha over the last few weeks as we've planned for this transition and I've seen firsthand her deep commitment to our players, developers and brand. She said, quote, she brings deep technology and commerce experience along with a strong track record of building and scaling platforms that the world uses. Xbox deserves this. I'm excited to see her lead this next chapter for our team. I'll remain on as a special advisor to Asha to help ensure a smooth transition and set the organization up for continued success. End quote. On Phil Spencer, Bond thanked her boss for mentorship and friendship. Quote he's been a consistent champion of this business and the people who make it what it is, and I've learned a great deal from the way he leads through both opportunity and challenge. I'm grateful for his trust and support throughout my team, throughout my time on the team. I also want to thank Satya for his sponsorship and support throughout my time at Microsoft. End quote. Now, Roger, you were in New York when the news broke of Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond leaving Xbox. Asha Sharma coming in, Matt Booty being promoted. Where's your head at with all this happening?

[Roger McCorney]

It feels rushed. This feels weird. Like, you know, that was immediate. The immediate reaction that I had when I saw the Phil Spencer thing. I was like, okay, that makes sense. Oh, wait, he's leaving next week. Oh, okay. This isn't. We're doing the farewell tour for him. Oh, okay. Now Sarah Bond is going at the same time and she's just leaving. Right? So and the fact that she didn't have this statement out immediately and she had the LinkedIn post that was four hours old that was talking about, you know, join, talk about Xbox, do Xbox stuff. So this seemed out of nowhere. It felt that energy of, okay, something is happening here where Sarah Bond feels like she was pushed out of here. It does not feel like this was the. The come. In the last few weeks we've been talking and, you know, we've been working on this and I'm going to stay on the special advisory. This did not feel like, hey, we had this succession plan that was ready to go here. This fell out of nowhere and I was kind of shocked, honestly. And I started going through the permutations of like, where does Xbox go from here? And I think that's like where my head's been out for the last few days is thinking about literally. I like, this is what I do for fun. I mapped out like the from worst to best possible outcomes of like, what could the future be for Xbox? And I just kept on kind of leaning towards the bad stuff. Like that's like, that's all my brain goes to. It's very hard for me to see the positives of this massive shakeup happening in the middle of probably one of the biggest years of Xbox's history. It's kind of insane. It's a little bit like we're already on shaky ground and this could just tip everything down. And when we talk about all of

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

this, so there's so much to what you said that leads us into story number two, because story number two is going to give us a lot of context around quite a few things, including what went down Friday, why Sarah Bonds LinkedIn had that 4 hour long or 4 hour old post that was talking about some random shit, right? You don't get the post till later. I want to get into this article and I will warn people that there is going to be a lot of reading that happens in story number two. And I am reading a longer article because every detail here is so juicy and so worth talking about and breaking down. I've cut it in like half, really. I've cut it in like the first three fourths of it in the last quarter of it because those are kind of like two different talking points that we can get into. But we got to, we got to dive deep into this the Verge article, because there is so much here to break down. And so story number two is called Inside Microsoft's Big Xbox Leadership Shakeup. This is written by Tom Warren at the Verge. Xbox fans had been anticipating the retirement of Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer for years. But what what Most hadn't expected was the departure of Xbox president Sarah Bond, too. For many outside the company, Bond seemed like Spencer's natural successor, a deputy of sorts of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Microsoft CFO Amy Hood clearly didn't agree. Instead of picking Bond Bond for the role, Microsoft promoted Asha Sharma, a former Microsoft AI executive, to the top of Xbox. The decision to overlook Bond might have surprised many Xbox fans, but for the more than a dozen current and former Microsoft employees I've been speaking to, it's felt inevitable in recent months. Phil Spencer, Microsoft's long term Xbox chief, made the decision to resign from Microsoft last year. A tough few years for Xbox. The giant Activision Blizzard acquisition had dragged on for far longer than Microsoft had anticipated. And the need to grow the business saw Microsoft walk away from Xbox exclusive games in favor of a multiplatform strategy. Microsoft has also been trying to reinvent the Xbox brand beyond the console, with mixed results. Spencer's decision led to months of careful successor planning. It was announced to the world on Friday, but it was supposed to be today. Today being Monday, Microsoft was forced to announce early because it started to leak and IGN was planning to run a story, according to sources familiar with the situation. So I'm going to stop there. Is that surprising? Does that make sense to you?

[Roger McCorney]

That makes more sense. That makes more sense. I do think it still raises the red flags of when you have the official releases. There was nothing from Sarah, right? There was nothing originally there. And the fact that they didn't get that statement up in the minutes afterwards because they had to have had this ready to rush it out. Yeah, exactly. So that. That to me still is the big question mark there.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Continuing that kicked off a day of chaos where teams inside Xbox were hearing the news first through reporters and news outlets instead of via internal memos. The team running Sarah Bond social media accounts was so unprepared that a LinkedIn post inviting people to provide feedback about Xbox accessibility features went live just before her departure. Was it sat there for hours until Bond's team eventually posted her own memo. Microsoft executives shared four memos with Xbox teams on Friday, but only Phil Spencer mentioned Bond. Satya Nadella, Microsoft Gaming EVP Matt Booty and new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma all had kind words for Spencer, but no mention of Bond. Even Bond's own memo to her teams didn't arrive until hours after the announcement and wasn't part of Microsoft's blog. Some Xbox employees I've been speaking, speaking with saw the writing on the wall for Bond last year. She was promoted to Xbox President in October 2023, just days after Microsoft finalized its $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard. Bond had been crucial in getting the deal over the line with regulators and slowly started to become the face of Xbox as Spencer took on the complicated duties of integrating a huge new business into Microsoft Gaming. Six months after Bond Bond's promotion Xbox executive Kareem Chowdhury, who reported directly to Bond, departed Microsoft and triggered another shakeup of some teams inside Xbox. Chowdhury was key to Xbox's backwards compatibility support and helped bring Xbox cloud gaming to life as xCloud in 2019, just weeks after Chowdhury departed. Former Xbox Chief Marketing officer Jarrett west also left Microsoft in June 2024. That meant the Xbox marketing team was now reporting directly to Bond. A month later, Microsoft delivered a marketing campaign that signaled people didn't need to buy an Xbox console anymore. The message was that, quote, you don't need an Xbox to play Xbox because games were available through Xbox Cloud Gaming TVs. This was all part of the Xbox Everywhere strategy that Bond had been pursuing, a vision to move the Xbox brand beyond its roots in console hardware. Months later, the this Is the this Is An Xbox campaign launched with commercials that positioned a phone or a tablet as an Xbox instead of just a console. It was a confusing campaign and I'm told it offended many Xbox employees internally. Quote this Is an Xbox also debuted months after after Bond appeared on stage at the Bloomberg Technology Summit and announced an Xbox mobile gaming store that was supposed to launch in July 2024. It still doesn't exist almost two years later. Although attempts to redefine Xbox were clearly tied to the mobile store efforts, Microsoft still went ahead with the this Is an Xbox after the store was delayed. The pivot away from console led by Bond under Spencer's direction hasn't gone well for Xbox. Microsoft's Xbox hardware revenue has declined for three financial years in a row, and it looks like those declining revenues are going to continue throughout fiscal 2026. Most of the current and former Xbox employees I've spoken to in recent days are relieved that Bond is leaving Xbox. I've heard from multiple sources that Bond has been tough to work with and built a team structure that meant if you didn't follow the vision or question it, you were out. Most have praised her ability to strike partnerships with companies and developers, though I wrote in December 2024 that Bond had staked her career reputation on the idea of Xbox being everywhere across multiple platforms and devices. This also involves carefully managing her image both internally and externally, making her making her appear to be a gamer like Phil Spencer, in reality, she wasn't. I understand that Bond strategy had been failing internally and been questioned multiple times. Bond had tried to push mobile and cloud over console to reach potentially millions more Xbox customers, but the result has been a classic case of chasing's tomorrow's chasing tomorrow's customers by neglecting today's. That's where I'm going to take a break. I know I just read a lot there, but as you can hear and listen to a lot of really fascinating insight to what has been happening in Xbox. Roger, what sticks out to you?

[Roger McCorney]

I mean, I think it's the idea of this is Xbox. This is an Xbox. Everything is an Xbox. And again, when I'm thinking of charting the future of Xbox and what that could be, it all comes back to this huge marketing campaign that has defined, I guess, the current generation of Xbox, which is pivoting away from consoles. And that has been such a huge kind of talking point from everybody at Xbox, specifically Sarah Bond of Hey, anything could be an Xbox. You could be in the cloud. It doesn't matter. You don't have to have the console. You can play on anything. So to see that this wasn't working internally, that this was kind of her big. For her big thing that she was talking about, that she was pushing to everybody, that was her entire career essentially at Xbox here of, hey, this is the thing that we're going to be able to reach millions of people and, and it was not working out clearly. I mean, you, you talk to people. I don't know how many regular people are actually playing Xbox on the cloud. It's an idea that I think worked for us in the media and people that are super hardcore gamers because, yeah, we understand how cloud gaming works, we understand how this works. But for a lot of normal gamers, I don't think that it was per. It was actually penetrating to that audience. So to see her out and to see that people internally were not happy with that messaging and maybe a lot of the Xbox people that were hardcore into the console space that believed in the. The vision of exclusive exclusivity or just the idea of Xbox consoles being upset with, hey, everything's an Xbox. It makes a lot of sense to me and I especially that last sentence right here, talking about how this is marketing towards an audience that just really is not there, that speaks true to me. And I think that makes a lot more sense when I step back and I read this.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Beer, you popped up. What's up?

[Barrett]

A couple of things stick out to me, right? Like the, the. This thing, this all supposed to be today, right? The, the announcement. All this I still think feels haphazard in a way. Like I think of the amount of. The exponential amount of panic compared to Friday where it's a couple of days until Phil Spencer's gone compared to. They announced this today and he's gone today. Right. Like, that was the whole thing is he's retiring Monday.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Barrett]

Like, I think that, like, today would have been a shit show, I think, if they had gone with that plan and seemingly forced into it by leaks. Right. So that, that's one thing that sticks out to me where I'm. I still don't really fully believe, like, that this was the plan and we've been planning this for weeks or months or whatever.

[Roger McCorney]

How.

[Barrett]

What have you. Right. The other execs not mentioning Sarah at all in their memos, I think is weird. Phil being the only one to talk about her, I think is weird. And I think it's. I, you know, Tom, I think, is reporting on what he is being told and, you know, he. He's giving a lot of great insight and all this stuff. I do find it weird that there is this excruciatingly, like, hyper focus on Sarah Bond's vision, but we don't bring Phil into this conversation at all in terms of losing the vision of Xbox and the everywhere is an Xbox and all this. Like, I. I find that weird. Like, it. A lot of it is being put on her and maybe like a lot of it was her. But I, I think it's weird to not involve Phil when Phil was up there as well, you know?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I mean, a lot of it just strikes me as inner politics and like inner the perception of how people view leadership. Right. Where what was Phil's reputation inside Xbox versus what Sarah Bond's reputation inside Xbox. I think the Sarah Bond thing especially gets talked about because you have Phil who very clearly had the direction of, hey, Sarah, I think this is where. This is where we need to go if we're going to continue to be profitable or try to make money, try to explore new revenue. And Sarah being the one who has to like, actually execute that vision, you know, like, I think that's where a lot of it comes down as far as people looking at Sarah and her being the talking point, her being the scapegoat essentially of, oh, all this blame is coming down on this person because it was her responsibility to do it, to carry out a vision which honestly maybe didn't have hope in the first place.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

You know, I mean, like, have you ever been given a task where it's like, hey, do this thing and you look at it, it's like, there's no way that this is going to work, but I got to do this thing with my full chest and hope it works and when it doesn't work now, it's your fault.

[Barrett]

It reminds me of that post I remember sharing on Friday from Gita Jackson of, you know, usually when they put women of color in these positions, it's for them to eat shit, right? And like, if a lot of this stuff is true, it does feel like Sarah was put in this position to, you know, take a lot of the, you know, the brunt of people's frustrations in a way.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Now talking about Xbox everywhere, right? Anything, this is an Xbox. So fascinating. And I. We're going to get into it a little bit with the second half of this, which is really like the last fourth of it here because we, we then transition talking, but particularly about Sarah Bond to talking about the future and Ashton Sharma and stuff like that. But with the Everything is an Xbox initiative being, I think, kind of like the central thing here that is under scrutiny, I am still of the mind that, like, I don't know what other route you take as Xbox. Like, I think if you took the other route of like, all right, we'll just keep going as usual. I still think you land in a place where Microsoft is looking at Xbox and being like, what the fuck, we need more money here.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting one because I, I am personally of the mind of like, I love cloud gaming and I use it all the time. I adore it. I like xcloud a lot as a platform. I don't think it's ready to be like the thing, you know what I mean? To like, say, like, oh, it's on your tv, okay, but it's cloud gaming, right? Like, that's a different thing. Like, those are two separate things. I do think they're in a good situation though, for the Everything's an Xbox or hey, we're multiplatform now, specifically with this year, like when it comes to gaming and like the games that they've had coming out from the first party that people actually wanted to play. This is the year, right? You have Halo, you have Fable, you have Forza, you have all of the games that are coming out. So I actually think Asha Sharma is in this weird position where she can come in and just kind of slam dunk just by them setting up everything right. They have. The dominoes are actually set up this time. And at least in. You have Gears of War, you have these, these big hitters that are actually coming to PlayStation 5, at least, knock on wood, they should be, right? You have all of these games that are third party that are ready to have a big breakout moment. She just needs to kind of come in and let it all happen. But I do, I don't think. Let me go back to it. When it comes to that. This is an Xbox and what Sarah Bond was doing over there, I think that's the best of what you could pitch that platform and what you're going for there.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

And I think that this is an Xbox thing. Yeah, for me, has always made sense in the idea of what Microsoft is trying to do as a tech company to grow Xbox. I think you've hit mass critical mass as far as the people who are able to buy a console. Right. The amount of consoles that are in homes, it's like you're not really going to get much more as far as, like hardware. If you want to speak to more people. A company like Microsoft looks at phones, they look at the piece of hardware that every single person has and goes, all right, but how do we get to that? Because that is where theoretically, like, that's where the money comes. Especially when we're talking about video games as a maturing industry. Right. As a maturing business, it is. When you're not seeing that growth, these companies freak out. And is that going to lead to chaos and bad decisions? Yes, every single time. Right. But that's the system we're in with capitalism is that they want the infinite growth. They're not seeing the growth anymore. And so now they have to find other growth opportunities. And in Sarah's role here was to, you know, see forward that initiative for finding those growth opportunities. And like, that's the tough thing where I'm not here to point fingers at one CEO or another, you know, like, all you are are a team. And so I'm looking at you guys as a team of like, who's failing Xbox and who's not failing Xbox. But what I'll say is that, like, I don't. I don't know if you had hope here.

[Roger McCorney]

I think the biggest doom of this all is, is first of all, on paper, it makes sense. Everyone has phones. Yeah, of course they want to play Xbox games, whatever. I think the biggest issue here, which is like a systemic issue, is that people are loyal to their platforms, right? You see Epic Games literally giving away video games. And people will not leave Steam. Like, they will never. Some people, like, literally will never download Epic Games to just boot it up to play bioshock Infinite for free. They'll never do that. They are loyal to Steam, they are loyal to PlayStation. So unless you're able to figure out, hey, we're going to put game pass on Nintendo Switch, which they will never do. And if they do, that is the biggest red flag that Xbox will go under in the next six months. Like they are. That will never happen. And I don't think there is a way to, to truly get people into the Xbox ecosystem in a meaningful way by the millions. Unless you are able to do exclusives that people are, hey, I'm going to buy a console.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

When you say Xbox ecosystem, are you saying console specifically?

[Roger McCorney]

I'm saying it all. Oh, I just, I think it's tough to just look at anybody and be like, hey, you have to download the Xbox app and sign in and an account and do things. Like, I think that is a barrier that people just. It's like, oh, it's an easy barrier. It's really not. No, like people don't want to do that. People are in the Steam ecosystem. People are in their PlayStation ecosystem. They don't want to make another account and do another thing on this side, even if it is free or better or whatever.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

It's the way that I own both a Steam deck and an Rog Xbox. No, not an Xbox, an Rog Ally. Right. I bought the Steam Deck. The Rog Ally was sent to me. Thank you to Republic of Gamers, whatever. But that Rog Ally collects dust because I'm so locked into my Steam deck. Like you could tell me all day, every day that the Rog Ally X is more powerful than my Steam deck and I'm just going to look at you and be like, well, I have Steam. Yeah, my. I'm locked into my Steam ecosystem. I know I can download Steam or whatever on my Rog Ally. But like, I'm locked in here. It's so tough to get me as a stubborn person to, to pick up the Rog and reset up everything and like try to play on this thing that doesn't feel as, you know, integrated into the ecosystem as the Steam deck does.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah. And that's why I think if we talk about if this was doom from the start, I think that would be the biggest thing to point out is that people just are not. If again, if Epic Games every single week is giving away free video games and just people just don't do it, then I think that just shows people are stubborn and they are in their ecosystems and they don't necessarily want to go to Xbox right now.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

So to jump into the last part of this article, I'm going to read through it again. Shout out to Tom Warren, I'm reading your full long ass article on the Verge and so thank you for doing your reporting and thank you for giving us the the stuff to talk about on this episode of kfcd. The rest of it goes like this Phil Spencer's retirement has seemed inevitable to Xbox employees, particularly over the past year. In February last year, Spencer took a long vacation and I'm told, and I'm told some teams had to wait weeks for sign off on some key changes. Shortly after this vacation, rumors started circulating inside Microsoft that Spencer was getting ready to retire. Microsoft was eventually forced to deny the rumors in July, claiming Spencer wouldn't be retiring anytime soon. With Spencer's retirement official, Microsoft is hitting the reset button on Bond's Xbox strategy Instead of embracing it further, Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma is now promising the return of Xbox in a clear message to employees that the strategy over the past few years has not been working. Quote I want to return to the renegade spirit that built Xbox in the first place, says Sharma. Xbox employees I've been speaking to have been concerned about the Sharma appointment, particularly because of her previous role as an AI executive at Microsoft. There is also concern about her lack of industry experience in entertainment and gaming. Sharma has been clear she's not a gamer and has spent the weekend responding to people on X and even taking game recommendations. Some Xbox employees worry she'll force AI into everything Xbox does, but Sharma was clearly ready for that reaction. Quote as monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop, said Sharma in her memo. Quote Games are and always will be art crafted by humans and created with the most innovative technology provided by us. End quote. The other concern is that she's been appointed by Nadella as some kind of executioner of the Xbox console. Her memo doesn't suggest that, and Microsoft could have easily appointed Matt Booty into that kind of role to push game publishing instead of the Xbox console. I get the impression from her sources that Microsoft wants a turnaround and is worried about losing Xbox as it's one of its only remaining successful consumer brands. I saw you bring up something with Asha. What was it? I missed it.

[Barrett]

I was reading her being worried about birth rates and saying AI will fix birth rates.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I saw this pop up. I didn't dive into it because it was one of those eye rollers where I was like, I don't have the time. It's my weekend.

[Roger McCorney]

There's so much happening.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I'm gonna focus on what makes Me happy right now.

[Barrett]

You know, it goes back to, you know, it's similarly in line with what you say. CEOs say the darndest things. Yeah, C Suite execs say the darndest things, man.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Let me tell you, you can probably convince AI CEOs to say crazy in like, I was watching. I mean, speaking of dumb AI, right? One of my friend group chats, they sent over a video of a dude basically saying, like, you know, oh, they're talking about how AI uses a lot of resources. It uses a lot of water. And they're like, well, when you look at the amount of resources and water and stuff that humans use over time to be able to do certain tasks.

[Barrett]

You're talking about the head of OpenAI.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Was it the head of OpenAI? Yeah. He was saying that AI essentially uses less of the resources when you think about what it can do versus humans using those same resources and having to learn to do it.

[Barrett]

He also told on himself that on some talk show where he was like, I. I can't imagine raising a child without AI.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, you got ask questions. How do I feel?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

These people are the. The closest to non people.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I was going to say, yeah, you can probably convince AI CEOs to, like, be in favor of genocide if you convince.

[Roger McCorney]

If you.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

If you found an AI argument for it, they will make that argument. That's how fucking crazy this shit is. Yeah.

[Roger McCorney]

Because.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah, when you think about the Sam Altman quote, right? Like, that's essentially an argument for, oh, yeah, get humans out of here, then.

[Barrett]

Yeah, it's like, you know, even if you replace the person from the job with AI who has, you know, exponential experience by taking up all of these resources in an exponential amount of time compared to a human being over 20 years, that person still needs resources like food and water, you know, but that's

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

why it's so much better, Barrett.

[Roger McCorney]

You can control it. Don't worry about it.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

So we can. We can make a video of Martin Luther King doing the Gangnam Style dance with only a few cups of water. Yeah, we just got to kill one tree for that.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, exactly. Humans have to just ruin a few towns in the middle of the country. Don't worry about it. It's fine. Who cares? Horrible.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

So to jump back into the Austin Sharma part of this. Right. We talked. We talked a lot about this on Friday, but I think the reiteration here of the return of Xbox is the quote that jumps out at me.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah. I was reading some of her tweets, and she was responding to somebody who was like, posting like the only on Xbox at the top of an Xbox original game. And it's like, I'll bring back exclusives. And she says, heard you. Which is like, first of all, cats out the bag. There's no way. There's no, like, I, like, I think that's the level of like, people are like, oh man, she's listening. But it's like you, are you listening to the strategies of Xbox for the last, you know, five, six years of like, what they've been leading towards? Like, we're at the point now where Gears of War is probably going to launch on PlayStation 5 at the same time as Xbox. So it's like there's no way you can go back.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

And part of the people that she's

[Barrett]

listening to, from what I, what I understand is, you know, some gamergate, you know, some prominent gamergaters, you know, the people that she's hearing.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I mean, like, I. With that, I think is one of those ones where. And I'm not trying to defend her because I'm also rolling my eyes seeing the kind of people she's replying to. It strikes me as baby's first day on Twitter.

[Roger McCorney]

Yes, yes. And it's like, you meaning Twitter, specifically like Twitter. Oh, these are just gamers. They're all the same. And it's like, no, no, no. And I looked it out, the bias.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I'm like, Asha Sharma, you're not going to be on this website for long. Like, you're either your co executives are going to be like, yo, do not,

[Roger McCorney]

do not talk, do not engage with

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

these people or you're going to learn really quick that they do not fuck with you and they will fucking eat you alive. But, well, it's interesting as we talk about the return of Xbox and like, you know, exclusives versus continuing the strategy or whatever the way that they. This article frames it as Sarah Bond being the one to lead the charge of Xbox everywhere, what that looks like, putting our games everywhere, all that shit. And this trains, this scapegoating of Sarah Bond. Now we have Asha Sharma saying the return of Xbox. The only logical conclusion for me to get to is what Greg was talking about when we talked about this on Friday, which is we're going to try and put the cap back into the bag. Like, we're going to try and get back to what old Xbox was in a profitable way, which is, I think, impossible.

[Roger McCorney]

Or as I was mentioning earlier of like, we have this year, we have an incredible year of Xbox games coming out that should be hits. That should be amazing video games that should break out of the normal, smaller Xbox crowd and get into the PlayStation's crowd that get into. Oh, shit, Xbox is back. I'm playing Gears of War in 2026 and the flashbacks of playing Halo in 2026. Like, people are going to be excited about this. I do think there is a way that she just literally shows up. Yeah, Coast. Literally coast and shows up and says, look, Xbox is back. Everybody, I'm here. And this is the neck. This is just the beginning where you saw this. We're going to do this more. And then that's like the first year. That's all you need to do for the first year.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

What do you think happens year two, year three? Because the only, the only thing that I can poke holes in, in that is that on the business side, internally at Microsoft, they want to see some change. Yeah, they want to see something like, they want to see like some steering of the ship of, you know, make that thing turn left. You got to do something to the, to this gigantic Titanic. I got Titanic.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah. Because we were watching. Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Titanic last night, let me tell you.

[Barrett]

But at what point is it too late to turn away from the iceberg?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

And I think it's, I think it's been too late to turn from the iceberg. But I mean you have to, they have to do something. Right. I don't think she's just going to. I don't think she can just coast.

[Roger McCorney]

Maybe hiring her, not maybe this is a gamescast. Because I actually think this would be fun of like going through all the permutations of what the future of Xbox could be. Yeah, but like when it comes to like the best version of Xbox, I do think it is them focusing in on, hey, this is whatever the next generation console is. It's a PC and it's an Xbox and we use our Microsoft levers to make that NAS even, maybe even less expensive than a Steam machine. Right. You have to kind of steer it in this direction because I don't think we can ever be in this place now where you are competing with a PlayStation properly. You are competing with a Nintendo Switch. It has to be. This is a PC and it's an Xbox and you get two for one almost deal. And that is the best way to play Xbox. But also it's everywhere. And also we're making, we're leaning in on our IP that people know we're not taking chances anymore. This is going to lead to a bunch of layoffs. All the studios that are making the fun games or the games that aren't that popular that are aren't the the biggest games in the world that aren't making the Fables that aren't making the Gears of War. You're it's going to be cut. That is. That is in the next.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I want to talk about this because I want to dive into these permutations right now. Okay, we'll get into it. But before we get into what, I want to get you into patreon.com kindafunny and YouTube.com kind of funny games I got there 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. This episode is brought to you by

[Roger McCorney]

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[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

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[Roger McCorney]

For more information and to get the

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

party started, visit five Hour Energy or Amazon today. And we're back. I want to come back in with some super chats because y' all got a lot to say Starting with no identity 85 he says Tom Warren lost all my respect with that disgusting hit piece. And then there's another one that that's from Zeke Speak who says want to quickly shout out the Verge and their A plus coverage subbed when they went Indy and Nalay Patel, Tom Warren, Ash Parrish, etc are doing a great job. It seems like there's a lot of people are split on this article because again, this one, there's another one from Sunny Knowles who writes in and says I'm sorry but this news article from the Verge sounds like Microsoft doing a hit piece to blame Sarah Bond since she won't, she won't likely respond. It's really pathetic. In my opinion. Phil and Sarah deserved better. Roger, do you have any opinions on is this a hit piece?

[Roger McCorney]

I can't. I mean you can never tell because I'm not inside of Xbox. Right. I don't know what the actual movings and shakings of this are. I don't, I wouldn't say this is a hit piece. I don't think that he this is a anti Xbox, anti Sarah Bond specifically story. I do think that this speaks to the level of internal Distress that was happening between Sarah Bond and what Xbox and Microsoft specifically wanted from that team. Yeah, I, I don't think I can confidently say this is a hit piece. This is anti Xbox.

[Barrett]

Yeah, I don't know, like, definitely not from the Verge. Again, I said earlier, like, shout out to Tom who is, you know, deep diving and reporting what he is being given. What he is being given. Who knows from that perspective of like what Microsoft is, you know, outputting there. But in the article itself as well, Tom also references former Xbox employees. So I don't know, it's like a. Again, a weird thing. I don't think it's a hit piece, but I do think there's a weird shifting of weight, particularly only on Sarah Bond, which I do find weird.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'll. I don't know. I, I have respect for Tom Warren as a journalist. Like, I've been going. I've been sourcing the Verge for a very long time. So I don't know. He's a trusted source for me as far as what he usually delivers and I feel like he usually knocks out of the park whenever I read a Time Warren article. So. Yeah, take that for what it's worth. All right, let's talk about these permutations.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Like, because I, I love it. I don't. Obviously there's so much here that can happen. We're talking about such a big ship at Microsoft in Xbox in particular. Don't smile at me. It's Titanic. It's on the phone.

[Roger McCorney]

Oh, no, I was smiling. Sorry. I was a million miles away.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I didn't.

[Roger McCorney]

I. Sorry, I didn't.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I thought you. I thought you're laughing because I, I keep almost Titanic references because let me tell you, I had a really banger Titanic reference. But then it's going to come off like the guy who's just watched Titanic.

[Roger McCorney]

I mean, which literally it is.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Which I am. Let me talk about this iceberg Titanic movie. Let me tell you, this entire situation

[Barrett]

giving me Titanic vibes.

[Roger McCorney]

A lot of iceberg talk.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Because obviously, like, you know, Titanic's is one of the. Is one of the most popular movies the last 30 years. Y' all didn't prepare me for the second half.

[Roger McCorney]

No, dude, everyone does.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Goes crazy. The ship, it like cracks in half and then it's like looking like this and they're at the top and they're

[Roger McCorney]

falling

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

and that's what Xbox is right now.

[Roger McCorney]

Oh, wow. Really? Oh, wow. You brought it all back.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Brought it all back. No, because it's such a big Ship to steer. I think they try. I think they try to go back exclusive. No, I think they try to go back. I think they try to compete with PlayStation. I think that's. For me, when I read everything that they're saying. And of course they could be talking bullshit because it's CEOs or whatever, but that's what they're saying, dude. I'm saying we want to get back. We want the return of Xbox. I think we want to right the wrongs that the previous administration did. Like we wanted.

[Roger McCorney]

We.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That is you telling me you want to go back to how things work.

[Roger McCorney]

I think this speaks to. We want to go back to when Xbox was making Gears of Wars. All the time they were making. I mean, we haven't had Gears of War in a very long time, right?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Like, games take long to make.

[Roger McCorney]

That's what I'm saying. I think that that is the. That is what they're saying. What they're saying is they don't want to do the. This is this. Everything's an Xbox anymore. What they are going to do is third party everywhere. And I don't think that they will ever go back to exclusives just because this year they're going to make a fuck ton of money from PlayStation gamers. They're going to make so much money from Nintendo Switch gamers. When Call of Duty goes to Switch, I know it's a different situation, but inevitably when they start putting all these games on Switch, they're going to make so much money that they're never going to be able to look back and say, actually we're going to put the next Gears of War exclusively behind Xbox consoles. Like, no way, dude. No way. I think what they do is they look at this year and I think a lot of it. Actually one of the permutations that I had is Fable. I think Fable is like a huge. Not all hinges on Fable, but a lot of it hinges on Fable. Of you have the guaranteed hits of Halo, you have the guaranteed hits of a Gears of War, you have the guaranteed hits of a Forza. Fable, to me is such a huge swing in an IP that of course people know, but it's not like the biggest of IPs, right? It's not like the IP that. It's like hardcores love it. Outside of that, some people have played Fable, some people haven't. Fable is also a huge swing with a team that didn't really make games like this. They're making racing games and now they have a second team that has a lot of time, a lot of money behind it. If Fable does really, really well, then I can see them being like, okay, that's the, that's the model right here. We take all the studios we have, we pair them up with IPs that we have that are beloved and we either dou up or we. That is the focus here on IPs and we just bring them back and we make them a new fresh pane of coat.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Bear with this. Your highlight.

[Barrett]

This is a paragraph from Ashes statement on Friday.

[Roger McCorney]

Right.

[Barrett]

And says gaming now lives across devices, not within the limits of any single piece of hardware. As we expand across PC, mobile and cloud, Xbox should feel seamless, instant and worthy of the communities we serve. We will break down barriers so developers can build once and reach players everywhere without compromise. I know this speaks a bit more to the play anywhere thing, but I do think that it also comes into the conversation of where they're at right now with exclusivity. And I'm kind of where Roger is at, where it's like the cat's out of the bag. I don't know really how much you can put it back in the bag.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I mean, I read this and I go, man, they're not saying other consoles.

[Roger McCorney]

Sure.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

They say any single, Any single piece of hardware. As we expand across PC, mobile and cloud. None of those things say PlayStation or Switch. Sure. And I, and again, I think, I think ultimately you're going to be right. Yeah. And I ultimately, I agree with you as far as. I don't think they can fully put the toothpaste back into the thing. Right. Like the amount of references I can

[Roger McCorney]

ship back in the bottle.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Ship back in the. There you go. Come on. I don't think you can do that based off of, like, how far we've gone with it. But I think to some extent they want to. Because I think they want to sell boxes. I think they want to get back to being, to being like, yo, no, we want to sell our hardware because we're making this hardware for a reason. And the way that we sell our hardware is by having exclusive games for the hardware.

[Roger McCorney]

I think the sad thing is, like, not the sad thing, but the truth of the matter of where we're at with hardware and where we're at with Xbox is again, people aren't going to come back to. As Phil Spencer said, I think in an interview with, with us is this was the worst generation of the Xbox One generation. For them to lose everybody is. They have their, their, their games on their platforms. They're not leaving. They are stuck. They are not going to go over to Xbox and lose all the PlayStation games, right? What you need to make is compelling hardware. You need to make interesting hardware, like almost a Steam machine. You need to make it something that people want to have that they look at that and say, man, that fills a gap that is interesting, that is pushing something forward. I don't know what that is. I don't know if it is a Steam machine. That is the most powerful thing in the world type deal. And it also is a little bit cheaper than the Steam machine because they, Microsoft can pull those levers and pull those AI levers and make it, you know, affordable. But I do think they have to focus on the hardware of it all because that is the only way that you're going to get people to buy that hardware. Because you. I don't think we're at the point now anymore where you can go back and make this exclusive. But when it comes to. Sorry, really quick. When it comes to some of my permutations, one of them is like, I could see this year them taking the lesson of like, we're just playing the hits now. So you, you get the Undead Labs, they're gone, right? You get Ninja Theory, they're gone, right? You can maybe get a compulsion and they continue on and they do a sequel to south the Midnight and maybe we try that out, but like, we're just playing the hits and that is the thing that they're going to focus on. Xbox is back. We're not trying any of that, you know, nerdy indie stuff anymore. We're just playing all. We're doing Gears of War all day.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That's the part where I fully agree. Yeah, I could see that permutation so clearly. Because I think the tough thing about Xbox first party is that it's so scattered among so many different developers and so many different things happening. But I feel like the results have been so mixed as far as both the sales and like, I guess, popularity of the games and also just the quality of the game. So you do have the, the Doom, the Dark Ages that come out that it is like, oh, this is aaa. Like, oh, this is a great game. People love this thing. It's Doom. It's working, right? But then you have the South Midnights, which I got mad respect for the South Midnights. I want the south of Midnights to exist and kill it and be artful and do all these things. But I think that's where you get into the point of. At what point do they start Restricting and going, hey, we need to have these, these IP or these pillar IPs. It is call of duty number one. It is whatever Desda's big thing is Halo. It is Halo. It is Gears. It is Doom. It is like, like the things that we know are the big IP names, and if you're not making things that are supporting those things, we don't know what to do with you. You're gone.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, it's. It's a. It's a tale of them not being able to launch a brand new IP in the last generation or two. Even of like a brand new. Hey, like, even you look at PlayStation, what they've been able to do of like they have such a cache where they can make it days gone. And even if it isn't the biggest thing in the world, there's a fan base of days gone players that really enjoy that game and enjoy that franchise and want to see it again. Like, you just don't have that with Xbox and anymore.

[Barrett]

Sadly, they. They had that rhythm game.

[Roger McCorney]

Which one? Star Wars?

[Barrett]

No, the.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Well, the High Five rush.

[Roger McCorney]

The High Five Rush. Cancel that studio. And then.

[Barrett]

And then, yeah, they fumbled that bag.

[Roger McCorney]

See if these is the closest one, as somebody said, grounded. The live service stuff. Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Like, obviously I can't list every single.

[Roger McCorney]

I'm just saying, like, they haven't been able to create, like, here's an IP that like, is the new future of Xbox. That this is like, I. I feel like.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I think, yeah, see if Thieves is the closest. It's definitely there. I think it counts. I. But like, that's. See if these was what, 2018, 2017. Like, it's been a very long time since Sea of Thieves. And yeah, if I'm thinking of the last one, like, if I'm going through. All right, what are the latest ips I can remember from Xbox? It's Keeper Redfall, Star Starfield. Right. Everybody loves Starfield.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, I almost think that, like, not that it doesn't count, right. Just because it's just Bethesda. Right. You know what I mean? Like, that's almost like. I'm just saying, like, I'm looking at what they've done here in the last, like all of their other teams, they just have not been able to, like, they've made multiple Hellblades. Just has not become a thing. Like, I need them, this next generation to like.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

But the thing is, they've not been. They've not been launching IPs that would become a thing like that. Like Hellblade isn't Meant to be a mass market appealing game. Sure. Hellblade is an indie game, and that's why I love it. Like, that's a game that I played in 2017. It was five to six hours long. It, you know, gave me a cool, like, story about psychosis and what Sanu was going through. And it got me in and it got me out. I don't look at Hellblade being like, all right, let's franchise this.

[Roger McCorney]

I mean, it is a franchise. Those two. There's two.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah. But, like, was that the original intention

[Barrett]

when they made that first game, though?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, exactly. And like, I go in, and that's what I'm saying. Like, that we're never getting. That we're never getting a Hellblade one to Hellblade two ever again. Like, we're like. I think what they do if they went Xbox is back, right? You focus in on these core IPs, and then you build up those core IPs to the point where it's like, okay, the Halo team, they're killing it now. They can make a spin off Halo game or something else than say, hey, from Halo Studios. You know what I mean? Like, and Coalition. Coalition. Oh, no. Initiative left. Coalition still around. They're doing Gears of War.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yes.

[Roger McCorney]

Right.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Cool.

[Roger McCorney]

Sorry. So many studios have closed. I don't know what's going on anymore. But, like, Coalition, if they get two more Gears of War games underneath them that are the fucking biggest thing in the world now, we can do from Coalition, you know, the next thing. Right. We don't have the base level of everything.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That's what happens when you have so many studios.

[Roger McCorney]

Exactly.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

When you acquire everybody, you just get lost in the shuffle. Yeah.

[Roger McCorney]

Yep.

[Barrett]

And then all those cuts will happen and, oh, man, the industry is going to feel like a husk of itself. And the question really quick, before I forget, that I wanted to pose to y' all is with a new. With a fresh pair of eyes coming in and overseeing all this, do you think there are any big changes or course corrections with the idea of Game Pass? Because they have also relied a lot on Game Pass being such a big part of their, you know, monetary intake for Xbox. Do you think there's any way, like, any big changes from that of them looking in, them coming in and seeing, like, what works, what doesn't work here? Because we've had this question, this existential question about Game Pass for years.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I think probably not super soon, but within the next couple of years, I think you see the price go up again, maybe dramatically or you see them pull out, pull out, like some of those bigger exclusives. Maybe you don't get a Call of Duty on Game Pass anymore. Like, maybe you don't get the next Elder Scrolls on Game Pass. I could see that. Correction. Or they just. Or they raise the price to where they're like, all right, cool, we can make this happen.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah. My brain, again, goes to what I alluded to earlier, which I don't think is going to happen anytime soon. But, like, if we were to really shake shit up in Xbox and try to make Game Pass a thing that everybody's on, you would try to make a deal with PlayStation, Nintendo and Steam, right? That would include giving everyone 30%. That would include, you know, bleeding even more than you probably already are bleeding. Yeah. But maybe that is the right decision in terms of getting a version of Game Pass to people so then they understand what it is. Right. I don't know. I don't think it's ever going to happen.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

And that strikes me as something that, like, under Sarah Bond, that's what. That's what you would want to do. I'm sure at some point they probably tried to. Like, I'm. I wouldn't be shocked if we. If, like, you know, Sarah Bond, I guess I was shocked if she said this, but if we learned that Sarah Bond had those conversations with PlayStation, and PlayStation was like, no. And Nintendo's like, no, we're not. We're not doing that on our platform. Like, even for 30, I think you're talking about maybe a higher percentage at that point for what we'd wanted.

[Roger McCorney]

I mean, it's interesting because, I mean, these sort of things exist already on their platforms, right? EA Play, you know, Ubisoft plus, like, they exist on these. Of course they're different, right? Because they're true publishers and they're not giving editors.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Like, Ubisoft plus doesn't have FIFA on it.

[Roger McCorney]

You know what I mean?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Like, you can't. I can't open it.

[Roger McCorney]

So that's the thing you would need to do, like Xbox Core or something like that. You need to wait three, four years from now when a bunch of Xbox Games are on PlayStation are on Switch and you could just say, hey, all of Xbox games are on, you know, PlayStation, Xbox Game Pass.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That I could. That I could see.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Even that I'm like, I know, I know.

[Roger McCorney]

But that's. That's the only way in my mind to, like, connect with an audience that is just never going to come to the other side of it all. So I don't know. Yeah, it's for me. Xbox Game Pass. I don't know if it's numbered, but I just don't. I. I'm not as bullish as I was on Game Pass a few years ago.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah, somebody says in chat. So why did Blessing just stop reading the article? Brother, I was reading for 10 minutes long. What else you want to read? Yeah, dang. Let's do some more super chats because a lot of y' all have a lot of things to say. One from fog12 who writes in and says, says, not sure why tw. Oh, see Tom Warren's article feels questionable. Kind of funny, folks been questioning Xbox direction for a while. When strategy is viewed as failing, leadership change follows. Being respected doesn't override results. Bandana Bush 7334 writes in and says to get back to Exclusive, they'll need that new Xbox next year. I don't think we're going to see a new Xbox next year.

[Roger McCorney]

You don't think so?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

The hardware stuff that's happening, the Ram Ramageddon. Memory loss. Memory loss.

[Roger McCorney]

I like that one.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That was Andy. That's courtesy of Andy Cortez.

[Roger McCorney]

We love him.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Barrett]

Consoles coming next year I think is insane. And that's why, like, was it. The Steam machine was like, ah, we have to delay. When we're delaying to. We don't know.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Bye.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, it's.

[Barrett]

It's fucked.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Stefano B4 15 says, I don't necessarily love the idea of exclusive games from a toxicity standpoint, but I don't see what else Xbox could do to make people come back. Yeah, it's. We're gonna see. We're gonna see. Because really the question is, where does. Where do they find the money? What money do they value? Right? Really, they just value money. I mean, whatever is going to make them the most money is what they're going to do. Do they want to try and sell consoles again? Like, do they want to try and like, up that hardware number? Then you see them try to do the exclusive thing, but I just don't think that's going to work. I think we all agree that you're seeing more money by putting your games in everywhere.

[Roger McCorney]

Unless it's the Trojan horse year. Unless this is. This isn't the pivot year. This is the Trojan horse year of like, Halo is on PS5. Okay. The Halo 2 remake that's on fucking. We're Halo 3 remake on Xbox. That would actually sell a few copies.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

We're going to flood the PlayStation streets with Halo and Gears and These Xbox little taste. And then if they want another hit, you gotta. You gotta buy the box. You gotta buy the box. PlayStation gamers. And then we'll do one more shout out to everybody who's been writing in.

[Roger McCorney]

Thank you, everybody.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Let's see, let's see, let's see. I'll do this one from Castle Wings, which is just a nice little one. What's good, kf? Y' all did an amazing job on Friday's breaking news. I know it's out of Gamescast wheelhouse, but I love. Where are they now of 2018's Game Awards? When. When the big three were on stage together. Remember that dude when Phil Spencer.

[Roger McCorney]

It felt like the future.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Phil Sean Layden.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

And was it Reggie?

[Roger McCorney]

Yes.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, my God. What a different time.

[Roger McCorney]

That was beautiful.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

They're all gone crazy. As of today, none of them are still at their places. And then Phil the trucker says, roger, I understand your prediction taking out Phil, but taking out Sarah was too cold, bro.

[Roger McCorney]

I didn't do that, man. I would never. The pills did not tell me that. I'm so sorry. Should take it more.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Were your predictions fueled by pills?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, I was taking pills. Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That was the whole story. I forgot about that storyline. Yeah. Is that. Is that allowed? Could we do that? I didn't know we could.

[Roger McCorney]

I didn't tell what pills. It could have been Tylenol.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Didn't know we were allowed for. To take performance enhancing drugs here.

[Roger McCorney]

Okay. Come on. Mike gave me a honey pack.

[Barrett]

Did we maybe get Roger the limitless drugs? Who knows, you know?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, who knows? Remember the Limitless TV show? We don't talk about that enough.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Limitless TV show?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, it was based off of the movie and it was a sequel in Bradley, Bradley Pitts, Bradley Cooper's character shows up again and he's like, hey, fuck it. You took the limitless pills. He's got to stop taking these limitless pills. Feels like something Nick would watch.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Roger, you know what?

[Roger McCorney]

I got bear started laughing.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Roger, you know something that you watch?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, I do.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

WWE wrestling. We're gonna move on to number three. Roger, you went to New York City?

[Roger McCorney]

New York, actually, I went to New York City, and then I went up to WWE headquarters in Connecticut, I believe. Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

So they took us on a bus.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Wait, they took you from a bus From New York to Connecticut?

[Roger McCorney]

It's pretty great.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Can I ask a dumb question? How far away?

[Roger McCorney]

I honestly didn't know that answer. Didn't know the answer until I was on that bus.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

What city in Connecticut.

[Roger McCorney]

Did he take you to Stanford? I forget. I don't know. I remember exactly where. Again, I was on a unmarked bus and I was just. I was talking to Dan Riker. We were just talking about everything and then I just ended up there. So. So I didn't really. I didn't really think about the time. But, yeah, we went up to WWE headquarters and we played WWE 2K26 a little bit. So I was up there, saw Dan Reichert, saw Simon Carty, saw a bunch of amazing.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Simon flew in from the uk.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Wow.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, yeah, they're doing exclusive stuff over there and. Yeah, saw a lot of cool people there. But, yeah, I. I fell in love with WWE a few years ago for WrestleMania 40. Ever since then, kind of been a slow decline of me, just not really loving the product, not really loving, you know, the politics that have been going on over there. But I wanted to go over there because I like the games a lot. WWE 2K25 on the Switch 2 was awesome and I had a great time with it. So I was excited to see what they're going on over there. So, yeah, I played a bunch of the new game. They have some new match modes. They have an Inferno match where you have to.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Is that what the fire.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, the fire round. It's. It's. It's kind of slow. You just kind of have to beat someone down enough until the fire flame, like, meter goes up and then you throw someone over.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Did you ever watch the Kane vs Undertaker Inferno match?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, yeah. Like the classic. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty sick. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty dope. Yeah, that's pretty dope. They have a dumpster match. Yeah, they have an I quit match, which I didn't try, but, you know, it's exactly what you expect. I love that. And I also tried the new Showcase match mode, which is CM Punk. Yeah, CM Punk, his history. It starts off with a recreation of WWE. Sorry, of WrestleMania 41, the main event. They are losing and doing that whole jazz. I don't love the showcase stuff specifically because I love what they're doing here of like recreating these matches, showing you alternate history stuff, all that cool jazz. I don't love the gameplay of them, like, forcing you, like, the way that it works is that in the corner, it's like an objective. It's like, okay, you gotta, you know, do an Irish whip to Roman Reigns in the corner and then do this move. And if you don't do that move, you fail.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I've always hated that.

[Roger McCorney]

It's so freaking frustrating. Especially when it's like an actual match that you've seen before and you just want to get to the cutscene to finish the thing. But they don't have a mode there. They don't have any way. Because, like, especially when you're starting off in the showcase, it's three people. So it's like. It's like a. It's a triple threat. It's insane. So you're trying to get somebody in the corner and then someone else comes in and breaks it up. It's kind of messy. But to kind of satiate that into. If you don't like playing that, they have a gauntlet mode. So basically you play as either AJ Lee or CM Punk and they just go through every single one of like the matches or like the. The bosses that you fight in the showcase mode in like a gauntlet. And if you beat that, all you get like. Like, I'm pretty sure, like all the base, like unlocks you get from the showcase. So, you know, I'm playing as aj, AJ Lee and then fucking the Miz comes out and then Mick Foley comes down. It's just insane. But yeah, the game itself is pretty fun. And I was able to also talk to some WWE Superstars.

[Barrett]

Oh, yeah.

[Roger McCorney]

So I have a few interviews that will be coming out really quick ones on social media. Okay. I was able to talk to Eosky. Oh, I was able to meet Eos. I have some.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That's like. That's your hero.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah. I love Yo Sky. She's the go. Yeah. So she was awesome. I was able to talk to.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

For those who don't watch wrestling, they call Eosky the genius of the sky. Which is like, objectively cool.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, it's really dope. I was able to talk to Chelsea Green. She was also really sweet. Oh yeah, that's Jacob Fatu. Really great interview with Jacob too. He loved my question there. That'll be going up later. But I have a little video for you from one Xavier Woods.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, the homie.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, the homie over here. He has a little message for you that I. I was trying to get. I was trying to do some stuff. You'll see.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, no.

[Roger McCorney]

Why have you abandoned kind of funny and your commissioner duties? Because Blessing Adio Ye Jr. Is just not cutting it right now.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Wow. Blessing's not cutting it.

[Roger McCorney]

He's not cutting it.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

He's crooked. What do you mean not cutting it? Blessing is probably one of, if not the most confident person over at kinda funny. Thank you. Because this guy Greg Miller, he's the one skirting on his duties. He's supposed to let me know when something happens because he knows how busy my life is with my multiple jobs that I have. He's supposed to call me and say, hey, this is what's going on. And then I get the chance to involve myself in the commissioner duty. So if Greg stops slipping, then maybe, then just maybe, the commence would show back up. Let me let everybody know since I've been gone. There's a reason Blessing is the commissioner of the league, and that's because I put him in charge. So if you're not listening to Blessing, then you have a problem with me and Greg. I know your chest still hurts from what I did to you last time. So unless you need that to happen to you again, get your together.

[Roger McCorney]

Tough words.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Not even tough, real words. And it's not the commit. Excuse me, cuz, it's been a minute. The commission would show back up to kind of funny. Okay, take the mic. What's your name?

[Roger McCorney]

Roger.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Take your mic, Roger.

[Roger McCorney]

He sun me there. Wow.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

What's her name is crazy.

[Roger McCorney]

What's your name? Roger.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Shout out Xavier Woods.

[Roger McCorney]

Shout out Xavier Woods.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

He knows.

[Roger McCorney]

He knows.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Ah, Greg Miller just in the background.

[Roger McCorney]

He's just looking.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah, he looks real sad back there.

[Roger McCorney]

Oh, no.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Real unfortunate that Xavier doesn't co sign Greg's abilities, which do any of us do?

[Roger McCorney]

No, exactly.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Really?

[Roger McCorney]

No. There's a little spoiler for the interview with Chelsea Green. I was like, oh. I'm like, Greg's my boss. And she's like, oh, my God, Greg, I love you so much, Greg. I was like, no one likes Greg. She's like, oh, yeah, she's.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, she's not me around.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, she was like, oh, oh. And I think she deleted his number immediately. And then I have one more video.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, you have another video?

[Roger McCorney]

No, not for. Not for you. One for somebody that. Who's not here, but I want to premiere it here. Oh, Greg's so sad.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

He's crying.

[Roger McCorney]

Oh, no.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, he's really upset.

[Roger McCorney]

This is Johan.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

He looks nothing like me.

[Roger McCorney]

Nothing like me. Nothing like me. He did retweet this video.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah, the video is great. The effort is great. But to say that we look alike. We could be. He could be an uncle. He could be an uncle. We could be. We could be related in some way, but do we look alike?

[Roger McCorney]

Anything you can do to kind of

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

get to your level or how long we got? It's a short interview. All jokes aside. All jokes aside. Very much appreciate him putting in the work there. He's got the shirt, he's got the white trousers, he's waving from side to side. He even made his own green screen video with the. Is that the Windows desktop in the background? I love that. Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. And the green screen there with the white background. He's putting in the work. He could be a backup. Joe Hendry. If he keeps putting up in the work 10, 15 years to development, he could be there. Hell yeah. So that's so cool.

[Roger McCorney]

Joe Hendry doesn't believe in Tim Gettys.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

You heard your first I believe in Tim Gettys.

[Roger McCorney]

I do too.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah. Don't believe in Greg Miller.

[Roger McCorney]

How great would it be if you said that and he came out Tim? That would have been nice.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

No, he's not here.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah. Had a good time. I'll talk more about it, I think Thursday when we talk about all the games that are coming out in March or when.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, cool.

[Roger McCorney]

Whenever that is. We'll talk more about later.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

We got one more new story for you. Story number four. Ubisoft announces new leadership team to shape the next era of Assassin's Creed. This is from Lucy o' Brien over at Ubisoft. Today, Vantage Studios, a Ubisoft subsidiary, announced the appointment of three seasoned leaders who will play a pivotal role in driving the Assassin's Creed brand's long term vision, creative ambition and continued growth. Martin Schelling has been named head of Assassin's Creed brand, responsible for overall strategy and long term vision of the brand. Martin brings with him a combination of deep production expertise and a profound understanding of Assassin's Creed shaped through his leadership on some of his most defining titles, including Revelations, Black Flags, Origins and Valhalla. Most recently, Martin served as Ubisoft's Chief Production Officer, responsible for redefining development workflows across the company's portfolio. Jean Gaston has been appointed Head of Content. Or Gene. Or Gene Gestin. I did the French thing. No, French company. Yeah, so I'll think Jean. But who knows? He's the new Head of content for the brand. He's best known for serving as Creative Director on both Assassin's Creed, Origins in Assassin's Creed, Black Flag and then finally Francois the Billy.

[Roger McCorney]

Billy.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

No shot. No shot.

[Roger McCorney]

There has to be a different way to say it.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Ba Bi. I love the French, man. The French are hilarious. Francois de Billy is the Brien's Head of Production Excellence. He's internally recognized for his ability to optimize processes and remove friction across complex production Workflows. Do you think they call him Francois or Billy in the office?

[Roger McCorney]

I think they call him D. Billy.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Then they go on to say that they've collaborated closely on Assassin's Creed games through the years. Cool. We'll see what comes to that. Where is Assassin's Creed Hexi at? Like the witch trials one?

[Roger McCorney]

The Hexi. Or is it Hex? Just Hex.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

See, I used to say Hex, but then I heard other people say Hexi, and I'm a follower.

[Roger McCorney]

Oh, really? People say Hexi.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I've heard people say Hexi.

[Roger McCorney]

Wow. Wow.

[Barrett]

Yeah, it throws us off because there's an E at the end as well. It's really weird.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah. Hexi. Hexi.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I mean, they're French. Maybe it's Hexa.

[Roger McCorney]

Maybe it's an X on a U on the E. Hexi. Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Billy named it. I'm never gonna get over Billy.

[Roger McCorney]

We love Billy.

[Barrett]

Oh, these dudes are, you know, what is it? Producers for some of the. The better Assassin's Creed titles. So it's like, kind of like, okay, cool. Like, hopefully, you know, there's a strong vision from them in the next couple of years. So.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah. I mean, this is Tencent also, you know, they have to tense. It's looking at Ubisoft, and it's like everything's falling away over there. We got it. This is our franchise, you know?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Roger McCorney]

We got to lock this shit in, bro.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Well, Roger, I'm really excited to see what Billy does with Assassin's Creed because that's gonna be big. Whatever they do is gonna be big. Oh, man.

[Roger McCorney]

You know, small.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Who knows? What is something tinier? Say the tiniest news I need to know about. Where'd I go?

[Roger McCorney]

You'd go to our last story, the Wii News Channel, where we cover all the small news items you need to know about.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Story number five is we news from Gamesindustry biz via game file. Timmy Studio Group, a 10 cent subsidiary, has reportedly shut down its Montreal studio. Speaking of Black Flag, this is one that was, I believe, let up by creative director of Black Flag.

[Roger McCorney]

Was it Origin?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Origin, like success? Reed Origin? Yeah, I thought it was.

[Roger McCorney]

Oh, maybe I'm wrong.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Or maybe it was Origin. Maybe you're right. Okay, it's Ashraf Ismail.

[Roger McCorney]

Okay, somebody look. Look up.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

They did. Aside from cheating allegations, I read the name because I read the article because I thought I was gonna make it into the main news. And I got to the part where they're like, oh, yeah. This studio was founded by Ashraf is Ismail Ismail. And I was like, ashraf Ismail. Ashraf Ismail. I know that name.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Where do I know that name? And then I had a flashback to 2020. I was like, Whoa. Had a flashback to 2020 when, like, I swear to God, half of Ubisoft leadership got cut off for, like, doing crazy.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, dude.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That was one of those people. Yeah.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Crazy. From vgc, the design director of the original Saints Row says he fears the series is over, claiming his pitch for a potential prequel is being ignored by the IP owners. By the IP's owner Embracer Group.

[Roger McCorney]

Or you're just getting debted. Godly. Yeah, you're just getting ghosts. I'm sorry.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Salty is.

[Roger McCorney]

I'm sorry to be.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

When they announced the next Saints Row.

[Roger McCorney]

It's also a prequel.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

He's like, what the guys?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, I mean, I. I appreciate that, but also, I think that is kind of an insane allegation to be like, hey, by the way, they didn't respond

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

to me, so they're from.

[Roger McCorney]

The franchise is dead.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That's like me waking up one day being like, guys, kind of funny is over. Greg Miller's not answering my phone calls. And then you guys go live the next day, and I'm like, yo, what the. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 was the leaked or sorry, was leaked in a YouTube playlist created by Bandai Namco Southeast Asia.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, this. This is the playlist that included just that one teaser, which is maybe the worst teaser of all time, which looks like just an O.C.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

character.

[Roger McCorney]

And it's like, this is the future of Dragon Ball games. It's like, what is happening?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Do you know, like, the crazy thing about Dragon Ball's universe is I'm pretty sure so many people play it because I see it.

[Roger McCorney]

Right. What is Xenoverse?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, how much time do you have? Dragon Ball Xenoverse is basically. I mean, it is oc. You're making an oc.

[Roger McCorney]

Okay.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

And basically, it's almost like MMO is kind of like multiplayer ecosystem Dragon Ball, where you create your own character and, like, you develop them over the course of going out and doing different missions.

[Roger McCorney]

And are you fight. It's like a fighting game?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I mean, I wouldn't describe it as a fighting game, but you do fight.

[Roger McCorney]

I don't want to know anymore. Like Sifu.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

No.

[Roger McCorney]

Is it like an actual MMO, like a Final Fantasy 14?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I would.

[Roger McCorney]

No, you're doing raids. What are you doing?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I never got that far. Bear, see if you can pull up gameplay of Dragon Ball Xenover.

[Roger McCorney]

When was the last one?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

When was the last one, it was like 20 late 2010s. I would say like 2017.

[Roger McCorney]

I didn't know if it was like a franchise for like the PS2 or something crazy.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

No, no. Xenoverse one I think was like early PS4.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Okay. Yeah. It's like in arena five, it's like multiplayer, but then you go into the arena fights. Kind of like tank ig. Not as like, not as refined. Yeah.

[Roger McCorney]

Okay.

[Barrett]

I do. I had to play this for ign, I think.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Barrett]

This is what it looks like. I did not understand it whatsoever.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

People in CHAR are saying it does have raids.

[Roger McCorney]

Wow.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Really? It's a really weird game. I played it for quite a bit before I was like, what am I doing? Why am I playing this? I love Dragon Ball and I love fighting. But like, like it was just so. I didn't. I didn't like the OC stuff.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, it's like that same thing with sonic forces, right? It just feels weird. Yes, it feels weird.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

It kind of does have a little bit of sonic forces in it.

[Roger McCorney]

Gamer.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

But I mean like creating your own Saiyan does feel cool.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

You know, in the same way that creating your. Your own hedgehog.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, exactly. The same vibe. The same vibe. Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

And then Steam Next Fest has begun. Yeah. Really exciting, exciting stuff. And then lastly, this year's SGF will once again bring the global. Who pasted this in? We got to delete the PR speed. SGF is kicking off June 5th play days. Oh, play day. The live.

[Roger McCorney]

It's maybe one sentence blessing you've read. I hate paragraphs about paragraphs and you get angry because you copied in one sentence.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I hate the flowery language that they put in there. I don't want to read your flowery language. The live. The live kickoff show is June 5th. And then play days is June 6th through 8th. 8th and then the game business live is on June 8th. And that's it. That's it for We News. Let's see what's happening with Super Chats. Let's see, let's see, let's see. Nash24601 says, has this dampened thoughts on 2026 titles? I assume Xbox 2026. No, not really. I don't think this really shifts much as far as like the games coming out from Xbox Game Studios. I don't know why that would. Cozy Bear writes in with more Wii news. Yoko Taro, the director of the NEAR franchise, is writing a new Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, I saw this.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That's really cool.

[Roger McCorney]

Some people weren't happy about that.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

They weren't happy.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah. Just for the fact that it's Evangelion.

[Barrett]

It's like, leave it alone. Like, it's done, We've done it. But it's like, I understand that, but I also understand, like, Yoko Taro, man, it's pretty sick.

[Roger McCorney]

It's a pretty sick get. Like.

[Barrett]

Like, maybe let them cook a little bit.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roger McCorney]

Let's see.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I mean, if anybody's gonna write a. A banger Evangelion thing, it'd be watching Evangelion, the first episode.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at. Yeah. My brother loves it. Least surprising thing about him,

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Tyson Lewis. Art says people really forget that Matt and Satya were the ones mostly speaking about competing and going against the competition. I need more elaboration there. Yeah. I feel like we all talk about the competing, going against competition in life. They want to compete in the Olympics. C. Rob says what if they are seeding the PlayStation platform with Xbox IP this gen to try and bring fans to the next Xbox with the next games being exclusive.

[Roger McCorney]

Frozen Horse here.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I mean, if they do that, I don't think they did that purposely.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I think that's just them redoing the plan that they already had.

[Roger McCorney]

I also think that would be an awful idea. That, like, that would be. People would be so angry about that.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah, but people are mad about what? People were mad that they were putting their games on PlayStation in the first place.

[Roger McCorney]

But I think if you're already. If you're doing this, it's like, okay, now the sequel to the game, you're on PlayStation, you can't get anywhere else. It's like, that would suck. Yeah, that would suck.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Gotta buy the box.

[Roger McCorney]

Gotta buy the box. Buy a PC.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Let's hop into your wrong, rewrite it and let us know what we got wrong as we got it wrong. So you can correct it. For those watching later on YouTube and listen later on podcast services around the

[Barrett]

globe,

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

somebody writes in and says, bears. Right? But we don't do your rights here. We do your wrong.

[Roger McCorney]

Else. I wrote in Barrett's wrong.

[Barrett]

No, hey, but now I'm. Now I'm even.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, you're even.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Broke even.

[Roger McCorney]

You're neutral.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

C Beer, I think says, not a complete correction, just education. Connecticut is a part of the New York City tri state area with New Jersey.

[Barrett]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

As Roger was talking, I looked up the Google Maps. It seems like it's like an hour away to Stamford.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Stanford, Connecticut. Connecticut. So you fly into. Why don't you fly Into. Is there not an airport closer?

[Roger McCorney]

No, there is. You could do it, I think. It's just New York is cooler. So they were like, oh, if you're. If we're gonna fly you guys all out, why don't we just put you in New York?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Where was the hotel? Was that in New York?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, it was in the city. Yeah, it was right by. It was right by. Fit.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Where I was it just one day at the WWE thing?

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Oh, okay.

[Roger McCorney]

It was like a Wednesday, and then Thursday was a thing. And then Friday we were supposed to leave, but I extended my flight so I can hang out with family.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Here we go. Nilay Patel's first name is pronounced like Neelai, by the way. That's from Future Bot. Thank you so much for that.

[Roger McCorney]

Anybody talk about the Billy?

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

No, Nobody cared about.

[Roger McCorney]

We all like the consciousness.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah. It is Dabili because I don't think anybody knows except for the Billy Francois. That's the thing you should. You got to put the Billy before the Francois because that's cooler.

[Roger McCorney]

Yeah, it is pretty sick.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Yeah, the Billy Francois.

[Roger McCorney]

What if his name was Francois? Quote unquote debili.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That's pretty sick. It's like a wrestling name.

[Roger McCorney]

And then Jessica. Chances no one cared until I was the millionaire. So dumb. So dumb.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

And then people were in here arguing about whether or not it's a hippies. Listen. I don't fucking know. I don't. I don't make the news. I talk about the things people write. Tom Warren wrote a thing. We're talking about it. And we're not done talking because after this episode of KHD, we're gonna be talking about our Pokemon Day 2026 predictions on the kind of funny games cast. You don't want to miss it and so tune in for that. But of course, this has been kind of Funny Games Daily. If you love what we do, remember you can support us with a kind of funny membership over on Patreon or YouTube to get our shows ad free and get a daily exclusive show. Enjoy the games cast next and kind of feed you after that and a stream after that. What are we playing, Roger?

[Roger McCorney]

Oh, we are playing. Oh, Mike is going to be playing the Pubg Blind spot game. Oh, I'm pretty sure it's Pub blind spot. Yeah, There you go.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

That's really fun. Yeah, yeah. Good memory on this guy. I was putting you to the test

[Roger McCorney]

because I didn't know I made the buzz, so. I know.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Until next time, Game Daily.

[Roger McCorney]

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[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

for a rich, delicious experience. Whether you enjoy your coffee hot, cold, boil or frothy, two good coffee creamers make every sip a good one. Two good coffee creamers Real goodness in every sip.

[Roger McCorney]

Find them at your local Kroger in the creamer aisle. Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body

[Barrett]

relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today.

[Roger McCorney]

Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast.

[Barrett]

And breathe.

[Roger McCorney]

Oh sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

1-800-contacts lifelock. How can I help?

[Roger McCorney]

The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't.

[Barrett]

One in four tax paying Americans has

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

paid the price of identity fraud.

[Roger McCorney]

What do I do? My refund though.

[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

I'm freaking out. Don't worry, I can fix this.

[Barrett]

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[Roger McCorney]

I'm so relieved. No problem. I'll be with you every step of the way.

[Barrett]

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[Blessing Addo Oye Jr.]

Not anymore.

[Barrett]

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