Xbox Reevaluating Exclusivity, Affordability, More - Kinda Funny Games Daily 04.24.26

Summary

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Kinda Funny Games Daily – April 24, 2026

Episode Title: Xbox Reevaluating Exclusivity, Affordability, More
Hosts: Greg Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., with guest Paris Lilly
Main Theme:
A deep dive into Xbox’s company-wide realignment as revealed in a substantial internal memo outlining a new vision for the brand, including potential shifts on exclusivity, pricing, hardware, and the path forward for regaining player trust and engagement.

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Episode Overview

• Core Focus:
  The hosts break down and react to the recently published Xbox leadership message from Asha Sharma (Xbox CEO) and Matt Booty (Chief Content Officer), announcing significant introspection and visible changes in Xbox's approach: acknowledging player frustration, reevaluating exclusivity, revamping affordability, and targeting daily active players as the platform’s "North Star".
• Structure:
  The conversation unfolds as a section-by-section reading and discussion of the Xbox letter, interspersed with reactions, analysis, and live responses to community questions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Letter from Xbox Leadership: Admitting Flaws and Announcing Change

• Timestamp 07:10 – 14:09
• Xbox admits that "players are frustrated," a rare candor for a platform-holder ("I think that’s not something that you often hear from a corporation as big as Microsoft and Xbox..." – Blessing, 10:55).
• Issues cited:
  • Stagnant console feature updates
  • Weak PC presence
  • Pricing challenges
  • Fragmented user experience
• Focus on the core, "hardcore" audience after stretching too thin towards casuals and mainstream; analogy to failed attempts at mainstreaming Xbox akin to trying to make a new Fortnite.

2. The New North Star: Daily Active Players

• Timestamp 18:49 – 23:45
• Xbox’s core metric shifts from Game Pass subscribers to daily active players (DAP).
  • "Our new North Star will be daily active players.” (Letter, read by Greg)
• Four revised strategic pillars: Hardware, Content, Experience, Services.
• Bullet points covering priorities: including affordability, "Project Helix" hardware, creator-platforms (like Minecraft), and an explicit mention of reevaluating exclusivity and windowing.

3. Affordability & Hardware Plans

• Timestamp 28:55 – 31:31
• Discussion about making hardware a "loss leader" again—will Xbox subsidize hardware, as consoles become more expensive?
• Potential for cheaper and more flexible pricing models, and speculation on Project Helix’s positioning ("Are they going to subsidize it and make that more affordable?" – Paris, 29:15).

4. Exclusivity in Flux

• Timestamp 31:31 – 38:22
• Most debated topic: What does “reevaluating exclusivity” mean? Elder Scrolls VI, Halo, Gears—what should stay exclusive, what can be multiplatform?
  • "Elder Scrolls 6 needs to be exclusive to Xbox if you want Xbox to be a powerhouse." – Blessing, 32:05
  • Case-by-case exclusivity seems most likely; some IP (“Halo,” “Gears”) should remain exclusive for brand strength.
  • Past decisions (like Halo going to PlayStation) may become points of reversal.

5. Company Culture: “We Are Xbox”

• Timestamp 38:32 – 41:14
• Closing the message with values and tenets like "Core before more", "Makers over managers", "Clarity is kindness"—met with some skepticism and jokes for corporate speak/AI-like phrasing.
• General consensus: The communication is unprecedentedly transparent and sets tone for a new era ("I like this letter and I like this ending." – Greg, 41:05).

6. Industry & Community Response

• Throughout
• Hosts note positive reactions to Xbox’s honesty and plans to focus on the core, but remain cautious:
  • "Can you talk the talk and walk the walk? They're talking the talk." – Blessing, 41:13
  • Both excitement and wariness about whether these promises will be fulfilled—especially as Microsoft’s leadership weighs AI priorities and overall ROI.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "Players are frustrated. New feature drops on consoles have been less frequent. Our presence on PC isn't strong enough. Pricing is getting harder for people to keep up with."
  -- Greg Miller reading Xbox letter, [07:33]
• "Everything they say here is pretty on point... Maybe I'm a little surprised they're starting off the statement with 'players are frustrated.'"
  -- Blessing, [10:30]
• "Our new North Star will be daily active players."
  -- Greg Miller reading from the letter, [18:33]
• "If you want Xbox to be a powerhouse, Elder Scrolls 6 needs to be exclusive."
  -- Blessing, [32:05]
• "Look, I don't envy the job that [Asha] and Matt Booty have to do right now... there have been so many business decisions that maybe they just have to rip the band-aid off."
  -- Paris Lilly, [37:13]
• "We are a challenger. And meeting this moment will require pace, energy, and a level of self-critique that should feel uncomfortable."
  -- Greg Miller reading Xbox letter, [40:00]
• "This is the most definitive message they've had in their 25-year history coming from Xbox."
  -- Paris Lilly, [41:45]
• "Now let's see them walk the walk."
  -- Blessing, [41:14]

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Additional Major Segments

7. Asha Sharma’s Game File interview: Data-Driven Decisions

• Timestamp 45:33 – 52:01
• Further elaboration by Asha Sharma:
  • No sudden decisions—strategic, data-driven approach to possible exclusives and pricing
  • "I want to make the right decision, not the fastest decision." (Quoted at 45:33)
  • Hints at making both hardware and service pricing more globally flexible, but with caveats on “promises”.

8. “Lightning in a Bottle” – The Quest for GOTY-Caliber Games

• Timestamp 48:04 – 52:01
• Matt Booty aspires for first-party studios to “create the conditions for the lightning in a bottle of winning game of the year.”
• Hosts discuss the realities that “you can’t assign greatness on command, but you can incubate for it.”

9. New Game Pass Starter Edition Bundles with Discord Nitro

• Timestamp 52:01 – 57:12
• A Game Pass "Starter Edition" is leaked:
  • 50+ titles, 10 hours/month cloud streaming, rewards points, bundles into third-party services like Discord Nitro.
  • Bundling as an acquisition funnel—good for introducing wider audiences to the Game Pass ecosystem.

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Memorable Lighter Moments

• Blessing and Greg’s banter about missing TV shows and the treadmill of catching up on series ("Shows are treadmills..." – Greg, [03:20])
• Blessing: "You got to be like me, get back to being single. Sorry, Jen." [04:53]
• Paris joins the show just off a return flight from Japan, discusses running into fans in Tokyo; called "Paris the Grey" as a running joke.
• The hosts riff on corporate slogans, "clarity is kindness", with mock-earnest interpretations.

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Timestamps for Critical Segments

• [07:10] – Start of Xbox Leadership Letter analysis
• [10:30] – Blessing on Xbox’s public honesty and player frustration
• [18:33] – New North Star: Daily Active Players
• [28:55] – Paris on hardware affordability/loss leader question
• [31:31] – Debate on exclusivity, with focus on Elder Scrolls, Halo, Gears
• [38:32] – “We Are Xbox” Company Values/Closing Letter
• [45:33] – Asha Sharma interview coverage (Game File)
• [48:04] – Matt Booty on “lightning in a bottle”
• [52:01] – Game Pass Starter Edition/Discord Nitro leak and reactions

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Tone and Attitude

• Conversational, honest, and humorous; mixes deep industry analysis with typical Kinda Funny comedy and self-aware asides.
• The hosts show cautious optimism: hopeful for change, but realistic about challenges ahead for Xbox.

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Summary Conclusion

The episode marks a pivotal moment for Xbox, as Kinda Funny meticulously breaks down the company’s public commitment to transform—with a focus on regaining hardcore players, evolving its hardware/service models, reevaluating exclusivity, and chasing top-tier game quality. The team lauds the rare transparency and ambition but is careful to remind listeners that ambition must become action to win back trust and market position.

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(This summary aims to encapsulate the core content, key quotes, and actionable takeaways from the episode while retaining the show’s energetic, candid spirit.)

Transcript

[Greg Miller]

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[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

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[Greg Miller]

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Buy one prescription pair and get 20% off any additional prescription [e-mail] kinda funny if you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows go to patreon.com kinda funny today in the

[Greg Miller]

nerdy news you need to know about Xbox Is Xbox a game Pass starter edition with Discord has leaked and the gang of Dragon Dev erased their YouTube channel. We'll have all this and more because this is Kind of Funny Games. What's up everybody? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games daily for Friday, April 24, 2026. I'm one of your host Greg Miller alongside Forbes 30 under 30 aka New York Game Awards nominated aka Bicep Poppy it's Blessing Adio Yay Jr. Can I say something? I'd love you to say something.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We are Kind of funny.

[Greg Miller]

We are. Kind of funny is kind of funny.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Kind of funny is kind of funny. Can I tell you something? I'm disappointed in you. About me?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Oh, sure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Invincible.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This show's a fucking banger.

[Greg Miller]

Hell, yeah, it is. I've been telling you for years.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Are you caught up on it?

[Greg Miller]

I mean, I read the comics, but

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

you're not caught up on the show.

[Greg Miller]

I'm not caught up on the show.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Why aren't you caught up on the show?

[Greg Miller]

Shows are treadmills, and as soon as you fall off, I just can't, like. You know what I mean? When I missed that interstitial Gen V season of the Boys, I was like, see you later, boys. I'm never gonna be able to catch up to any of this.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It can't be so good.

[Greg Miller]

I never even started it. I never watched next season of Boys, and I didn't watch next season Gen V then. I didn't watch this in the Boys.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I did a whole.

[Greg Miller]

Invincible is the same thing where it's like, I love Invincible. Hopefully. You all know I've been yelling about Invincible for decades. At this point.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's legitimately, like, out of all. Because I've watched so much superhero TV in the last decade and a half. I think both Arrowverse and agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. sent me down the path of now just watching every single suit and Daredevil.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Send me down the route of, like, if it's superhero on tv, I'm watching it. Invincible is, like, this season among some of the best shit I've ever seen for, like, superhero tv. Yeah, it's.

[Greg Miller]

That's why it was a great comic.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Have you heard of this guy named Thrag?

[Greg Miller]

Oh, man, I've heard of Thrag once.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Thrag is like, if they put. They put steroids in Frieza. Do you know Frieza?

[Greg Miller]

No. He's from Dragon Ball Z. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Flag is really cool.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. You know, it's just that it's the economy of time. You know what I mean? Of just, like, when I get home, and I think what. What is a back breaker for it, I guess, is that I don't think Jen ever connected with it. So what I. When I watch something, I'm watching it with Jen. So, like, the fact that I could make a full court press, I could be like, we got to go back to Invincible. We got to do it. But I also just know that's not really Jen's thing. Knowing Invincible. I know that it's just really not what she wants to see. When she wants to sit down and watch something. So then when she goes to bed, it's time to go play games and so then where am I? That's why I'm fitting in my audiobook.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You got to be like me. Get back to being single.

[Greg Miller]

Sorry, Jen. Be depressingly single. You can watch everything all the time.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Start going to the gym.

[Greg Miller]

I like that. Welcome back. Blessing. Of course. Yesterday you. Thank you. Yesterday we were both in LA for different embargoed preview events, which is very exciting. Yeah, we'll be able to talk about them soon.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Very excited to talk about the one I was at. Me too. Yeah, talk about it one day.

[Greg Miller]

One day.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We will someday.

[Greg Miller]

Since I can't talk about that, I'd like to talk about what a well oiled machine kind of funny is. I am at a preview event yesterday, the day after our weekly meeting where we lay out what's happening in the next week. I'm at the preview event yesterday. I get the following text from Nick Scarpino. Probably gonna work from home for the rest of the day unless you guys need me in my doctor's appointment. Took a hot sec and the day got away from me. To which I respond, I'm in la. Tim is on assignment, has been gone all week. I told you I was in la. Nick totally oblivious. No parent in the building. Everybody's just running the show over here. To which Nick says, nevermind that I've been in the office all day.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Could have just had everybody stay home. Nobody would have known.

[Greg Miller]

Everybody. This is kind of funny. Games Daily, each and every weekday we run you through the biggest stories in video games. Of course, if you like that, go ahead and be part of the show live. YouTube.com kindafunnygames you can super chat while we're live on Twitch and YouTube and podcast services around the globe. So of course you can be part of the show with your questions, comments, concerns. Thank you to our Patreon producers. Patreon.com kindafunny is where you can go to be like Carl Jacobs, Omega, Buster and Delaney. The Psalm twining. For now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. Time for some new five items on the Roper Report. Thank you, Kevin. Number one. We are Xbox. This is a lengthy message sent out yesterday to team Xbox employees globally by of course Asha Sharma and Matt Booty. The folks now heading up Xbox over there. We're reading from Xbox Wire where they posted it. As we've said, it's lengthy. Yeah, so we're gonna read it, Stop talk, keep reading, come back, do whatever. Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hang out. Yeah, we're gonna have a good time here.

[Greg Miller]

Let's have a good time talking about Xbox.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Come on. The two PSLV hosts talking about Xbox. Let's get into it.

[Greg Miller]

Nah, I'm more Xbox than ever. While I do this, can you find the new Xbox logo side by side with the old Xbox logo and give that to.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I didn't know that was a thing.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, this was popping off yesterday.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Really?

[Greg Miller]

They brought back. It's green and they. It's like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Was it not green before?

[Greg Miller]

They were using a very minimalist thing. Everybody's excited to see the minimalist thing die.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, I did see this.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Just get cabinet so you can pull it up at some time. I digress. Here we go. From Matt and Asha. Dear team, Xbox has always been different. We started with a simple idea. Games should bring people together through shared experiences that led to the First Xbox in 2001, Xbox Live in 2002, and new ways to connect from friends lists and achievements to parties and play across devices. Today, Xbox reaches over 500 million players around the world. I'm sorry. With some of the most important franchises in entertainment. From the beginning, Xbox was built by people willing to try things that others wouldn't. We placed a consumer bet inside an enterprise company because we believed gaming would define the living room and we were at risk of missing it. That spirit has carried us through the last 25 years, and it is required to carry us forward in bold. We have work to do. Players are frustrated. New feature drops on consoles have been less frequent. Our presence on PC isn't strong enough. Pricing is getting harder for people to keep up with. And core experiences like search, discovery, social and personalization still feel too fragmented. Developers and publishers are asking for more too. Better tools, better insights, and a platform that helps them grow faster. At the same time, a new generation of players is coming online with different expectations. Their time is split across games, media and everything else competing for attention. They expect more content in familiar places, want to shape the worlds they play in, and want to create and socialize together, not just play together. These changes are happening as the industry reshapes around us. Console remains large and stable. Windows now represents more players and more hours and is increasing. Where competition is most intense, players have access to more games than ever. Even as the cost and time to build blockbuster titles continues to rise, putting pressure on what get made and how risk is taken. Some of the biggest recent hits are coming from small teams or even Single creators and places like Roblox are producing experiences that rival major franchises in scale. More players are also choosing subscriptions and services as their primary way to play. With expectations set around instant access, ongoing value, and libraries that evolve continuously, the industry is becoming global and competitive. More than half of the market's revenue players and growth are happening outside of our core markets. But the rest of the world is not just a large market. Developers there are increasingly competing with the most established western studios, combining scale, speed, and a willingness to reinvent genres many once considered mature. The model that got us here won't be the one that takes us forward. We now have another bold phrase, but I feel like this is a good stopping point. Bless. Are you riding with Matt and Asha so far?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, so far it sounds like they've been listening to a lot of kind of funny games daily. Come on, come on.

[Greg Miller]

Talking about out here. You know what I mean? We made all this up and they just kept cribbing the notes. But I don't mind one bit.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But yeah, no, I don't think they. I don't. There's nothing here that I read where I'm like, that's wrong. Everything they say here, I think is pretty on point to where I think we are. And maybe I'm. I'm a little bit not even surprised. Starting off the. The statement with players are frustrated.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think that's not something that you often hear from a corporation as big as Microsoft and Xbox leading this conversation about where you want to take the company. And like, is it wrong? Is it off base? No, but I think it's an interesting. It's an interesting place to start from because when I think about players being frustrated, I think of your most hardcore audience.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And I'm curious if they. And if us. Right. Like, do we view the wider, I guess, mainstream gamer as being somebody who's frustrated with Xbox or are we talking about the core community? Of course, core community. Very important for what this is. But the. Do you see first of all, is what I'm saying. Does that make sense?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, a hundred percent.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Do you see the same thing?

[Greg Miller]

Yes, I. But I think that's again, Xbox saying that they are Xbox. I mean, this is a. You know, this reminds me so much of like the Jerry Maguire memo. Right. If you remember Jerry Maguire. But like they're coming out with this battle cry of where we're at and where we're going and using the. The 25 years both as a launch pad. And then like, hey, this is our time to reinvent and go forward. I think as you get into and read about it. Right. Yes. The Xbox, the frustration with Xbox is coming from the hardest of the hardcore gamers.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And I would hope that what this realignment of values and what they're trying to double down and what they're trying to build on understands that that hardcore gamer, Xbox fan, whatever you want to call it, but who we're talking about, the people like you that are watching a games daily and have a solid opinion about Xbox one way or the other, that's what you have to double down on and that's who you have to serve. This is back to the Matt Piscatella Circana. 16% of all the people playing video games are the only 16% of those people are the ones buying two or three games a year, whatever it is. Right. Like, or more like those are the people you need to go to. I think if you're going to talk about what Asha and Matt have to zig for when Sarah and Phil zagged for, it's got to be this play of like cool in the same way I've talked on these shows so much about like these people came in and thought they could make their own Fortnites but you can't make another fortnight. It's got to be the same thing of Xbox. Clearly last time around thought that and maybe they could have if they had more time or Microsoft backing or whatever. But let's talk about what's really happening. Thought they could take the Xbox brand and get it into the mainstream to the casual gamer, to the people who are on their smartphone phone in class, like we were talking to Xanth about on our Diablo review. As a high school teacher, I was asking him these questions like when you're talking about hardcore games in class, are the kids caring about that? He's like a very small percent are. Everybody else is playing some whatever free to play mobile game on their thing just to kill time. They don't. They're not, they're not logging on, I think the way Xbox wanted you to. They're not logging into X Cloud to start up a game session of Gears of war for 45 minutes. No. They're looking for a five minute distraction before they move on to the next thing. And I think if you're talking about what Asha and Matt seem to be pitching here and seem to be saying when they talk about it, it's like cool. We want those players, of course, but we can't focus on those players. We have to focus on the people who are the ones who are going to watch our SGF coverage and break down everything about it and pre order this and get them back on Game Pass and make a compelling argument for why this matters?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes, I agree and I think it's. We're going to continue on with article because there's so much to break down here. But I think that's such a task when you are also now the owners of Call of Duty and you have, I think as xbo my as Xbox, you have such a wider net you need to cast now because you're so big even compared to a Nintendo or PlayStation obviously very big corporations too. But as a publisher now, like it isn't just the hardcore. You gotta like speak to everybody to a certain extent because of how big you are. Yeah, I think that's where I get into the. I'm very interested to see how you walk that line of no, we want to be able to have this hardcore and speak to the Halo fans, the Gear fans, the Forza fans, the know. Viva Pinata. Viva Pinata fans in the community.

[Greg Miller]

In the chat, super chats, I should say Zeke Speak says too little too late. I bought two copies of Kiln for Kiln for Steam and PlayStation so I can play with my partner rather than pay for Game Pass and rebuy a series S slash X. And I understand you saying, too little too late, Zeke. And don't say you're wrong. You are who Asha is thinking about and Matt are thinking about when they write this letter and when they're talking about this, you are the prime example of we fucking had them and we gambled that away and now we've got to get back to that. And can you put the genie back in the bottle? Can you do all this stuff? It's a steep climb ahead of them and they will go through more of what they're saying here. We should jump into it, I guess. But like they are. They are aware that Zeke speak. You are the mission, you are the objective. Fucking Zanth on the Diablo review with me this week saying he canceled Game Pass PC and is this enough to bring him back? He'll wait for Fable to find out. Like wait for Fable. Oh my God.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But also I. I hear what you're saying and I hear what the super chat of their saying, but I also don't think they look at two sold copies of Killing and go, fuck, dude, you bought it on PlayStation and you bought it on PC.

[Greg Miller]

But I mean more that he's the rebuy a series X slash S so he's out of the Xbox. Or they are. Zeke is out of the Xbox ecosystem.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And I say that to say I think we're also talking about a tale of two Xboxes where the Phil and Sarah Xbox looks at those two sold copies and go, yes, we're looking for players to buy our games. No matter where you're at, from everything that Asha and Matt are talking about, it feels like it is. No, we're going to reel that back now. Like, we want you to buy a kiln on an Xbox console or on Xbox via PC or whatever it is. And that's to your point. Yeah, like now we're going to have to reel that back and get us back to that exclusivity race.

[Greg Miller]

Ladies, gentlemen, Enbies. Of course we started talking about Xbox. I thought we were safe because of Japan, you know what I mean? I see all these photos of Paris Lily in Japan. Apparently he is assaulting the chat. He's assaulting the slack. Kevin, I think Paris is gonna dial in on Discord. If you could prep that and have him when he can join us, join us.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He's not sleep. Isn't it like middle of the night in Japan?

[Greg Miller]

I don't know where he is anymore. Nobody knows what this kid's doing. You know what I mean? And I say this kid, I mean, talk about.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Who's Paris showing up?

[Greg Miller]

Father. That's how old he is. You know what I mean?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Father.

[Greg Miller]

He's Nick's father's age.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay? We can't insult Paris that way.

[Greg Miller]

All right? Until he gets here, I can.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think, you know, three digits of

[Greg Miller]

age right there, man. Lou's not that old. While we wait for Paris to join up, I will continue on. Right next bold sentence here. Xbox will be where the world plays. What does Xbox become in this next era? Xbox will be where the world plays and creates. We will build a global platform that connects players and creators everywhere. Console is at the foundation, delivering a premium experience. And cloud brings that experience to any device. You can play where you want and your games progress, friends and identity stay with you across console, PC, mobile and cloud. Xbox will be built to be affordable, personal and open. We will offer flexible pricing so it's easy to get started and keep playing. The experience will adapt to you, letting you customize how you play, helping you find what you'll love, and connecting you with the right people. And we will be open to all creators, from individuals to the largest studios, giving anyone the tools to reach a global audience and keep their games growing over time. Our new North Star will be daily active players. We will execute this through four priorities. Hardware, content, experience and services. Is Paris Lilly in the building with us? Hey, should be Paris, do you hear me? You muted Paris, but there's your image also. We got to update the image. Really?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He looks great here. What do you mean?

[Greg Miller]

No, no, no, no. Oh, no, no. Okay, okay, I understand. Oh, let's all stand out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh yeah, we gotta put the grays on.

[Greg Miller]

We've been talking a lot of shit about Paris. We love Paris. Everybody knows that. It's not that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, we put a Gandalf overlay on him.

[Greg Miller]

Paris looks great here. Paris looks great in every photo he takes. This photo is how many years old? You know what I mean? He's putting up all these great photos.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, but he doesn't age. You know, black don't crack. I mean, it looks the same as he did that 30. Paris. He looked great. But also, yeah, we could get some more grades, get the Gandalf wig on him.

[Greg Miller]

Parris, you're still muted according to Kevin. So while you do that, I will keep rolling through the bullet points here. Okay, so like I said, we will execute this through four priorities. Hardware, content, experience and services. Hardware. Now we get into bullet pointed lists. Stabilize Gen9 as a healthy and high quality base. Deliver Project Helix to lead in performance and play your console and PC games. Lead in comfortable personal high performance accessories. Build a strong ecosystem that expands choice and reach content. Grow and extend our enduring portfolio of franchises players love. Evolve our third party partnerships to strengthen our five year slate. Expand into China emerging markets and mobile first audiences. Maintain and grow. Maintain and grow in live games and long term stewardship. Elevate creator centric platforms like Minecraft, the Elder Scrolls and Sea of Thieves experience and this is a bold experience. Fix the fundamentals for players and partners. Make Xbox the best place for developers and creators to build and grow. Overhaul, discovery, customization, social and personalization to connect the community services. Fortified game pass with clear differentiation and sustainable. Yep, economics. Return the business to durable growth with strong cost discipline. Make cloud feel native, fast and reliable across TVs and low cost devices. Use mergers and acquisitions deliberately to accelerate growth where organic paths are too slow. Along the way we will reevaluate our approach to exclusivity, windowing and AI and share more as we learn and decide. I have a. Paris says Discord isn't hooked into the show. That's what he says. Kevin. I mean, maybe take the hit to Paris, you know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, you know, you got this Paris that's on Me, I messed that up. I'm sorry.

[Greg Miller]

You're fine. Bless. Let's start the conversation then. I mean, you can go a lot of different places here. For me, the big one in the light. The bell's going off. Our new North Star will be daily active players, but then to execute through the four priorities of hardware, content, experience and services. How do you feel? How's it hit?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I mean, the new North Star being daily active players makes sense given what Xbox is. But also I'm surprised that that's the new Northstar. I thought that was already the North Star was talking about like the people that are tuning into Game Pass. I guess it would have been what, like people who are subbed to Game Pass people are using the Xbox.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly. Game Pass subscriptions is what they've always talked about and done with. And I know again, like when I this is more recent. Right. But coming off of all the Starfield stuff, both Tim Lamb and Todd Howard kept talking about in that run up in that PR when they were making the rounds, how high they were in the hours played for game, Game Pass Pass games and how that Starfield was there. So I think metric wise, maybe internally, that's been shared a lot in terms of like Game Pass hours. How many people are, what are people committing to? And then obviously the one they've always talked about is Game Pass subscriptions. And I mean always when there's something good to say. This one is an interesting one because this to me speaks so much to what they're trying to do. Like as we continue to read and we go through the bullet points and the things they want. Yeah, clearly right now at 2020, April 2026, right. Asha and Matt are running a hearts and minds campaign. They want you to remember that you love Xbox and they want you to come back to Xbox. And I think when we're talking about daily active users, that's so easy, that's easy to track and it's also easy to talk about. And it's also not just about the money, the subscriptions. Right. You can have all the Game Pass subscriptions in the world, but if people are only turning it on to get to the new game when it drops for Xbox first party, that would be a great financially shitty for an ecosystem and for a brand's identity. Right. This really makes it sound like they want, and I doubt this is happening, but they want a big fucking TV slash clock screen in the. In Xbox HQ that is showing you daily active users today versus yesterday versus the day before. Right. They want to see that slow, steady growth of people coming back to the platform. Your Zeke speaks, who left altogether. Seeing that there's a value here, seeing that there's a game they need.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. So how does that for you if you're putting on your. Your CEO cap. Yeah, right. You're running Xbox. You're in the ash armor role for you. What does that look like? I know they laid it out for us in these four. In these four things, but erase that. Greg Miller, you're going for daily active users as your main North Star. What does that look like? How do you serve that to the audience? Or how do you bring the audience in to serve that to you?

[Greg Miller]

First off, Kevin, great job.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Thank you, Kevin.

[Greg Miller]

For Paris. Yeah. Paris, are you here? Do you hear us? Yes, I hear you. Ah, great. Okay, good. Let me answer starting on blessings question then I want all your takes on all this. Okay, Paris, Sure. So how do I. I'm Asha. I'm Matt. We're bouncing the tennis ball in the room. We've ordered some Jimmy John's, we're figuring out what we're going to do, how we're to save Xbox.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And while you figured out our star will be daily active players, what are the steps that you're taking to maintain that?

[Greg Miller]

I think, I think it's what, you know, Paris and I have talked about at length, what we've talked about in these shows. And I think it's. It has to be added value to Xbox. So much of the equation we talk about, right, is this, well, what are we doing? Where are the games? Blah, blah, blah. I like them calling out elevate creator creator centric platforms like Minecraft, the Elder Scrolls and Sea of Thieves. Right. I've been on this bandwagon lately of like, I can't believe that for all the shit they toss into game pass in the past and theoretically going forward, there isn't. You get monthly, a monthly drop of creation credits. In Starfield you get the fallout first. In Fallout 76 you get Elder Scrolls. And I know that like as I'm naming these games, I'm speaking to myself and Mr. Hawks in a very specific community. But there's that idea of like I'm talking, that's tip of the sword. Why is it, you know the. The pass in Diablo, get a cheaper battle pass in Forza, get an exclusive car every month. Like there's like so much built in stuff that to be. You want. If you're daily active users and you want people turning on their Xbox and turning on the Xbox platform, Over there to get in and get that thing and then to build a library not just of games, but of things you love in the game you love that is making you go, man, this is a good deal. This is the best place to play. Because when we turn it around the other way and talk about what the difference is between a PlayStation and Xbox, obviously, what are we talking about? 80% of the games are everywhere. And that, that, that's probably. Yeah, that's probably even too low.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, way too low.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Right. 90%. Like when we talk about like Sorrows coming out next week. Fuck yeah. Let's go. Right, Kill. Of course, everywhere now, but let's say Xbox changes that and goes back to exclusive, right? What is the reason I'd be playing on my Xbox? And they've hit me, right, like to where I still request codes on Xbox because I want play anywhere. I want to be able to play it on the Rog and I want to be able to play on the Xbox at home and I want to be able to play it on the Razer Blade 16. Right. That works for me in that system and why it keeps me as a daily active user on Xbox now when I used to be daily active PlayStation user. But how do they get you? How do they do this? And that's where you start reaching into. I don't think dropping in. I shouldn't say that, but it's like it's not adding to the cost of a Game Pass subscription. Not adding to the cost of Xbox. Right. To what they've been talking about with Game Pass. Game Pass now lowering the price, but then hinting that they might go ala carte talking about this, talking about discord, which are about to like in this letter, talking about, we want to make it affordable, right. We want to have flexible pricing. Like you need to be expanding that net where especially because you've burned so many people like Zeke speak that they can go, oh, there is something I want to play that is only on Xbox or there is the added bonus of Xbox. So I am going to do rather. This is what I used to say all the time about trying to get the general consumer in. Well, for 20 bucks this month, you could talk, you could get it and play it on xCloud or play it on your PC or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Right now they need to do that for the hardcore gamer and have them come back and understand why. Does that make sense?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think, I think so. I think for me, my immediate thought for what would get me to play on Xbox more is, yeah, Making it a home. Like I think the third party games are such an important factor to that because I think, I think to where am I playing my third party games? When you ask when we're getting a code in or whatever and you ask what platform do you want this on? Usually I'm leaning towards PC and if not PC, then probably PlayStation, depending on the kind of game that it is. And in the last year, when I look at my rapt for where I'm spending my time playing the most, it is on PC because Steam has turned into a platform for me where I feel like I'm getting the most, not the most bang out of my buck, but I guess the most use out of that ecosystem and what they're offering me. And so the fact that I have my Steam deck and then I have my desktop where I can play games that look better than anywhere else for me right now, the fact that I have this connectivity between those things that speak to each other and it like Steam is the easiest place for me to play, followed by PlayStation and then followed by Xbox and Switch. And I know that's not the same for plenty of people that are probably way more used to the Xbox ecosystem, but yeah, the more you can give me those options for ways to make Xbox more enticing for me as a player, both ecosystem wise. But then also those third party partnerships that they mentioned in this letter, evolving what that looks like, right, Giving me features on that end that make me go, damn, I want to play Resident Evil on Xbox or I want to play whatever third party game on Xbox for daily active users. That's where you need to strike.

[Greg Miller]

Paris the Gray welcome to Kinda Funny Games Daily. Are you still in Japan?

[Paris Lilly]

No, I got back at five o'. Clock.

[Greg Miller]

Jesus Christ, help me. A big attack. Kevin, you got back at 5:00'? Clock?

[Paris Lilly]

Yeah, I got back at 5:00 clock this morning. So a couple things just really quick on. On the Japan portion of it. Tokyo, amazing. Had a great time with Tim. Ran into kind of funny best friends on the streets of Sabrina.

[Greg Miller]

You love that.

[Paris Lilly]

Amazing.

[Greg Miller]

You love to see it.

[Paris Lilly]

Absolutely amazing. So yeah, it was a great time. Obviously there'll be a time and place to talk about all the Forza stuff, but going to this because obviously the news broke while we were in Tokyo. This kind of goes back to what we were talking about in that episode about fixing Xbox, right? A lot of these points that Asha and Matt booty brought up in. In that manifesto or whatever we're calling it was pretty much everything we were talking about they're looking at exclusivity. And then I think the biggest thing for me is the emphasis on Gen9 and affordability and pricing flexibility. They've obviously already started the process with Game Pass and I think you already said you're going to talk about the discord part of it as well. But when I hear affordability, are they taking Xbox back to being somewhat of a loss leader in this, in the sense of we want to build the brand again, we want the brand of Xbox to stand out, to attract people to come and the only way you're going to be able to do that is to make the hardware more affordable. So. So are they going to start subsidizing Series X and S again? What about Project Helix? Because we've all just assumed this thing is like a 'Thousand plus, maybe $1,500, right? Are they going to subsidize it and make that more affordable? Because you're obviously trying to get more people into your ecosystem. So I think you may see value on. On the Gen9 side, whereas we can get people in on the Series X and the S. Because look, we know Cross Gentlemen is going to be around and probably till the 2000 and 30s at this point with all these crazy prices. So you'll have that do something with Helix potentially. And obviously they're tinkering with Game Pass, trying to make it more. More accessible to get people in that way. She mentioned they're not doing the job on PC that they should, which is something, you know, Mike and I have talked about forever on xcast. That Xbox app is not where it needs to be. It's gotten better, but they got a lot of work to do as far as that goes. So she kind of hit all the points or they kind of hit all the points of things that people want to see Xbox do. But I still think the biggest thing is this exclusivity thing. I'm still not convinced they're going to go back to any. They're definitely not going to go back any kind of full exclusivity. She kind of even you really as well.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, we're coming up where there's a Stevens Hotel. There's so much more to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Paris Lilly]

But like, yeah, I saw a little bit of that too. Go. Go ahead, bro.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, you say. I think that's the biggest part of this. Like, I believe that's the headline, right? Is the reference to exclusivity. And in that part. So yeah, toward the end of that section that Greg just Read. They say along the way, we will reevaluate our approach to exclusivity, windowing and AI and share more as we learn and decide. And I think, yeah, I think you have to reel it back, like, to some extent. I think you will. I think Elder Scrolls 6 needs to be exclusive to Xbox. If you want Xbox to be a

[Greg Miller]

powerhouse, get here in time to save them.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, yeah, I just don't think they're going anywhere.

[Greg Miller]

There's a super chat. Eric White, will Ashes succeed or is this Dreamcast? And I think we can't sit here. I think the letter's great. I think. I think it's when this all happened and it was very much like, well, what are we getting? Or, like, okay, you're actually talking a lot. Can you walk this walk? Can you make the. Well, it's like they're saying the right things right now to be like, oh, this is a different course. I like, I'm excited to see where this goes, but. But it doesn't change the fact that they have a fucking mountain decline.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And again, there's nothing saying that they're going to get three fourths up that mountain, have more daily active users, have all this stuff, be a loss leader and not have Satya and Nadella be like, cool, we're done. The AI did not pan out, so that number's down. Xbox is floundering. We're getting out of this.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think the. The thing I'll throw back is that is that I hear you and I agree with you, but if they were to try and make it happen, they're saying all the things that they need to say to make it happen. Right. Like, I'm with you as far as.

[Greg Miller]

But can they get Zeke Speak back?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, yeah, I think they can. I think I. You have the ip. You have more IP than anybody else. Right. And you have the infrastructure. Really, it is about how much leeway is Microsoft, Satya, Nadella, up top, willing to give you. But they have all the tools to make it happen into the exclusivity portion of it. I think it will be a. I know we hate.

[Greg Miller]

We.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I know as an audience, we hate the picking and choosing and not being very clear about. Okay, so what makes you decide what's an exclusive? What makes you decide what's not an exclusive? I think realistically, you're going to have to do a little bit of that. Right. Call of Duty cannot be exclusive because of the legal ramifications of that. Call of Duty is going to be Everywhere. Elder Scrolls 6 I think works as such a strong exclusive. Elder Scroll 6 is your last list and is even more than that.

[Greg Miller]

We like to make it into a bigger thing than it needs to be. And granted that's because of the way Xbox has handled in the past.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sure.

[Greg Miller]

Hey, hey, this game's coming up. Is it going to be exclusive to Xbox or. Well, Call of Duty is going to make a billion dollars or whatever the it is. So no, that's not going to be. We want you to. In legal reasons. Right. Elder Scrolls. Yes, we want you to come play that over here. Kiln Kiln is in multiplayer. Like I know exactly. It's a multiplayer small, almost indie game from Double Fine. Right. Like as many people as fucking possible to make money.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

A Gears game.

[Greg Miller]

Exclusive.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Exclusive. Right. Like I think we even. I'll just say Doom. Doom is an interesting one where I think you can make that exclusive. I also could see that being a timed exclusive. I think you play around with, with all these things with really your main thing being, hey, an Elder Scrolls 6. Hey, a. A game that we look at as that tier of game needs to be exclusive because we need to bring people into the ecosystem and essentially force them into the ecosystem.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean that's exactly.

[Paris Lilly]

I think the, the compromise here is pretty much what you're, you're, you're, you're discussing now. But let's just take Forza Horizon as the example. That was clearly a win for them on PlayStation 5. I can't see. See them walking back Forza Horizon 6 and go, no, that's just on Xbox in PC because there's clearly an audience there for it. So it really, I think it really does come down to if they're going to walk back exclusivity somewhat. It is truly going to be on a case by case basis. I think what you're saying blessing with elder scroll 6. If you want people to buy your box, that is a game that will get people to buy your box. So that would be a strategic move to do it. Sure, you probably can make more money if it was on PlayStation 5. But the value proposition of making sure that you got people on the box on Xbox playing it, that's a game that will attract them. I think they screwed up one thing already and it'll be interesting.

[Greg Miller]

I want, can you. I want you to hold on to the screw up for sure. But I think back to this Elder Scrolls Online thing again, right. The North Star is daily active users on the Xbox platform ecosystem.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Again, Elder Scrolls 6 might not be enough to get Zeke Speak. Who super chats. All companies be chasing that Zeke Speak. You feel Zeke Speak to buy another Xbox. But I fully believe that again, for the 16% of gamers that they have a PC, they have the cloud portal, they have the enough. Whereas like Elder Scrolls 6 actually hits. It is fucking awesome. But you look at it and you go, man, I'm not buying an Xbox. I do believe the same 16% that buy the multiple games would go, not all of them, not 100% or 60%, but enough of them would go, I'm gonna do cloud. I'll get game pass for a month and do cloud. I'll do it on low settings on my machine. I got this. I gotta play this thing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. And when I say exclusive, I do mean on PC as well.

[Greg Miller]

I don't. Oh, no, I know, I know. I'm just saying, like, I think that's why I'm like, even if you can't get people to buy the box again, it's not that, not 100% what it's about for them. It's about them getting in and being an active user again. Yeah, sorry, Paris, where they mess up Halo.

[Paris Lilly]

I think putting Halo on PlayStation again, if they're truly evaluating it now and rolling back these changes, that's one thing from the previous administration that Asha would just have to come out and say, you know what? Yeah, we put campaign evolved on PlayStation, but the next Halo will not be because I think Halo is Xbox. There is an Xbox without Halo. So if there's any game they have that probably should stay on Xbox, it would be Halo. But is the genie out of the bottle on that? Obviously there's the multiplayer side of it. You want people, you know, to. As many people as possible to, to play, so maybe that factors into it as well. Look, I don't envy the job that her and Matt Booty have to do right now because clearly they understand that Xbox, they want to, like she said, a return to Xbox. So they're trying to get it back to this, I guess, quote unquote, glory days. But there's been so many business decisions that, you know, maybe they just got to rip the band aid and go, okay, we're, we're reversing course and we're going to do X, Y and Z. I, I personally, me personally still believe in the. Let people play where they want. And that's obviously what they were trying to do, but it clearly was at the sacrifice of the brand. And she's seemingly is about the brand so some form of exclusivity probably comes back, be it timed, be it select games, but I just can't see them going 100% full exclusivity anymore. I just don't think it happens.

[Greg Miller]

Paris, you talk about the brand. That's the last part of this letter I want to get through. And then I'm going to go into the next story. Well, I'll go to ads, then I'll go to the next story about exclusives. But to close out the letter here, okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Bold.

[Greg Miller]

We are Xbox. To achieve our master plan the way we must. Damn it, I fucked it up. To achieve our master plan, the way we work must transform. Our best work happens when the full stack moves together, quote, unquote. Microsoft Gaming describes our structure, but it does not describe our ambition. So we are going back to where we started in changing our team's name. We are Xbox. We are a high agency culture where wild and wonderful ideas thrive. Our job is not to smooth over our differences, but to connect everyone into something greater than any one studio or product. We have to be honest about where we are. We are a challenger. And meeting this moment will require pace, energy, and a level of self critique that should feel uncomfortable. At our best, we one, earn every player. Number two, protect our art. Number three, stay rebellious. Number four, progress over or progress over perfection. Number five, signal over ceremony. Number six, core before more. Number seven, Outwork the problem. Number eight, Speed is learning. Number nine, Makers over managers. Number ten. Clarity is kindness. Over the last five years, Xbox and the industry have been through an unimaginable amount of change. And this team has continued to deliver through it for our community. Thank you for staying focused on what matters. 62 days in, we're proud of how we've honored our commitments of great games, return of Xbox and future of play. We're here to do the most creative and courageous work of our lives. And that's what we'll do. Together with gratitude, Matt and Asha. Some bars at the end.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Here's what. Listen, I'm not. I want to make it clear, not accusing this of being AI whatsoever.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, my God.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, if you told me this was AI, you think so this, I mean, it reads like it a little bit, but I don't think it is AI. I think it's them being genuine.

[Greg Miller]

That's where the problem gets in of like the corporate motivational poster speak that have been around for, you know, our entire childhood already sounded like AI. So you get there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But this clarity is kindness. What does that mean?

[Greg Miller]

I mean, that's that's, you know, that is one that I'm core before. More is the one that stands out to me because it goes back to what I'm telling you. Right, sure. Let's focus on the core Xbox audience rather than trying to get more of the mainstream audience. Whatever. But again, these are pillars of a company. I'm sure that in their new employee handbook are spelled out what the fuck clarity is kindness means. But yeah, I'm with you on that 100%. Yeah. But I like this letter and I like this ending.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, I like this letter too. Like, it's the. It's one of those things where, you know, can you talk to the walk and you walk the walk. They're talking the talk.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Now let's see them walk to.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly, exactly. A lot more to happen. Captain Slayer super chats and says as an Xbox fan since 2001, the transparency from the transparent from sharing this memo is appreciated. It feels like they're at least trying and committing to a path. And I think that, Paris, that's what we're talking about here. It sounds like to come out and say 62 days in, you're talking a lot earlier than I thought you would. They clearly know time is of the essence. Public opinion matters here. Obviously there's Project Helix stuff. And yeah, to be here now and have this letter and put it out and then publish it for everybody, I think it's a great move. Paris.

[Paris Lilly]

Yeah, I completely agree. I tweeted, I thought this was essentially the most definitive message they've had in their 25 year history coming from Xbox. Because whether it's chat, GPT, corporal, word salad, however people want to define was pretty definitive about this is this is our plan, this is what we're trying to execute. Now, they got to deliver on it, obviously, but I think her being there for 60 days and this is her message to that core audience and just to the gaming industry as a whole is interesting. I think obviously they want to get ahead of the June showcase because I think a lot of that. The June showcase, you're going to start to see what this is going to be. I think a lot of that, like I think Gears E Day is going to be fascinating to me at that June showcase. What Obviously the gameplay has to be great, but when is it coming out and where that's going to say a lot about what they're going to try to do. So I'm excited to see it. I like the aggression that they're doing. I just think this is Asha coming in. It's a fresh set of eyes. She's evaluating everything and she's, she's making decisions that if Phil and Sarah were still there and doing the same exact things, nobody would believe them because they would go, well, you're just walking back what you already did where she gets

[Greg Miller]

to come in as a new leader. Yeah.

[Paris Lilly]

And just all right, I'm changing this. And you're like, okay, because it's new leadership. So I'm interested to see where it goes.

[Greg Miller]

We have even more from Asha Sharma talking about the possible future, futures and past in front of Xbox. But before then, I'll let you know there would be no possible future. There would be no possible path for Kinda Funny without your support. So head over to patreon.com kinda funny YouTube.com kinda funnygames, Apple and Spotify, where of course you can pick up a Kinda Funny membership. Get every episode of every show we do that's more than 80amonth A.D. free. Get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a 15 to 20 minute podcast called Greg Way. And of course get good karma for supporting an 11 person, 11 year old small business. But right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsors.

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This episode's brought to you by Warby Parker. Buying eyeglasses was always a whole to do before Warby Parker came into so many of our lives. Greg, Gia, Joey, me, all of us hated how buying glasses always felt so complicated and overpriced and often the styles were just super outdated. But Warby Parker, Total game changer. Nothing comes close on quality, price selection and customer service. You can literally try on glasses from your phone before you buy it. With their virtual try on, Greg says it's wild how well it actually works. And a super cool thing is Warry Parker's covered by major eye insurance plans. That's how Gia got hers. They make it incredibly easy to use. You just enter your information to seek if you are eligible for benefits on frames, contacts or eye exams. And if you are, they automatically apply them for you. Right now, buy one prescription pair and get 20 off any additional prescription [e-mail] kindafunny that's 20% off additional prescription pairs when you go to W A r b y parker.com kindafunny

[Greg Miller]

you can't reason with the sun.

[Paris Lilly]

Trust us, we've tried this summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect

[Greg Miller]

you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear.

[Paris Lilly]

Level up your [e-mail] to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome. Columbia engineered for whatever

[Greg Miller]

and we're back still in the land of Xbox News. We go to Ethan Gotch over at Kotaku. Asha Sharma elaborates on Xbox affordability and exclusives I want to make the right decision, not the fastest decision, end quote Two months into the job as Xbox CEO following Phil Spencer's retirement, Asha Sharma launched an ambitious, if somewhat vague, plan for how to get the gaming platform back on track. It teased initiatives around new console features, affordability, and even a reevaluation of Microsoft's shift away from exclusive games. What's the timeline for announcing her decisions on each of these fronts? Quote we'll take a data driven approach and a strategic driven approach and then we'll look at our principles and we'll make some calls, she told Game Files Steven Totillo in a new interview that was when asked about future game exclusivity, she added, quote I want to make the right decision, not the fastest decision, she said. Choosing which games to bring to which platforms are, quote long swinging decisions that have decade long impact. Last fall, Halo Studios announced that the future of Halo would be on PlayStation as well moving forward. When I asked Microsoft this week for a comment on whether that was still the case, I was referred back to Sharma's internal memo. That pledge also hinted at Xbox trying to make gaming more affordable. Does that apply to hardware as well as things like Game Pass, which just got its first price cut ever? Quote I think historically our pricing hasn't been as flexible, she told Game File. And I think that's the big thing we want to go to work on. We want to go to go work on. I see, sharma continued. Quote I want to continue to make sure as we build hardware software services, we're spending just as much time on performance and playtime as we are in making sure that we can innovate to offer more affordable devices and hardware and services. And so look, there's a reality to the market that we're in, so there's no promises around what the price points are or anything like that. But I want to make sure that people around the world are able to play, end quote. Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty was also part of the conversation and hinted at where the company's sprawling first party development pipeline is heading. He said the teams have been working to establish a predictable cadence Robust roadmap and aim for quality. And that these goals will, quote, create the conditions for the Lightning in a bottle of winning game of the year. End quote. Despite its nearly $80 billion in gaming acquisitions, that's still something Microsoft's never won.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Crazy.

[Greg Miller]

Another good Matt Booty calling the shot of what they're going for here. Lightning in a bottle of winning game of the year. Okay, sure. And again, I think what you're seeing Asha and Xbox learn from the Phil Spencer years is, hey, we are not. We got nothing to say on that. We don't know. It's 62 days in and we're trying our best to do a bunch of different stuff. So we're figuring all of that out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, it's. I do like how much time they're spending identifying what all the issues are, though. You know, like the fact that they're talking very openly about, hey, this isn't working. This isn't working. We want to figure this out. We want to do this. Like, sure, you might not have the answers today, but the fact that you're identifying that and it feels like a lot of people online are going, yeah, those are the problems. Yeah, that's a good place to be to understand that the people at the top of the. This company understand what the issues are. I'm very interested with the. With them saying, I think historically our pricing hasn't been flexible because I view Xbox as one of the more flexible pricing. Having some of the more flexible pricing

[Greg Miller]

options of Game Pass and all that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The. Yeah, Game Pass even being just an option. Xbox series s being a sure, you know, lower budget option to get into this level of console gaming. I view that as a thing. If they want to double down on that more and continue to find more effects, flexible pricing, I think that's going to be such a big key going into the next generation as everything rises up in price. I know we talked about it earlier in the show, but, yeah, if you're able to come in at a lower cost while PlayStation is going up.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

PCs are going up. All this shit, that's going to be huge for people.

[Greg Miller]

And that's back to, you know, Paris, Lulu talking about them being a lost leader. Right, Paris?

[Paris Lilly]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, are they willing to, you know, subsidize the hardware to make it more affordable to get more people to buy the box? But I think the one thing that Matt Booty said in that quote is the aspiration for Game of the Year. That's absolutely where they need to be shooting for with. With all their games that they need, things that Jeff Keeley is going to have on his stage in December. And that's. None of this matters if they don't get to that level with their games. They have so many studios, obviously, so many talented people making this stuff, but they got to start having those kind of games, are getting accolades that people are consistently talking about, because at that point, I don't think it matters if it is on PlayStation or Switch or wherever, because they're going to always be viewed as an Xbox game. And right now we don't have that. I. I'm trying to even think Maybe what Psychonauts 2 is probably the last game I could think of that probably should have won Game of the Year

[Greg Miller]

from Xbox should have a nominate or

[Paris Lilly]

one, in my opinion, should have won.

[Greg Miller]

What are you trying to say, Greg?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Throwing shade at Psycho?

[Greg Miller]

Who was up against that year? I was like, oh, okay, fuck. It was.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It was a year that Psychonauts could have taken it.

[Greg Miller]

I'm not saying. You know what I mean?

[Paris Lilly]

No.

[Greg Miller]

Costume Quest three. I don't know what fucking Tim is doing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Whoa, where's Broken Age, you know, give me another Broken Age like game. I want to point in Pottery Game

[Greg Miller]

can't make another Costume Quest. What the fuck is going on over there?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And I'm not here to glaze corporate phrasing. However, I think the quote of create the conditions for lighting and for the lightning in the bottle of winning game of the year, I think is a great way to put it.

[Greg Miller]

That's a good, ambitious goal.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes. Because you can't always choose, hey, this studio make a game of the year contender. It doesn't work that way. Right. It is lightning. The bottle. Clear, obscure was lightning in the bottle. Blueprints. Lightning in the bottle. Baldur's Gate 3, even lightning in the bottle, even though that is a studio you look at is like, oh, they're getting better and better and better if you're paying attention. But yeah, Baldur's Gate 3 came out of nowhere for so many people and took the world by storm. You can't make that happen necessarily with just the purpose of, hey, you go do this. But what you can do is as a gigantic publisher, incubate is incubate and give your studios the resources and freedom and the ability to go, hey, we want to give you the best possible conditions to make a video game and hopefully some of y' all make them game of the year contenders. Like, that's what you have to do. And so that sentence, I think, is very important 100%.

[Greg Miller]

Earlier in the chat, somebody was also it was going what they really need to do is take Fortnite out of the Game Pass and make it even cheaper. Let's go to story number three to keep this Xbox News all together. Leak reveals new Xbox Game Pass Starter Edition that's part of Discord Nitro this is Tom Warren at the Verge. Microsoft started teasing a mysterious Discord and Xbox Game Pass partnership yesterday, and a new leak appears to have detailed exactly what's coming. Discord Previews has uncovered a new Xbox Game Pass Starter Edition that is bundled with Discord Nitro. The Starter Edition reportedly includes, quote, access to over 50 games from the Game Pass library, as well as 10 hours a month of Xbox Cloud gaming streaming and the ability to earn Xbox Reward points while playing games. It's not clear which games will be part of the more than 50 titles available, but the leaked image suggests that Stardew Valley grounded and Fallout 4 will be included. The Starter Edition doesn't appear to be limited to Microsoft's own first party Xbox games either. Better X Cloud developer Red Phoenix also uncovered the Xbox Game Pass Starter Edition earlier today and noted that a lot of third party games will be available through this new Game Pass tier. I reported in February that Microsoft is looking at ways to bundle third party services with Game Pass subscriptions. This new Starter Edition appears to be one way for other services to be bundled. Game Pass Netflix co CEO Greg Peters told the Information last month that he and Xbox CEO Asha Sharma had kicked around some ideas for partnering on subscription bundles. So perhaps we'll see Netflix Netflix offer a similar Game Pass bundle soon. Good move or bad move?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Great move. Yeah. I think being able to partner with things that people are already involved in, whether it be Discord or Netflix, and go, oh, I can get Game Pass as part of that. That's how you get that out, right? That's how you get it.

[Greg Miller]

What else does that get you?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Spotify wouldn't.

[Greg Miller]

Maybe some daily active users.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh yes, yes. I was gonna say the kind of funny membership. How do we get that in there? Hey, Netflix, wait a second. Hey Netflix, wait a second.

[Greg Miller]

Hey Discord. Xbox. That makes more sense for Xbox.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I see, I see. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Huh.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Think about that. I might have saved the company, everybody.

[Greg Miller]

That's a great. What? I'm gonna draft a letter to Asha. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I'm going to do it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Get the kind of funny membership as part of Game Pass.

[Greg Miller]

Well, no.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Or vice versa. So what Are you thinking Paris?

[Greg Miller]

And I want your opinion on this too. The way I'm reading this is that the Discord previews have launched an Xbox Game Pass Starter Edition that's bundled with this. So when you go to get Discord Nitro, there's a upsell of however many bucks to also get this starter. You can bundle with it. Yeah. So why not the kind of funny membership on Patreon? You click, you go to subscribe for $10, but there is a $12 tier that gets you Starter Edition Game Pass as well.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, I see what you're saying.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

How does that factor in the journalistic integrity?

[Paris Lilly]

It doesn't.

[Greg Miller]

Well, first off, no one is claiming kind of funny to be journalists. If we've come this far on the 11 year journey, and this is the bridge too far that we're giving you free Xbox Game Pass, you know, that's fair, I assure you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I guess we get all the time.

[Greg Miller]

Any of these motherfuckers opinions about Starfield. None of them are going to listen, so don't worry about that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's true.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I don't.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I guess it's not different from giving out codes during our charity.

[Greg Miller]

That's my thing is like. I mean, that's an interesting question, but yeah, for me, yeah, we give out codes. And when I pitch this, at no point in my head, I think more start being nicer. Xbox.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Remember, let's. Let's. Let's all talk about it. Xbox lower than a grub right now. We kick their games around and their brand around all the time, and they're still the nicest people to us. So I'm not worried about when they get back on top. That's when it would be like, you know. What did you fucking say, Greg? What did you give Indiana Jones? There's only one person that gives me shit about Indiana Jones and it's fucking Troy Baker.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, that's true.

[Greg Miller]

I like what we're thinking about here. I like this Xbox Starter capital letter.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Get us some more money. I want to raise if it happens. Paris, how does this look like for you? Do you like this, this Discord Bundle?

[Paris Lilly]

Yeah, I. I think it's a great first step to them again, providing more incentive by bundling it with something else that someone would take advantage of and getting them, like you said, daily active users. Right. They get a little taste of Game Pass, maybe they really like it. You know what, I'm gonna go jump up to the premium tier or whatever. Whatever the case. Right. So plus this essentially allows them to play a select number of games. And they're also able to cloud stream too, right? Those games. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's allowing them, hey, if they got an Xbox or PC, they can take advantage and if they don't, they can do it on their television or Fire stick or whatever the case, via cloud streaming. So I like it. I think it's a. I think this is part one of probably a multi part thing they're doing with Game Pass.

[Greg Miller]

I wonder how many starter editions are going to be floating out there, right?

[Paris Lilly]

You know what I mean?

[Greg Miller]

Like, how many times can I get this through something?

[Paris Lilly]

But it's kind of the point of attach it to something else that people want and then, yeah, okay, this is an added bonus. I'll try it out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I, I still pay for Hulu and the only reason is because like five years, not even five years, like seven, eight years ago, I think I got Hulu via Spotify or vice versa. I don't know which. All I know is that I still pay for them both. Meanwhile, I'm canceling every other subscription I have. But those two still remain because they're connected. And I don't know how, I don't know how much I'm paying for one or the other or both.

[Greg Miller]

That's what I saw the other day where I, I just pay Apple money. I don't even know what I'm doing anymore.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I give Spotify money and I know that I get Hulu because of it. I don't know if it's still a deal or not. I could probably cancel it by now, but it works. I should get rocket money. Thank you.

[Greg Miller]

Lakers said Paris. Before we let you go, anything else you want to say on this Xbox? Stuff we haven't talked about? Obviously it's an ongoing situation.

[Paris Lilly]

Yes, it's ongoing. I think now we get to the June showcase, I think that's when the next ball is going to drop and we're going to see, you know, what, what the, the next stage of their plan is going to be. So like I said, I'm, I'm genuinely excited because I just think it's fresh new blood. It's. It's fresh new eyes. Looking at Xbox as a business and how, like we said in that other episode, bringing back value to their core customers. That seems to be what she's trying to do, like make them happy. And then after we make the core happy. All right, let's go and try and get other people on board. But things like this, this discord partnership with Game Pass. So looking forward to it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hell yeah. Nice.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't even watch Hulu. Like, I don't. I don't know the last show I saw.

[Greg Miller]

No, no, no.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Ever since Atlanta stopped and Dave and Tommy, all the FX shows that I cared about stop.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. I have the. The. I have Disney plus bundled with Hulu and I don't use the Hulu. I use it for Alien Earth.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, yeah, that's good.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I got to get rid of Hulu.

[Paris Lilly]

Can I say one thing before I drop out?

[Greg Miller]

I'd love you to do that. Yeah.

[Paris Lilly]

Tim Giddies, quality human being.

[Greg Miller]

I want to go that far. I want to go that far.

[Paris Lilly]

No, I. I have to say it. This was the first time Tim and I just. It was just him and I hanging out, nobody else.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Paris Lilly]

Quality human being. I love him.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hell yeah.

[Greg Miller]

I love that too, though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I want to hang out with Paris someday. And Tim.

[Paris Lilly]

Yeah, you know what? I said that to Tim. I said, of everyone, everyone in the studio, I think the only person I've not one on one hung out with yet is. Is you. So we do have to do that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Let me know whenever you're in town. Let me know. Or if I'm in la. I guess that's life, I guess. No, you're not in la, though. You're.

[Greg Miller]

He's close.

[Paris Lilly]

I'm close enough.

[Greg Miller]

That's the problem with Paris. You never know where he is. He can't pin him down.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, you can't.

[Greg Miller]

He'll go anywhere.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He's in Japan.

[Greg Miller]

Paris, we love you. Come to San Francisco soon.

[Paris Lilly]

I will talk to you later.

[Greg Miller]

All right, bye. Number four on the Roper Report. Gang of Dragon developer erases YouTube channel then reinstates it this is Heidi Kemps over at Gamespot. The future of Gang of Dragon, the freshman effort from Sega veteran Toshihiro Nagoshi. Epitomous Nagoshi Studios now appears more murky as noticed by observers on Reddit, the Studio deleted its YouTube channel and all related videos recently. The channel and videos have subsequently been reinstated, but without any explanation, while the Gang of Dragon trailer, which made its debut at The Game Awards 2025, is still available on the award show's dedicated channel. The various episodes supplementary material regarding the developer from its own channel vanished into the Internet ether before coming back online in short order. This all happened after recent reports that Negoti Studio is facing financial struggles. According to Bloomberg, the studio's previous funding partner, the China based tech giant Netease, has backed out of further funding for the title, which is Estimated to cost around $44 million to complete. Are you ever going to play this game?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No. Eponymous.

[Greg Miller]

Guys, I was nailing the Japanese thing. I. I totally said it wrong. I was nailing Japanese to then throw in a. Yeah, it's. It was. It's a.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But I'm. That's my thing is I'm not sure if I pronounce it. I say eponymous, but I don't know. That's right.

[Greg Miller]

Right? Is that right? It's a word I read a lot, but I don't ever say. Well, you're talking about the epitome of something, right? Eponymous.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't think it's the. Is it based on epitome? Is that the room?

[Greg Miller]

No. I don't know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Eponymous.

[Greg Miller]

Kevin, help us not. Don't just laugh.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think it's eponymous. I'm looking at son of dead.

[Greg Miller]

To throw an English word in right after that. The gall.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

When you.

[Greg Miller]

When you're eponymous.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

There it is.

[Greg Miller]

Eponymous. Thanks. AI.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Eponymous.

[Greg Miller]

Eponymous.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay. I don't like the way the more it says it, the more there's like a tone to it. I feel like.

[Greg Miller]

Do it again. It's gone. We opposed the tab.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Eponymous.

[Greg Miller]

Wow.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It is kind of sexy. I don't know. Eponymous.

[Greg Miller]

Again. Be single like me says Bless getting turned on by the fucking AI Pronunciation.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hey, call me.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Whoa. Are you ever gonna play Gang of Dragon?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, sadly. That's a game I really would have loved to play.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, 100%.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, Xbox. Xbox. You're wanting to make more third party partnerships. Boom. That'd be a good one.

[Greg Miller]

That would be a good one. That would be actually a good one. Okay, well, we'll keep our eyes peeled on that and see what happens. But blessing Gang of Dragon actually happen or being acquired by Xbox or helped by Xbox would be huge news. If I wanted something smaller, say the tiniest news I need to know about, where would I go?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Eponymous. You'd go to our last story, the WE News Channel. Recover all the small news items you need to know about.

[Greg Miller]

Can I get an eponymous number five we news. Resident Evil Requiem has sold over 7 million copies. The fastest selling Resident Evil title in history.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Come on.

[Greg Miller]

Congratulations. Well deserved. Claire. Obscure Expedition 33 has sold over 8 million copies. Come on. Come on. Well deserved. Soros review roundup is here. We will be reviewing it on the kind of funny Gamescast right after this with VGC News's Jordan Midler. But an open critic. It's a 92. Metacritic. It's an 88. To spoil Jordan's review. VGC gave it 5 out of 5, IGN gave it 7 out of 10, and Richard Wakeling at GameSpot gave it 9 out of 10, saying Soros is a phenomenal game that flips House Mark's Roguelite formula on its head and improves upon its spiritual predecessor in every conceivable way. Blessing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Interesting. Are you nine out of ten? Huh?

[Greg Miller]

Oh, shit. Oh. Blessing will be on the Gamescast after this to throw some fire your way.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Gonna give it a low score, I'll tell y'.

[Paris Lilly]

All.

[Greg Miller]

Toei Games announced their first three games. Killa. Kill the Law. Jesus. Hinno. Debug. Ephemi. Apimi.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

There's an N at the beginning of that word.

[Greg Miller]

Nepimi. Nepimi.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Nephemy.

[Greg Miller]

Nephame.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Nephame is how I rate it.

[Greg Miller]

That's good. Good for you. You should have fucking read it then. The Super Mario Gal 1 and 2 official soundtracks are now available on Spotify. Zenless Zone 0 is coming to Steam Square. Enix has announced it will open permanent cafe locations in Los Angeles and Shinjuku, Tokyo in spring. 2026. Echo Generation 2 launches May 27th on Xbox series Game Pass and PC Golf with your friends 2 is coming. Fall 2026 Crash Out Crew arrives May 28th in house. Flipper Remastered Collection launches June 4th on Xbox, PlayStation and PC. And that is it for WE News. We have a ton of super chats. We got a lot into the show. Let's see how many we got out here at the end though, starting from the coma here, Mr. Nice Guy. Rye says, will there ever be a welcome back Tim shirt? Or is this a years long bit? I'm okay with it either way. Also, we need some KF decals slash stickers. Woo. Kevin, can you go to kind of funny.com store? As you know, Nick and I were gone for a week at a time. So our shirts are up. You can go get our welcome back Greg and welcome back Nick shirts. Those are, you know, limited drops and they are very popular, so you should go get those. Um, and then if anybody ever notices that Tim's gone, maybe we'd think about it, but I don't. You know, Tim isn't really known for going away and coming back, so that's not really something we think about for him. He's known for something else and maybe we'll honor that eventually. However, the stickers I will let you know we are working on, we are actively working on Find Familiar game says Hey G Spot and B Hole. I wanted to clarify the previous flopped invitation to attend Familiar Con. We're having a small con with big tournaments for Magic Warhammer and more great prizes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Where's it at?

[Greg Miller]

Fucking forget this. Every time I want to say it's like Delaware or Connecticut or something like that. These are the ones that we. I supported them on a Kickstarter when they started the store. Find familiar games, Google it, You'll figure it out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Cool.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, here we go. Mob Mobiscue says Game of the year nominees in 2021 were Psychonauts 2, Metroid Dread, It Takes Two, Ratchet, Rift Apart, Deathloop, and Resident Evil Village.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, that would not have been a crazy year for Psychonauts 2 to win at all.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What one was that? Death Loop or no, it takes two.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, it takes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It takes two. One

[Greg Miller]

Michael says, sure. Seems like PlayStation, Nintendo have many lightnings in a bottle. Remember they're talking about to have lightning in a bottle, which I agree, like, that's how you support your studios and what you tell them are the success metrics and so on and so on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So the context is a little different. But there is a quote from Zaliver Nelson from a while ago, this from 2024. He's talking about sustainability more so than producing a 10 out of 10 video game. But he does say quote. I don't think sustainability is a utopian idea. He tells Games industry Biz in a discussion at the DICE Summit. It's just a necessity. Everything you do cannot guarantee survival, but you should at least create the conditions for it to occur. One of the disturbing things about the current state of games is that all the conditions exist in the ecosystem for great things to be made for players consistently without destroying people in the process. Right. I think it's important to make a studio, and I'm not quoting, this is just me talking now. It's important to make a studio in which that creativity can occur, in which that support occurs. Right. I think that's the. You got to water the garden, you got to maintain a thing, and then greatness can can come from that. But I don't think for both the examples of PlayStation and Nintendo, you know, they didn't wake up one day and start making amazing games. You know what I mean? Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

That took years and years and years of watering the garden to get there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right? Exactly.

[Greg Miller]

Omega Buster says, can we get a kind of funny podcast drafting the corpo KF Vision letter? Absolutely not. I think, you know, it's easy to joke around in like, you know, even be cynical about the letter we just read and the bullet points at the End. Like, let me tell you about when IGN was under Fox Interactive Media and we moved in 2010 in the meetings we had of what the IGN corporate values were and then the mission statements written behind them, and one of them was irreverence. And so any time we would do something that would get us in trouble, it's a reverend or a reverend. You told us to do this.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

And then they got bought and that shit went away pretty goddamn quick. Pope says they need to. They need. Xbox needs to put effort into fixing their PC launcher. Could they be. I'm sorry, Xbox seems to be putting effort into their PC launcher. Could they be preparing to pull out of Steam?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

To pull. Oh, to take the games off of Steam.

[Greg Miller]

I think that's a bridge.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Don't do that.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I don't.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Don't fuck up the bag. Yeah, that's fucking up the bag too much. That's stepping on a rig that you don't need to.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I feel like that PC community is so anti launchers, as we know. Yeah, like, just let them be. Let them be happy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He's all happy with the Epic Games Store.

[Greg Miller]

They never recover. Don't do it. You know what I mean?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Just make your launcher better. Make your.

[Greg Miller]

That's my thing. Why do I have to. I had to go into Starfield. I played Starfield offline on the Rog Ally getting ready for Monday stream, right?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

So I was doing that on the plane last night, and then I got home and turned on the Rog Ally and it's like, I can't sink this safe. Like, why the fuck can't you seek this? So then I had to come in here and sit. Well, I can't do it. And I turn on the other ones. Like, I can't see it either. I'm like, well, you. You can see that it's trying to upload. So then I had to go in, make a new save, do that, and that worked. I'm like, that sucks. That's a shitty process.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You just got to make your launcher. Steam's just like, damn, make your launcher so good that people choose your launcher. That's why you need a great point.

[Greg Miller]

That is a great, great, great point that I'm just trying to run through here, see if there's anything we missed here, anything going on. I mean, there's a lot of people saying stuff. There's stuff. You got the thing, do, thing. And I said, hey, I want to. Hey. Yeah. And I hope. All right, that's it. Oh, jbc. When is Vampire Crawlers review. The game is crack. Mike's been trying to stream it. I think it actually happened this week, didn't it? I think if you go to kind of funny dot com.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't think so. I think that's the day we canceled the stream.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. I thought then the next day he was gonna do it, but he did something else there too.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, maybe. Great point.

[Greg Miller]

I think I remember the day where. Yeah, we had to cancel it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Is that Overwatch? Because we did Overwatch on Wednesday. Yesterday was kill. What happened Tuesday? Nobody knows.

[Greg Miller]

Is that the one we pushed?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Was it Monday? Do you think Mike's here? We call him in.

[Greg Miller]

I bet he's here.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Monday was the four.

[Greg Miller]

That's not happening.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Monday was the 420 special.

[Greg Miller]

We wanted it to happen, but it's been a week here. As always, I doubt you'll ever get a review review from it. But hopefully you'll get a stream from it eventually and may who maybe we will review.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh yeah, it does say we did it on Tuesday.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, but remember, it's not up there. So I don't know what's going on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Huh?

[Greg Miller]

Is Tuesday the day we cancel stuff?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't remember. I guess I was.

[Greg Miller]

Michael. It was Tuesday. It will be Tuesday. It will be Tuesday, everybody. So it will be Tuesday. Thanks, Mike. We love you, Mike. Guys, got a problem, you know. Problem, huh?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What's his problem? Oh yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you. Yeah, let's go on here, see what's up. This is. You're wrong, but you're trying to put a comment in this is this nibble. Trent, this isn't a wrong blessing. That Spotify Hulu deal may be the result of an old college student deal. I still have it. And. And I will never let it cancel.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, because this was definitely after college because I think I bought it on my Xbox. Fair enough. Yeah, somebody figured this out because I'm pretty sure I bought it via my Xbox. But it was a Spotify giving out homework.

[Greg Miller]

Giving out homework for everybody out there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Does anybody else have this deal and am I still making money off of it or do I just need to cancel Hulu because I never watch Hulu. There's no way you're making money. Just to be clear. Well, yeah, you're right. Not making money. But am I saving money? Am I saving money?

[Greg Miller]

I know it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But guess what? You'd be saving more money if you didn't have the service you didn't need Everybody.

[Greg Miller]

That's another episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily in the Bank. But of course, kinda Funny's all about live programming, which means your day is far from over. First off, you have homework. The one, the only boss, baby. AKA CEO Junior Barrett Courtney put up an amazing video essay today. You can go get it on YouTube.com kindafunnygames It's 55ish minutes long. It is great. About art in the face of oblivion. You should check that out when you have time. Probably this weekend because we're not stopping from here. It's the Gamescast, the Soros review. After that it's a marathon stream. Nick versus the chat on who can beat Pokemon. First it is going to be a scene. We hope you enjoy that. Then we're into the weekend. Then guess what? Monday's a big day of content. Nine o', clock, a live Soros gamescast plays. Oh, it's happening right there. Ten o', clock, a Gamescast embargoed. Can't tell you what it is. Games Daily after that. Then the kind of funny podcast after that where all the usual core four are finally back together because Tim's not gonna be gone again. And then after that, it's my birthday marathon stream. Not where you got a. I'm just playing 12 hours of it and doing that. I'm just gonna go play my thing there. Ah, Jesus fucking Christ. I'm not stealing your thunder, giving away the buzz before we record the buzz. I'm just talking about Monday. You end this show right now. Hey, what's up everybody? Everybody, that's been kind of funny. Games Daily Get Ready for Sorrows review. Get ready for all the crazy stuff we're doing here. We couldn't do without you. I love my job and I love this team. Thank you so much for it. Maybe not. Nick, Anybody like subscribe? Sharing the Bell? Subscribe? Do that. Of course. Go ahead and get a membership. Patreon.com kind of funny games. YouTube.com kind of funny games. Apple, Spotify. You know the deal. Until next time though, it's been our pleasure to serve you.