Grading PlayStation's 2024 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Grading PlayStation's 2024

Released on November 15, 2024

Hosts: Tim Gettys, Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., and Andy Cortez

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Introduction

In this episode of Kinda Funny Gamescast, the hosts delve into a comprehensive review and grading of PlayStation's performance throughout 2024. Hosted by Greg Miller and Blessing Adeoye Jr., alongside insights from Barrett Courtney and occasional remarks from Andy Cortez, the discussion offers an in-depth analysis of PlayStation's successes, setbacks, and overall impact in the gaming industry this year.

PlayStation's 2024 Overview

Blessing Adeoye Jr. kicks off the conversation by highlighting the tumultuous nature of PlayStation's year. The team grapples with balancing major game releases against significant corporate decisions that have stirred both excitement and concern within the gaming community.

Blessing Adeoye Jr. [07:14]: "It’s been a mid-year, it's been a mediocre year. It’s been, it’s been a fine."

Key Game Releases and Performances

1. Helldivers 2

• Performance: Metacritic Score: 82

• Highlights: Celebrated as PlayStation's fastest-selling title, surpassing 12 million units in just 12 weeks. The sequel from Arrowhead Games resonated well with both new and returning players.

  Greg Miller [16:28]: "Helldivers 2... PlayStation exclusive side. It was doing these kind of numbers."

2. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

• Performance: Metacritic Score: 92

• Highlights: A critical darling, this title reimagines a beloved classic, garnering widespread acclaim for its rich storytelling and enhanced gameplay mechanics.

  Greg Miller [24:57]: "It’s a great game. Very good game."

3. Rise of the Ronin

• Performance: Metacritic Score: 76

• Highlights: While it maintained a solid performance, the game received mixed reviews from the hosts. Blessing appreciated the action elements, whereas Greg felt it fell short of PlayStation's high standards.

  Greg Miller [28:08]: "It just wasn't hitting for me on that level."

4. Stellar Blade

• Performance: Metacritic Score: 81

• Highlights: Praised for its combat and unique vibe, but Greg expressed reservations about its long-term appeal without significant narrative improvements.

  Greg Miller [31:09]: "You can see the stuff here."

5. Black Myth Wukong

• Performance: Metacritic Score: 81

• Highlights: Celebrated for its stunning visuals and engaging gameplay, though some debates arose regarding its combat mechanics.

  Greg Miller [56:22]: "This launching as an exclusive for PlayStation is big because I would say this is one of the biggest games of the year."

6. Concord

• Performance: Metacritic Score: 62 (Shut Down on September 6th)

• Highlights: A significant failure, Concord was pulled from sale just two weeks post-launch due to poor reception and operational issues.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. [59:15]: "Concord shutting down. And just a backtracking on fucking vision."

7. Astrobot

• Performance: Metacritic Score: 94

• Highlights: A standout success with 1.5 million units sold by November, Astrobot reinforced PlayStation's commitment to polished, engaging titles.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. [62:12]: "Astrobot launches… Metacritic 94. It sold 1.5 million units by November."

8. Destiny Final Shape

• Performance: Mixed Reviews

• Highlights: Although it received praise for its depth and engagement, final sales and community reception remain varied.

  Greg Miller [52:51]: "I think what Bungie was versus what Bungie is now... It’s a sucky place to be in."

9. Until Dawn Remake

• Performance: Metacritic Score: 69

• Highlights: Criticized for bugs and perceived as an unnecessary remake, the title failed to impress both critics and players.

  Greg Miller [65:04]: "Until Dawn remake… that is pretty buggy."

10. Silent Hill 2 Remake

• Performance: Metacritic Score: 86

• Highlights: Highly anticipated and well-received, the remake tapped into the nostalgia while delivering a refined horror experience.

  Greg Miller [66:08]: "It was a big deal for us talking about it… it was sort of a moment yesterday."

Corporate Decisions and Their Impact

Layoffs and Studio Closures

• Sony's Layoffs: Announced the reduction of approximately 900 staff members, impacting major studios like Insomniac, Naughty Dog, and notably closing the PlayStation London Studio.

  Greg Miller [23:05]: "Sony has announced a significant round of layoffs affecting around 900 staff… PlayStation's London studio hit hardest."

• Bungie's Restructuring: Bungie, a key partner owned by Sony, laid off 220 roles and refocused development solely on Destiny and Marathon, marking a significant shift in their operational strategy.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. [31:52]: "Bungie… 220 of our roles will be eliminated, representing roughly 17% of our studio's workforce."

PlayStation's Shift Towards IP and Live Services

• The hosts discuss Sony's struggle to balance live service games with traditional single-player experiences, citing Concord's failure and Astrobot's success as indicators of the industry's volatility.

  Greg Miller [76:24]: "PlayStation has acknowledged a mixed year for its live service ambitions."

Grading PlayStation's 2024

After weighing the highs and lows, the hosts collectively grade PlayStation's 2024 performance as a 6 out of 10. This rating reflects a year marked by significant successes with titles like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Astrobot, overshadowed by major setbacks such as the Concord failure and extensive layoffs affecting key studios.

Greg Miller [69:38]: "I think your standards set, I might be off. Did we do the rigmarole? Like, are we in the topic of the show already?"
Blessing Adeoye Jr. [69:53]: "I am thinking about like the standard that PlayStation has set… I couldn't see seven. Like, it's been too much weirdness this year."

Community Feedback and Future Outlook

Listeners contributed their perspectives via Super Chats, with many supporting the grading of a 6/10 and acknowledging both the impressive game releases and the concerning corporate developments. The hosts emphasize the importance of PlayStation leveraging its strong IP portfolio to navigate future challenges.

Super Chat from Volk, Dasher [73:38]: "Five PlayStation games. ... final. Concord knocks it down a point."
Super Chat from Street Shadow [74:22]: "If we don't count the Final Shape as a success, then we can't count Bungie layoffs in Sony's year."

Looking ahead, the team plans to continue their grading series with upcoming episodes focused on Xbox and Nintendo, aiming to provide balanced and insightful evaluations of each console's yearly performance.

Conclusion

PlayStation's 2024 presented a mixed bag of triumphs and tribulations. While groundbreaking games like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Astrobot highlight Sony's potential, the substantial layoffs and unsuccessful ventures like Concord underscore ongoing challenges. The hosts advocate for a strategic focus on PlayStation's rich array of IPs to secure a more stable and impressive future performance.

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Notable Quotes:

• Greg Miller [16:28]: "Helldivers 2... PlayStation exclusive side. It was doing these kind of numbers."
• Blessing Adeoye Jr. [23:14]: "Sony has announced a significant round of layoffs affecting around 900 staff… PlayStation's London studio hit hardest."
• Greg Miller [31:09]: "You can see the stuff here."
• Blessing Adeoye Jr. [69:53]: "I think it was a great remaster, but it was also the one that everybody complained about because nobody wanted the last was to remaster."

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for listeners and those who missed the live broadcast.

Transcript

[Greg Miller]

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of angie.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

One thing I've learned is that you.

[Greg Miller]

Buy a house, but you make it a home.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And for decades, Angie's helped millions of homeowners. Hire skilled pros for the projects that matter.

[Greg Miller]

Get all your jobs done [e-mail].

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What'S up, everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Friday, November 15, 2024. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller alongside Forbes 30 under 30 aka New York Game Awards. Nominated a K A PlayStation poppy blessing. Eddie.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, yay, Junior I like the sweater you got on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Thank you. The new. A new run of merch from Mill Valley Pasta. Oh, it's a rib cage with a pasta heart, which is quite disgusting. I did not find it very disgusting.

[Greg Miller]

I did not notice the pasta heart.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They got a Tony over there, friend of the show. Obviously he does a bunch of stuff, helps us out a bunch of crazy merch all the time. You know, you think a pasta shop, you wouldn't think and have a bunch of crazy merch, but he's got a bunch of crazy merch.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, I was at an ice cream shop last night that was telling you about on the last store or on the last show. And what drunk are you right now? I'm so tired. I went in, look to the right. They had like shirts that they had popped up and we were like, oh, man, should we get some shirts? And then the guy overheard us talking. He was like, listen, holidays around the corner. We got some holiday merch coming up.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh.

[Greg Miller]

So, yeah, holding off, but I'm going to get the middle of the fucking holiday shirt with the milkshake.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What ice cream did you, I mean, go to? Mitchell's where you.

[Greg Miller]

Mitchell's? Yeah, yeah. Mitchell's.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Good stuff. Good stuff. Really good. A Bay area staple. Mitchell's or whatever.

[Barrett Courtney]

I. Barrett, I just want to. There's another ice cream spot bless by that because a place that has like the wheel where you can spin it right. And get like a random ice cream flavor.

[Greg Miller]

I believe so. Yeah. They didn't have when I was there last night, but I think last time I was there, they had that wheel.

[Barrett Courtney]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

If I remember correctly.

[Barrett Courtney]

Okay, okay. Okay. That's always a fun thing to do.

[Greg Miller]

Hell, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Indeed. Of course. It's a very special kind of funny games cast. It's just me. It's just blessing.

[Greg Miller]

It is.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Cole's on the ground. My dog. He's not sitting in the bed we made for him. He's just sitting directly underneath me on the Linoleum.

[Greg Miller]

So what. What do you think is up with him right now? Because I feel like he is either comforted. Comforted by your presence, or he's scared of the video wall. Because I saw him looking at the video wall in a way. Yeah. Where I was like, are you scared of that?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think he's comforted by the presence. He probably wants back in my lap, which he really doesn't because we did that last show and he immediately wanted back down.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He's just not a part of that. You can see him look at that. You can see the chat blank is.

[Greg Miller]

Right there for him.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I know. It's so close, right? Like, just do it.

[Greg Miller]

Cole go stuck in this one.

[Barrett Courtney]

Maybe he wants to, like, kind of feel like the hard, cold floor, you know, he was big, chilling on the couch.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I know. Nick sent me a photo of him just sitting all alone on the couch.

[Greg Miller]

Looking at me on the couch.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He made himself at home. He's doing the damn thing. Good job, Kalisha. We're going to do something here. Of course. Very special. The year's winding down and it's time to start grading these hardware manufacturers. All right. We thought, you know, we were always the number one console manufacturer podcast in this place. I don't hear about X Cast thing. Yuck. I don't want to hear about Tim and his dreams of a Nintendo podcast. All right.

[Greg Miller]

I want that too. You want to be on it?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're going to be on the episode of degrading Nintendo, so get ready for that.

[Greg Miller]

I've not picked up a switch this year. I don't think so. I've been playing Pokemon, though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Going to be rough. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That counts. So you and I are going to go through and grade playstations 2024. And then in the coming weeks, of course, you'll see the X Cash crew return to grade the Xbox and Tim scrape together somebody who cares about Nintendo.

[Greg Miller]

Somebody.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't know who that's going to be. He wanted a cool dog, I'll tell you that.

[Greg Miller]

I can get a dog for now.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'll remind you, of course. This is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we run you through the biggest topics in the video game world, whether they be reviews, previews, or just things we need to talk about. If you like that, of course, be part of the show as we're YouTube.com kind of funny games you can super chat. You can leave your reviews for this here. PlayStation in 2024. Lots to talk about. So I'm interested to see where you put on the Kind of Funny review scale. Of course, if you're watching later, remember, you could have been watching live. YouTube.com kinda funny games, twitch tv, kinda funny games podcast services around the globe. No matter where you get the show, please consider picking up a kinda funny membership. $10 on patreon.com kinda funny or YouTube.com kinda funny games keeps the lights and mics on course. Gets you all of our content ad free. The ability to watch live as we record the afternoon podcast. Like a dynamite kind of funny podcast we did last night. That was a lot of fun.

[Greg Miller]

Dynamite. I like that as an adjective for you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah. Just. Even the thumbnail of you and Nick touching fingers.

[Greg Miller]

I know. That was.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What's not to like? You know, you got to put me.

[Greg Miller]

And Nick together more.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think we're going to.

[Greg Miller]

Good.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because I can't stand him. I want to get away. Go in there and do alien isolation with them today. All right. Do whatever you want. And then of course, you could get a daily dose of me in a series we call Greg Way each and every day. If you're a member. If you're not, please, like subscribe, share in all the free platforms and enjoy the advertisements. Of course. Some housekeeping for you. Our limited merch drop is still happening. The visual triangle is upon us. And you can go to kind of funny.com store to pick up the cool hoodie, the cool hat, see the CRT effect. Ask if Roger's head's too big. I don't think it is, but apparently.

[Greg Miller]

People think Roger's head is too big for his body. He thinks it's.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

There's something. I don't agree. I think Roger looks awesome.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, I think he looks great, but like, let's be real here. Look at that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Look at. God damn it. Blood.

[Greg Miller]

He's like a piece of shit. You're playing James Bond double the goldeneye and you turn on the mode.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. You know the mode I'm talking about. I know the mode. I know that mode.

[Greg Miller]

It's just. It's the.

[Barrett Courtney]

It's the lens of the camera that's making it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The best part is Roger's expression is almost as if he knows. He knows that we're having this conversation. Done with this, please.

[Barrett Courtney]

I just fucking wait. Awoke and bulked. You know, like I woke and bulked.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's Friday, everybody. It's Friday. Kind of funny.com store to pick up the merch. When it's gone, it's gone. Of course, you already got that. There is going to Be another Xbox console. We talked about on kind of funny games daily. And we called legendary video game designer David Brevik to answer our questions. Of course, nothing like calling the man who made Diablo, who invented it, just to be like, hey, tell me about how the inner workings of being a studio head and a publisher relationship works. And after this, Nick is of course streaming Alien Isolation. You can watch live on Twitch TV. Kind of funny games YouTube.com kind of funny games. Of course, later on YouTube as well. If you're a kind of funny member, like I said, you're going to get a Greg way this afternoon after Blessing and I eat pizza if you're a Patreon producer like Carl Jacobs and Delaney Twining. Thank you for your service. And then of course we're brought to you by Sonic at topgolf, Marvel, Snap and Shady Rays. But we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be topic of the show.

[Greg Miller]

I'm going to order the pizza during the show. That way, right when we come off the show.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

2024 is almost in the books. Ladies gentlemen and en bees. I can't believe it. It is of course November 15, which normally would mean you're halfway through the month, but in November you got Thanksgiving. That means pretty much the month's over.

[Greg Miller]

Is that how you view it? Yeah, I get it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, what. Because what, we have a normal week next week and then it's Thanksgiving week.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So you got a couple of days there and we all know those are real days, so. Yeah. And then you come back and what? One of those days you get one normal. You get that one weird week of December where it's like it's not Thanksgiving and it's not game awards. So we're here and then it's game Awards and then it's one more where it's not Christmas, but we're here.

[Greg Miller]

And I think the real thing is that it's just over for PlayStation this year. Right. Like, there's no more PlayStation games left.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That is true in terms of a lot of. You still have the 30th anniversary, PlayStation Pro is going to be shipping and all the merch is coming out.

[Greg Miller]

And to be fair, last year they did release God of War Valhalla as a surprise in December. So who knows? Oh, what if we get Eternal Valhalla.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Something cool at game Awards? I would like that, actually. That's very tempting. Maybe some Astrobot stuff. You think?

[Greg Miller]

Oh, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, I'm thinking Speedrun challenge or something like that. Can I propose whatever you're about to do? You can.

[Greg Miller]

I don't know if I can because now. Because I'm about to produce in a way where I'm like maybe this is a meeting discussion and not an on air discussion.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We're all friends here. We're all fair.

[Greg Miller]

Can we bring back the game awards predictions where it is? We each bring five things. Like five unique things. Because lately with the predictions it's like there's a list of things we're all right. What's capcom doing? What's PlayStation doing? What Xbox? What is Activision like? I miss like that's a great Tim impression. Thank you. I miss like creating five bullet points of ridiculous. I think Rockstar is gonna show off GTA 6 and it's gonna star Vanessa Hudgens and you know, Zac Efron's gonna.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Be a. I think there's common ground where we could do both. You know what I mean? Where if we. If we're doing. We're trying to go through and do the thing with everybody and we also started doing. We had. Damn, I'm so sorry. Kind of funny. Best friends had made a graphic we were using as well that were asking questions that were more specific than what's Capcom? We do do that as well.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

There was a thing we were using as like a template because that's.

[Greg Miller]

Now I'm like coming off.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I said we know the game awards for all that worth. I don't.

[Greg Miller]

Oh yeah. Coming off a God War of a Hollow last year. I'm like, man, I'm. I gotta. I gotta figure out like what is the prediction of what's that going to be? This.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean I gotta outdo myself. Nailed Jordan Peele. Nailed Kojima.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, that's one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What do I do? What I gotta. I gotta get deep in the Duffy to come up with something.

[Barrett Courtney]

Just got, you know, call one of your industry buddies again just to have them leak what's happening.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I would never do that.

[Barrett Courtney]

I think we could do it like where we start off with the specific five predictions. Bless. And then whatever. We don't naturally talk about in yalls like specific predictions. Like to have things of like oh, we didn't talk about this. Do we think anything from so and so company is gonna.

[Greg Miller]

I like that because I just miss. Yeah. I miss like being in my Duffy and like two. You know, I know haven't been here but I can while. You know, I'm not. I was. Roger told me this week that I've been on Fire since the election. And I don't know what that means. Like, you've been on one and I'm like, listen, I don't know, man. I gotta stay, stay happy. Somehow I feel the content.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You've been. You've been on for a long time this year.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know what I mean? Like, I think you've been. I wouldn't say like anything specific has happened. You just had a good vibe with everybody for a long time.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No problem. I told you this in your meeting. And Barrett, I tell you every so often, you're doing great work. I love your. The way the interplay you have. Whenever it's a Roger Bless episode and Barrett's on the ones and twos, I'm always happy.

[Barrett Courtney]

It's almost like we used to do a show together that we don't do anymore for some reason.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, well, I mean, because we wanted to fold into the other shows and we folded in like this, you know.

[Greg Miller]

It also gives us less work to do, which is nice. It was a once a month show. Doing it put us on kind of funny podcast more.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, you're all in the fucking weekly meeting. It's so easy to say, we'll do the thing that. All right, there you go, you're done. It seems a long meeting.

[Greg Miller]

I don't.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's fucking like even us doing this where we're grading the PlayStation, right?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I put out the thing on all the different social medias and on Blue sky and Paris is like, so that means we're doing an X cast one night. I'm like, oh, that's a great idea.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, you are.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And then I put it in slack. It seems like I want to do it Nintendo. And I'm like, look at this. We're making content we're doing here. But for now let's double back. Of course. We used to do a show called Psi Love UXO XO. We talked about PlayStation each and every week with Janet Garcia. Often she wasn't there the whole time, but she was there a big part of the time. We love you, Janet. How you doing? Then we killed it. We were like, no more Janet. We don't wanna deal with her. And then it was, we're gonna do Gamescast each and every day. And we started doing the PlayStation stuff there. Yada, yada, yada. You see the PlayStation background here? So we haven't checked in on a specific. Hey, let's just talk about PlayStation outside of a games daily here or there. And so to look back now, to jump in here with 2024 behind us, we need to decide what we would give this year on the kind of funny review scale.

[Greg Miller]

Question. Yeah, And I might be off. Did we do the rigmarole? Like, are we in the topic of the show already?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, go for it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're so focused on getting the pizza. You're so focused and I appreciate it.

[Greg Miller]

We missed a whole segment of this show.

[Barrett Courtney]

We did. We all said tots together.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Listen, it's Friday. We did the.

[Greg Miller]

We said the ends. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We did Sonic and topgolf.

[Greg Miller]

World snapping shitty. I tuned everything out, if you like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I love what we do is very special. Right. Because we look like we're espn, but then we're just a bunch of morons hanging out with us. And you the kind of funny best.

[Greg Miller]

Friend, all of that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'll give you the real deal too, of like, when we were getting ready for Games Daily and Barrett was doing the dog cam and like we were over it and it was like, oh, yeah. I'm like, that's so great. That's so cool. I love it, I love it, I love it. And I made sure I didn't bring up anything on my screen.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And then when the show started, like, I. When it went to the thing, I threw my text messages back up and I went and I sent Jen, I think, a photo of. Yeah, Cole on set. And then when we came live, you're like, what? And Barrett immediately went to that shot and I saw it and I was like, I was totally zoned out for the first two minutes. I'm like, let's look at every text message thread. I'm like, ok. If people really want to care that Jen and me are discussing if we're eating the salmon or if it's gone bad, we're ok. You know what I mean? We're ok.

[Barrett Courtney]

I did mean to ask you about that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Nah, you're fine. I mean, I knew it too, and I saw it, it's whatever. But like, I, yeah, we're doing pepperoni, but not like, I'll do it during the ad, not the 900 pepperonis. One pepperoni.

[Greg Miller]

That's the thing is I, I look.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

At the app, I. I love Joey and I love Kevin. I don't know how they've ever confused this, where they're like, we need to click pepperoni three times.

[Greg Miller]

Well, now this is why I'm waiting for the ad before I do this. Cuz, like, trying to do this while talking, I'm gonna fuck something up.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Fair enough.

[Greg Miller]

We're just gonna get get pepperoni and no pizza.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I just want pepperoni. Deadhead says so. Has the salmon gone bad? We need to know. I don't know. Jen was going on a hike this morning and so that's when we are having this conversation via Siri on the car ride. So I'll get back to you. Okay?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, eventually.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Here's what I'll do just for you, Deadhead. I will forget your name, of course, but at some point today, I will put out probably that tonight, a little fish emoji and then a thumbs up or a thumbs down. I'll put it on all three of my social platforms.

[Barrett Courtney]

Also put it on your into. What do they call the Instagram thing?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Instagram stories. Oh, my little thing.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

Word About Mike has an update for you on there, by the way.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No shit. Did he do it?

[Greg Miller]

He did.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So yesterday on Gamescast, I was saying, you know, I need updates on what's happening in Vegas. And I said, oh, make sure you use little thing. And he says, this is for Greg. He did it. You know what I mean? What a nice guy. I love you. There we go.

[Greg Miller]

So is it like, are you gonna always be posting on three platforms or is it like a battle of which one do you end up liking the most? And then you go to that one, Man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's a great question.

[Greg Miller]

Bus.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This was yesterday's Greg Way to a degree. And it's right now feeling it out. Like, I feel of all. I feel all social media. For me right now, with how much time I have to devote to social media, my whole Greg Way was about, like, I'm not the same social media person I was in 2009, 2010.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And so for me, the main thing of using it is, hey, look at the cool thing we did at work today. Look at the cool thing. So it's like, while I'm using it for advertising what we've done, I feel like I'll just do everything until we're like, well, this one, like Threads does not seem like it's.

[Greg Miller]

I gave up on Threads.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Threads. I do. Because I like being able to share that to the story on Instagram.

[Greg Miller]

I like, I think.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think making a story on Instagram is so fucking clunky.

[Greg Miller]

Threads for me is like the Skype during a pandemic where it's like, how'd you drop the ball on this?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Instagram should have had this as a slam dunk. Everybody's already on Instagram. You can transfer over and, like, have it all be the same people you're following all this. But the algorithm is so bad.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This is my conversation. And the thing yesterday, of course, was just like, you know, Instagram, I jumped out early, or Threads jumped out to whatever. It was like 35,000. And since like day one, not. Maybe not day one, but you know what I mean, like, since launch, I've gone to like 37. Meanwhile, like blue sky. Like, I finally started using last week and it's like just going and going. And it's not 30,000 yet, but it's like, oh, if everybody's coming here, then, yeah, I'll be here.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Anyway, PlayStation, let's talk about 2024. It makes sense because I posted on all three. You did it. You tied it in. I love it. Blessing. How do you want to tackle it? Because I've gone through and listed month by month the biggest things I could think of. Chat, please keep me honest as we go. If I miss something big you think needs to be put there, I want to know. I want to be a big part of it. But we can just start at the top of, like, even before you delve into it, what is your interpretation of PlayStation's 2024? Since we stopped doing a weekly PlayStation show in 2024.

[Greg Miller]

Very rocky, I would say. Like, I think there have been some highs. I think we started off very high with both Final Fantasy 7, Rebirth and Helldivers 2. I think those were two very big W's on the PlayStation exclusive side. I think you then hop to. I think a rocky to. I'll see a slow descent, actually, because after those first two titles, it was Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade two games that were not bad by any means. I think Rise of the Ronin for me was fine. I know you liked it a lot more than I did.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I liked it more than you did.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Over time, this has become like. Greg thinks it's like one of his top 10. I'm like, well, I just fucking, like killing things. Yeah. Hold on a sec.

[Greg Miller]

But then you get to Stellar Blade, which I did like a lot. But also it's like, for me, Stella Blade's not like a high tier, top tier PlayStation title. For me, it's an action game that gave me my fix out of what I like out of an action game. But it's not one that's going to stick with me necessarily. I'm not like at the edge of my seat waiting for Stella Blade 2 or whatever unless they give me a real way better story. Yeah. So, like, you know, you start off with that real big high of Helldivers 2 in Final Fantasy, you start to descend a little bit with Rise of Ronan Installer Blade. But you're still in the play, you're still in the positive, you're still in the blue. Then I think you get to the PlayStation. I think it was a state of play or I forget what the thing was. Or maybe it wasn't even any of those. You get to the Concord like trailer.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And whatever where they did the deep dive play.

[Greg Miller]

Or you get the like the extended cut scene. You get all that stuff and everybody's like, eh, not really doing for me. Like nobody. People aren't really feeling it. Me and Andy are in, I think stomach. Mike are like, oh, it looks decent. But like, you know it's not.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

In May they did that.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, in May they did that. But then you also get the announcement of Astrobot, right. Which we're all excited for. And like, I think that was one of those presentations where we're like, OK, the rest of the year might not be 2023 or 2022 in terms of a God of War, Ragnarok or Spider Man 2, but you got some things. You get to Concorde. And I think Concorde was a major low in terms of what they were setting up with the PlayStation Live service stuff, right. Especially in contrast to what they did with Helldivers to get into Concord. Nobody caring about it. It getting shut down seven days later I think was a big like boom dip. Dude, you got Astrobot in there. Great. Like people love Astrobot, right? It's doing awesome. But I think there has been this turbulence in the second half of the year where it's been the tug of war between an Astrobot type thing, but then Concord and then also the PlayStation 5 Pro, which I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say is like affiliate by any means, right? I'm sure it's selling. I'm sure he's doing fine, but it's not. I don't think it has been as exciting for the audience.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Not being exciting for the audience is the interesting thing I think coming into this when we put it on the calendar and then started talking about it and then even on the drive to work today where I was running through, I think I started with like, it's been a mid year, it's been a mediocre year. It's been, it's. It's been a fine. But like when I laid it all out on the thing, it's a very interesting story. To go by the bullet points, okay. Of games and Metacritics Because I feel like there are games, there are this stuff that. And not to mention, you know, PlayStation has won the hearts and minds campaign to some degree. Right. Of like you're playing your games on PlayStation. So even third party games you're enjoying, and I'm painting broad brush here, but the third party games that are coming out that people are enjoying, you're playing on PlayStation. So it feels like a PlayStation game to some degree. And so we're not ignoring that but just looking at what the PlayStation.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Was I missed a big one too with Black Myth Wukong.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

And also Lego Horizon, I guess. But Black Wukong is definitely part of the PlayStation story this year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I got confused by that because, you know, it wasn't one of my games, obviously, Black Michael Lukon. But I saw it listed with an Xbox thing. So is it out on. That was just PlayStation.

[Greg Miller]

I thought it was just PlayStation and PC. But correct me, Chad, if I'm wrong because that's.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I had seen something about it. I was like, oh, okay, hold on.

[Greg Miller]

I'm pretty sure that's just PlayStation.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, no. Oh no, you are right, you're right, I'm sorry, you're right.

[Greg Miller]

The whole thing, or. Yeah, I'm right, the whole thing is that people thought it was coming to Xbox. But then I think the Xbox release date got the like, I guess either delayed or just never came out on Xbox. But it's still going to at some point.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm pretty sure I'm dropping into August then so I can keep track. This one, this is the kind of information I need. Thank you very much.

[Greg Miller]

People are saying, well, Panda in chat says it did not come out because of tech issues. Somebody said Xbox version is delayed. I think there was some rumors and speculation that PlayStation paid extra money to get exclusivity. That was like a whole, that might have been like a whole Twitter thing of people just trying to make console wars out of something.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So again I'm thinking, okay, it's mid, it's mediocre, it's somewhere in there as I'm driving in and then laying it all out. It's such an interesting take of the games are there to some degree. And again, it's not a last of us, it's not a ghost, it's not like maybe the big AAA single player thing you want. They're there and then it's this weird mix mashup of bad news of layoffs and Bungie and this, that, the other. Right? So the way I have it, month by month goes like this January there's the state of play, or a state of play that we've talked about. This is the one that had Silent Hill. It was a big deal for us talking about it there. It was an exciting way to start it, but it was, you know, again, what is a state of play going to be? Or. Yeah, what is the state of play going to be? The Dave the Diver thing. Death Stranding two more stuff for Hell Divers. But again, we didn't really know what we were getting in there. Right. So exciting enough, right? But then February the eighth, Helldivers 2 launches. Metacritic today is 82. You know, the Wikipedia points out became PlayStation's fastest selling title of all time, surpassing 12 million units within 12 weeks of its release, as well as Sony's most successful Windows title. I think, you know, there's always a recency bias to some degree because I think when this was happening, we talked throughout February and March, right, how insane it was that this little game from Arrowhead, a sequel to a game I loved nine years ago, was doing these kind of numbers, right? Yeah. And I kept joking that it was so crazy to have a game I cared about be popular because usually I'm the guy who likes some double A trash that nobody else does. And I'm just like, I'm having a great time with Avengers. The fact that this took over, we did, like, I want to say two weeks where we were streaming every day and I was like blowing off meetings to stream for four or five hours in the afternoon to play this thing because I loved it so much and still do love it. I think it's an interesting one of that breakout success. And that energy, I feel like, is the usual case of the extraordinary becoming ordinary, where now you're like, oh, Helldivers, they had a great year. Helldivers was a great game, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, we can't look past 12 million units in 12 weeks. You know what I mean? It all worked. And of course there's so much that comes after the fact, right, of PlayStation shooting themselves not only in the foot, in the fucking head of like, now we want you to sign in with psn, everybody losing their mind and uninstalling, installing and it doesn't work in countries anymore. And this, that, and then of course the Meta and people buffing and debuffing and yada, yada, yada. But like, what a fucking way to start the year.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, it's almost. It's not comparable to Fortnite, but like, it is almost a fortnite esque story of a game that came out was on nobody to few people's radar. Right. Like Helldivers one was a, you know, it was a specific community, it was a specific audience.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I was, I mean this was on my radar but not to be this.

[Greg Miller]

And hell diversity had like mainstream success. Right. And like again not Fortnite levels because Fortnite is a once in a lifetime type thing. But similar, similar arc as far as comes out we know about it, we're like, oh yeah, let's play some Helldivers. And then like Everybody's playing Helldivers 2, right. The Steam concurrence are going crazy, all these things.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Gary Wood is still playing Helldivers too.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Outrageous. You know what I mean? But of course we can't get out of. You can't have good news with PlayStation this year, not have bad news. Right. On the 27th I'll read from Wesley at IGN.

[D]

Report.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sony has announced a significant round of layoffs affecting around 900 staff, or about 8% of its global PlayStation workforce. The layoffs affect a number of PlayStation studios, including Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Fire, Sprite and most significantly PlayStation's London studio. Alongside the layoffs, a number of in development games are canceled, Sony said in a blog post. Outgoing Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Jim Ryan issued an update on what he called a difficult day at our company. We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or 900 people. Employees across the globe, including our studio, are impacted. That was the 27th. Quickly followed up on the 29th by Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, a Metacritic of 92.

[Greg Miller]

Let's go dude. There have been so many layoffs in the last couple of years that yeah, like even as you're reading through this one, I'm like, oh yeah, like that was February. Like you know, you kind of had to unearth that out of my brain a little bit.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, for sure.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, like that's, that's definitely a big one. When you want to talk about the story of PlayStation this year, I think it was later in the year we got even more right about like with Bungie included and all this stuff, right?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, oh yeah, we'll get there.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, that's coming.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Don't worry about that.

[Greg Miller]

But if you want to talk about Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, that's one that I think is interesting. As far as I think that game is excellent. I think that game's fucking fantastic. It is high up in my game of the year list. But I always am so fascinated with Square Enix in the way they view their own titles and, like, what they want to do in sales. Because it didn't feel as celebrated by Square Enix as you would think for a game of that caliber. Like. And granted, again, it's Square Enix. And so I feel like most, if not all of their AAA releases, it's always. It comes out, the audience is like, yeah, this is fucking awesome. And Square Enix is, like, underperformed, not good enough.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This is not the way we wanted it to do what we want to do.

[Greg Miller]

I'm like, what the fuck did you want it to do? But I think this is Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth with the whole recency, like, you know, kind of thing that you're talking about with. Hello, I'll put it in a similar place of. At least for me, coming off of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Fresh off of it. I remember just being so blown away. So I was so in love with her.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

I still, when I think about it and I think in detail of, you know, character dynamics, character relationships, certain moments of the game. Right. Like, things that they. That they do with Red xiii, like, all this stuff. I think. I think back to it so fondly and I know if you're a Final Fantasy person, especially a Final Fantasy 7 person, I'm sure you have that same thing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I'm sure we'll talk about it a lot more in this episode, let alone into the Game of the Year conversations we'll be having. But, yeah, another one that I. When I initially started doing this, granted, I'm not the Final Fantasy guy. I forgot it was even out, which is ridiculous because I played it two days ago in the office when I was like, I got to. I got to put some time into this for Game of the Year. All right. That. That was this year. Like, again, recency bias on where we're actually at with anything.

[Barrett Courtney]

It feels so long ago, doesn't it?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

It's crazy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Biden was running for president when this.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

Remember Queen's Blood Bliss?

[Greg Miller]

I. Oh, man.

[Barrett Courtney]

So that was a moment yesterday when I was playing around with the PS5 Pro. And, yeah, I booted up Final Fantasy 7 just to, like, see what it actually, like, felt like in motion. And I, like, my save had just come off of, like, doing a Queen's Blood battle. And I think it was the final Queen's Blood battle, so there was no Queen's Blood left to play. And I was like, damn, I just wanna. I feel like shit. I just want Queen's Blood.

[Greg Miller]

I'm gonna make a strong statement. I'm probably wrong when I say this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I feel like this year is the best year for video game card games. Or one of the best years for video game card games.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

People are gonna be so mad at you.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, Gwen, yeah, sure, but like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You'Re like, go fuck yourself.

[Greg Miller]

But then I remember that I'm a Gwent person.

[Barrett Courtney]

But also, what was the game that you really like? That' weird and creepy and Inscription. Yes, Inscription. There's that.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, but I'm. I'm talking. But I'm talking about Balatro coming out this year. I'm talking about Pokemon TCG coming out this year. Like there's been some good ass card games coming out this year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Don't forget Magic of the Gathering had the Ghostbuster time.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, they did have the Ghostbuster time.

[Barrett Courtney]

And Queen's Blood. Release it on its own if you really want to make that money. Bag Square Enix.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And don't forget Sak Saka's unique technique. That is a great one.

[Barrett Courtney]

Sak was funny.

[Greg Miller]

I'm just kidding. When I don't. I don't even know.

[Barrett Courtney]

Maybe it was the best part of that game. Who knows?

[Greg Miller]

But I. Then Solopsis says inscription was not this year. I don't think we meant to imply that was this year.

[Barrett Courtney]

No, I just meant of like thinking of other years as top tier card game years.

[Greg Miller]

But if we do the Smileys again this year, I gotta write. We gotta write this down. Best card game.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yes, I like that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Write it down. You're writing it down.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, good. Moving out of February, we move into March. The one I have here is March 22nd, Rise of the Ronin. Metacritic of 76 on this one, which I thought seemed high. Like the way we talk about it around here where everybody's like, oh man, only Greg liked that piece of shit. I was like, yeah, 76 is high. Considering jumping ahead a little bit, April has Stellar Blade, right on the 26th. And Stellar Blade has a metacritic of 81. Yeah, I thought, like that sounds right for Stellar Blade. I thought. I mean, is all rejected. Whatever.

[Greg Miller]

Just for my personal assessment, I guess I would put Stellar Blade above Rise of the Ronin just in terms of quality. But.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh no, for sure. I just didn't. I was saying in 81 for Stella Blade. That sounds right. I thought there'd be a bigger gap of like 71 for rise of the Rock.

[Greg Miller]

Rise of. There was definitely a crowd there. That was into Rise of the Ronin. I think the thing that held it back a little bit was, I don't think, I think a Rise of the Ronin was a like multi platform release. I could see it having a bit more fervor to it. To me, this didn't have like the stuff to make people care about it as like an exclusive.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sure.

[Greg Miller]

I think Rise of the Ronin, if you're somebody who's played the Koei techno games before, which I'm somebody who's done.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

Like W long Fallen Dynasty just came out last year and you play this and it's oh, this is like W fallen Dynasty, but it's open world. But then that also comes with, in my opinion, some of the jankiness of open world games where like if you're an Assassin's Creed person, this might speak to you a bit better. But I like W long Fallen Dynasty mainly just for the combat. Right. Everything else around it was not necessarily for me, them expanding this into oh, Rise of the Ronin. You're exploring, you're doing side quests, you're doing this. I started, I gotta quite a few hours into it and was just like, I'm good. I wanted, I, I thought this was going to be the one, but it just wasn't hitting for me on that level. But enough people did like it though. I think it does enough things for those open world fans.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Back to me in, in Rise of the Ronin, right where I was higher on it than the you and Andy. I forget if anybody else was on that review with us, but I was high on it as a podcast game. Right? Like, yeah, I like, I think looking at that right there and remembering what I liked about it, I'm like, damn, I should do that tonight. Like it's one of those, like, oh man, that'd be fun. Put that on Portal, put some wrestling on TV and go that. Because yesterday I was playing WW2K24 on the TV and I was watching NXT on my phone. I was like, this is all, this is all busted. But Jen was already asleep. I didn't want to go upstairs and get the portal. You know what I mean? You know what I mean?

[Greg Miller]

I know what you mean. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Rise of the Ronin. I again this. I think Rise of the Ronin seems like a good tone setter for what PlayStation's year was. It's like, oh, it was a solid thing. You can enjoy.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[D]

You know what I mean?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, I don't know. And we're talking about the overall scale.

[Greg Miller]

Do you think when PlayStation does like these third party PlayStation Studios deals. Right. Of like, we're going to, you know, pay for whatever. Whatever. We're going to have you be exclusive. We're going to do all this and.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We'Re going to push you like Stellar Blade coming up.

[Greg Miller]

April being another example of that. Do you think. Right. Do you think we should get more Rise of the Ronin or do you think Rise of the Ronin was below the bar for what you expect out of a place?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think it was below the bar.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I think, I think. I think you nail it when you're like, if this was a third party thing or multiplatform thing, it would have made more sense.

[Greg Miller]

Yes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because I think that even though you didn't go as far with it as I'm about to, like third party, you can expect. Okay, cool. It's watered down a bit because it's trying to be on everything.

[Greg Miller]

Yes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Whereas this one, you're making a PlayStation game. Why is this not it?

[Greg Miller]

Having the PlayStation Studios branding to it makes me immediately go, oh, it's going to be another Ghost of Tsushima, where it's going to be something with that level of quality. Which I think is going to be an interesting conversation now that we're about to get into Stellar Blade. Because Stellar Blade, I think, is like right at the line of like, I think this is maybe the lowest quality you can get while still being good enough to. To be like, okay, no, I can see the PlayStation studios.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You can see the stuff here.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And people might disagree with that. I'm curious on what Chad thinks about that, because I think there's something about Stellar Blade as far as, like, how you. How kind of unique it is, and I think a bit fresh it is, but also just how good the combat is. And like, there's a vibe to Stellar Blade that I think works.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Lanky Dragoon says Rebirth was also questionable for a PlayStation 5 only game, though.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, questionable how?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They had a bunch of different modes. I remember that was a big problem in terms of visual fidelity and this, that and the other.

[Greg Miller]

The thing I'll say to that is Rebirth wasn't PlayStation Studios. Right. Rebirth is just a square index game that is exclusive to PlayStation, which I know is confusing. It doesn't make sense, all that. But it's also Final Fantasy looks terrible.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

People are shouting off. That's what. That's what they're probably launch.

[Barrett Courtney]

Let's be real.

[Greg Miller]

You know, visuals aren't everything.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I tell Jin all the time.

[Barrett Courtney]

Way too bloated, you know, I mean, you're right.

[Greg Miller]

You're not wrong about that.

[Barrett Courtney]

Which I think also leads into maybe why it doesn't look as good as maybe is even remake.

[Greg Miller]

I don't think it looked that bad, though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Not with the Pro.

[Barrett Courtney]

The. The versatility mode on Pro. I was like, damn, all right, I see it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So, yeah. April 26th, the Stellar Blade. Metacritic of 81, Wikipedia reporting. By June, the game had sold over 1 million units. A Windows version is scheduled for release in 2025.

[Greg Miller]

Good game. Very good game. And I think, again, I think is an example of the direction you should go when you're talking about. And direction might be the wrong word. I think the quality that you should bring when you're talking about PlayStation Studios. Right. Of like, all right, this is something that I think your audience likes. Right. People like action games. People like, especially the harder action games that feel like they're akin to almost like a Soul C type thing. There's a vibe here that I think a lot of people. People liked some weird things when it came to Stellar Blade. Like there were some conversations that we had to have during the review that were like, like, yo, what the fuck is happening? As far as like some of the messages. Messaging in here. And then also there's a weird thing attached to a bit of the sexuality of this game that I think put quite a few people off. Like there have been conversations I've had with people or friends where I'm trying to recommend Stellar Blade and they're like, oh, is that the game that's all horny? And I was like, yeah, but it's fun. It's fun and it has style and it's, you know, there's good things about it. But I think it would have been.

[Barrett Courtney]

Less of a thing people thought about if people on the Internet weren't fucking gross and weird about it.

[Greg Miller]

Yes.

[Barrett Courtney]

You know, that's.

[Greg Miller]

And that was the tougher thing, is that a community of shitty people on the Internet, I think, latched onto Stellar Blade to be their. Their savior. And that's not something that they've asked for. That's not something that like this game is, in my opinion. I don't think they're setting out to do that with the. With this game, but it just turned into like a weird lightning rod for that stuff. But I also think for the culture war from the culture war stuff, but I think that's also something that titties.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Out loud and proud.

[Greg Miller]

That's something that I also think is secluded to the Internet to certain degree.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sure. Except your friends.

[Barrett Courtney]

We don't need to know that you're horny. We just don't. We don't. We don't fucking care.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's my secret. Barrett. May. We roll over to May and. Yeah, this is where the Concord state of play happens, which is immediately the canary in the coal mine confirmation of everything you're worried about. Like, wait, this doesn't. Yeah, this isn't good. This doesn't seem like it's going to find an audience. This is weird, right?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. The whole. I think Concord definitely was like, you know, you're having a. I'm trying to think of a good metaphor. And this might be a weird metaphor, but, like, you're having a good cup of coffee, and then somebody comes in and they just, you know, squeeze some, like, flavoring in there that you're like, oh, what's that? And they're like, oh, it's Andy Cortez. He's like, oh, some pickle juice twang. He's like, oh, here's some twang for your coffee. You're like, I don't know if I like that in my coffee.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And he's like, trust me, though. Like, you know, you like the fly. A lot of flavor, right? And it's like, I. Sure, I guess. Then you drink the coffee and you're like, oh, nope. What I expected. This is not what I wanted.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And so canary in the coal mine for trouble ahead. And then if that isn't enough, I mean, it's funny to lay it all out as bullet points, right? This is also the month that London Studio closes. You know, Wesley over at ign, who reported on the first round of layoffs earlier in the show. Now coming back here, PlayStation London Studio has issued a heartfelt goodbye after the closure of the veteran developer amid significant cuts across Sony's gaming business. In February, Sony announced a significant round of layoffs affecting around 900 staff, or 8% of its global PlayStation workforce. The layoffs impact a number of PlayStation studios, including Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Gorilla, and fire sprite. But PlayStation's London studios hit hardest with a notice of closure. Now, the official PlayStation London Studio X Twitter account has issued a statement thanking players for their Support. For over 20 years, London studio has been home to some exceptionally talented and wonderful people in the games industry. As we close the doors and all go forward to new adventures, we wanted to say heartfelt thank you to all our past and present. I'm sorry. No, that's right. To all our past and present players and colleagues who have supported us over the years, we've had one wild and wonderful journey. Waving emoji, blue heart emoji.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, this one, this is a tough one, right? Like London Studio is. They were working on that, like, fantasy co op, like one of the live service titles coming up for PlayStation. They were coming off of Blood and Truth, I think was their most recent thing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, the VR one.

[Greg Miller]

VR.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Great game.

[Greg Miller]

Great. Like one of my favorite PlayStation VR games. And I think this is one of the ones where the PlayStation Live service push has, like, put them into a weird spot of. Okay, well, now we're having these layoffs and we have to look at who. Like, we have to look at studio closures. Like, we have to look at who we're going to do. And London Studio just feels like it seemed like they're in an unfortunate spot of. Man, you were caught into. You were caught in a couple of different visions of PlayStation. You're caught up in the VR vision and you're caught up in the live service vision. Two visions, which I don't think have paid off.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That PlayStation is closing their eyes to.

[Greg Miller]

Yes, exactly. Like PlayStation. At this point, it's like, oh, no, that is not what the vision needs to be. Like, we need to get back to, like, the console, like, you know, the premium games, the games that we know and love, right? The God of Wars, the Returnals, the Ratchets, those types of games. Because I think London Studio was just caught in an unfortunate spot. And this goes, I think, to the conversation we're having on KFGD about the business of these corporations. And, like, you know, I would love to have a discussion with somebody who maybe was higher up at London Studio as far as, like, so was it PlayStation that was like, you need to make a VR thing and you may make a live service thing and, like, they're totally to blame for this because that fucking sucks. Or was it the fact that, like, was it a, you know, hey, everybody had a say in this and we thought we can make money for the organization by making a VR game or making live service.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Fill that hole in.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, fill that hole. Either way, it sucks, right? Like, I think they're, you know, better than me, right? What London Studio was doing before even Blood and Shoes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, Getaway, Getaway. Come on. Remember that? Hell, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Like, I think there, obviously there's talent at that studio. There's, I think, visions that maybe could have been more for, like, the main portfolio of PlayStation, like the regular console titles that you could have put them in, and I'm sure they could have made something good. But it sucks to see them caught up in again, these two weird visions of PlayStation.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. You know and again we. It got mentioned at the top of this but he's already gone by this point. Again Jim Ryan stepped leaving officially he had already stepped down obviously but no longer being in charge. Right. And seeing Herman step up to co CEO but be the games guy. Right. And like again what are these two different visions? I think it's all very connected of like Jim Ryan and that team pushing for live services and then it not working out and Herman coming in and I and my hope grabbing the wheel to drive it towards games like Horizon games like Killzone, PlayStation IP. Right. Like let's make things that matter to the PlayStation gamer.

[Greg Miller]

Do you think there's anything to read into as far as London Studio being the studio to get the closure? But like what the year prior I think it was that like Haven Studio got acquired and like they've not even made anything right. But like oh they still get to operate and do their thing and work on their live service thing. But London Studio goes away. Like is there is that just. Is there anything to look into as far as that? Like is it that Havens thing seems maybe far better far along than what London Studios.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So this is an interesting one again where I think it's important to call out we don't know anything. Right. So like my, my navel gazing, my crystal ball reading here would be the idea that what you're pointing out, London hasn't announced whatever this new game is but they're live service but they're VR. But these are two things we don't really see a future in right now.

[Greg Miller]

They announced that like they've not like announced like a trailer or anything but.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They did, they did concept art. It was like a dragon age or not drag. It was a dragon medieval.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Fantasy in London. Like co op. Co op game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Fuck. Ride. Ride. Ride. Ride.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

My thought there was like I think you get down to brass tacks and line items and I imagine that London was a bigger studio. I would imagine it was a more expensive studio. I would imagine that yeah their game wasn't as far along and like so you see what's happening, where they go and what their talents are and what they could do next for you and I think that's why you probably do it.

[Greg Miller]

Maybe it's also that yeah like to all those points, Haven is a studio that was built from the ground up for this live service thing. Right. So if London is transitioning from you know being the getaway folks.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

All right.

[Greg Miller]

Now you made a VR game. Now we're having you make a live studio or a live service thing maybe. Yeah. It is that awkwardness of you haven't.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Built a team for these things.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Over here that like is again built from the ground up. Like everybody else kind of has their thing and you're just in an awkward place of. Of these making these very different types.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Of games and to swing it back to the business and the dollars and cents of it. Right. Like, and I'm talking out of school to quite some degree here, but Haven is a studio that's being run out of Canada. Canada is well known for tax credits for video games. So I'd imagine you're looking at what London costs versus what Haven costs. And if Haven's a smaller team working on a game that's further along and you're getting a break from the government to do it, it's not nearly as much money invested. Could be wrong. None of that could be correct at all. But I would imagine that. Yeah. And again, do we ever see Fair Games? You know what I mean? Do we just get the announcement that Havens closed as well? None of that will surprise me. None of that would surprise me. I should say when it comes around. We have made it to June and that's halfway through the year, everybody. But that means we're halfway through our show. If you didn't know, this is the Kind of Funny Games cast. Each and every weekday we come to you with the biggest topics in video games. If you like that, pick up a Kind of funny membership on YouTube.com kind of funny games or patreon.com of course you get all of our shows ad free. The ability to watch the afternoon podcast live is recording them and you get a daily dose of me in a podcast slash video we call Greg Way. But for now, you're not using your membership benefits and blessings. Got to order a pizza. So here's a word from our sponsor.

[D]

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[Greg Miller]

Kia. Whoa. That was scary.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Pizza's order.

[Greg Miller]

Pizza's order. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, great.

[Greg Miller]

We're getting some pepperoni.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hell, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Just one dose.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

One dose of pepperoni.

[Greg Miller]

I imagine that, like, if. Here's the thing, I don't understand how they messed it up before just based on, like, my ordering process. So if it does come with a mountain of pepperoni, I need joy to get the tutorial because there's no way. There's no way I could have messed this up.

[Barrett Courtney]

Someone in chat wanted this. Should I put up a poll of Will there be another pepperoni masala?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yep.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, put up a poll.

[Barrett Courtney]

No.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Joining back in here. Okay, good. Yeah, no, I did the chat over there. Said Salty Surprise says Greg also skipped over last of us factions getting scrapped. But that happened in December 2023.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So go yourself.

[Greg Miller]

You did. You did skip over. Last was remastered. Right? Last is part two. And the. No, the. The rogue light mode.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Was that this year?

[Greg Miller]

That was January.

[Barrett Courtney]

That was not January.

[Greg Miller]

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it was last year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, it sounds right. Maybe last.

[Greg Miller]

Right. Because it was. It was like the month after God of War and God of War, Valhalla was last.

[Barrett Courtney]

I'm not gonna put up a poll. I'm gonna put up a prediction on Twitch. So y'all. I can bet. Points.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah, I like that a lot. Anyways, June then rolls around and it's just SGF is what I have here.

[Greg Miller]

Gotcha. Any anything? PlayStation?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, I have here. If you go to your document, I have the little. The blog post that they did from sgf, just talking about the games that were shown there. But it was like, here are games we saw that are coming to PlayStation. So it wasn't like. Yeah, they had a big.

[Greg Miller]

There wasn't a first party thing at the sgf.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

There usually is.

[Greg Miller]

There has to have been.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What is during Jeff's thing?

[Greg Miller]

Was it Horizon Lego Adventures? It might have been Horizon Lego.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I thought that happened way later. Didn't happen way later.

[Greg Miller]

No, Horizon was during the summer stuff.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't recall. Yeah, I'm pretty sure CJ splits on saying Horizon.

[Greg Miller]

I think Horizon Lego was Jeff.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, hold on, I'm trying to sneeze.

[Greg Miller]

Was he also Horizon Zero Remastered? Somebody said wasn't an Astro. Astrobot was during the PlayStation state. Of play, I think. See, now, now I'm doubting.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That is right. That's right. That was the state of play. I remember. We were. Because that seemed like it all but leaked. Horizon was sgf.

[Greg Miller]

They butt leaked. Is that what you said? That all but leaked.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I was like. I did not say butt leak. No, I got a but butt leak over here.

[Greg Miller]

I was like, Greg's losing it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Cole's wandering through the office. Butt leak. And everyone. So then, yeah, okay, SGF happened. Congratulations. We have Horizon. Lego Horizon there. And we did it. Banderas then points out the final. The final shape was June. Okay, so I did skip that. Destiny. The final shape. June.

[Greg Miller]

Cool.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Cool. I mean, it's on there for what happened to PlayStation 0. Right. So I'll put it in there. Destiny.

[Greg Miller]

It's just like, I understand that it is a PlayStation thing. I just don't think about it that way.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Because it's everywhere. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know, still, it's. It's, you know, putting money in PlayStation's.

[Greg Miller]

Pocket, like, that's not one that like moves the needle for me in rating scale is what I'll say.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Now Beast comes in with something else. How can there be too much pepperoni? If it is too much for your soft ass palate, Take some off and eat it. Like the crust. Eat it with the crust. Like a grown ass adult. Listen, I won't lie. There would have been a time in recent history that I would agree with you, Beast. And then this pizza showed up.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And think about how the pepperoni on a normal pizza saturates the crust in a box. Imagine that quadrupled. Just like. Like you could scrape it off, but it was still. You touched it.

[Greg Miller]

It was just like, Like, I don't think it's. I. I think the problem is when we say too much pepperoni, people think that it's like, oh, it's like extra, extra pepperoni. It's like, no, there are four orders. Four healthy.

[Barrett Courtney]

You cannot see the cheese on this piece.

[Greg Miller]

Like, you open the box and you go, there's a problem. Like, that's how much pepperoni was.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Again, it's a grease bath.

[Greg Miller]

Yes.

[Barrett Courtney]

Also, Beast, don't judge us. Go back to your mangoes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Good one, July. What I have here is on the 31st, a big old round of layoffs at Bungie. We go to Pete Parsons at Bungie, who put up the blog. Due to rising costs of development and industry shifts, as well as enduring economic conditions, it has become clear that we need to make substantial changes to our cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon. That means Beginning today, 220 of our roles will be eliminated, representing roughly 17% of our studio's workforce. Pete goes on, goes on, goes on. Then we join it back here. First, we are deepening our integration with Sony Interactive Entertainment, working to integrate 155 of our roles, roughly 12% into SIE over the next few quarters. SIE has worked tirelessly with us to identify roles for as many people as possible, enabling us together to save a great deal of talent that would otherwise have benefited affected by the reduction in force. Second, we are working with PlayStation Studios leadership to spin out one of our incubation projects, an action game set in a brand new science fantasy universe, to form a new studio within PlayStation Studios to continue its promising development.

[Greg Miller]

So it's wild how much this puts it into perspective. Like the amount of layoffs even just within PlayStation. Sure. Like if we did a I don't know if this is a gamescast episode because I don't know what the conversation would be but maybe it's a video that maybe another channel makes. I don't know. But like, like a video that is just hey, let's read out all of the all the layoffs that have happened this year. Right. All in one go. I think that could put things really into perspective of how bad things have gotten as far as like what's happening to the workforce of video games and like how much money has gone away. Right. How much money there's not going around right now as far as being able to develop and keep people employed and also green light stuff and also all the bad that comes with capitalism.

[Barrett Courtney]

I think in that video you also include the bonuses and raises that people at the top get around the same time as those layoffs are happening. And maybe in the case of Bungie you add the amount of cars that Pete Parsons is definitely like bid for.

[Greg Miller]

How much of a big of a raise can Satya Nadella? Oh, 30 million. Goddamn. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Back at I thought I had this bookmark thinking it was going to be updated throughout the year but apparently Zach over talking just stopped at one point. Point. Does he sell his job right?

[Greg Miller]

I don't know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Kotaku went through layoffs too.

[Greg Miller]

There's like six people left at Kotaku. I don't remember reading anything.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This was a great article about tracking how many layoffs there were in 2024. As of March 29, 2024, at least 8,843 people have been or will be laid off this year. That was March.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. So shit sucks. The I remember the conversation around this one being about, oh man, God, time flies. Because it's been a minute. It was. There was something around Bungie misrepresenting like themselves to PlayStation when they sold to PlayStation.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was the rumor, right?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Either way, no matter what happened, right? Of course. This sucks. I think when talking about the studio thing, that was a part of the story that I completely forgot right where they end here with. We were working with PlayStation Studios leadership to spin out one of our incubation projects, an action game set in a new science fantasy universe. I think it sounds interesting, but I think more so the story here for me is what Bungie was versus what Bungie is now. Because when you're talking about what Bungie was, right, Bungie, you're putting them up there as like I think one of the best to do multiplayer live service, that kind of thing, right. You did Halo, you did Destiny, you've had iconic fucking, you know, for sure games drop in that realm that have defined so much so to see this happen to them where you've cut this much of your workforce and you know, I think be in a place where it's hard for me to foresee Bungie continuing to be what Bungie has been. I think that's for me like the biggest bummer of all of all this. I think they're a studio that has been so worthwhile in that I would love to see be able to innovate and like push things forward the way they have. But this is like a just a sucky place to be in as far as them probably not being able to do that anymore.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

In a super chat, Street Shadow has a nice take. I like this. If we don't count the Final Shape as a success, then we can't count Bungee layoffs in Sony's year. For what it's worth, I count both, they say so I appreciate that. So yeah, we're getting over it. We're counting the success of Final Shape as well. When we were talking about the Final.

[Barrett Courtney]

Shape, I forgot that technically Sony owns Bungie.

[Greg Miller]

So that was. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Gotcha. Jumping back then. August 23rd sees Concord launch everybody. And we all know how this one's gonna go, but there's Concord. I didn't. I for some reason didn't grab the Metacritic.

[Greg Miller]

People chatter be like, are like, was it a success when you're talking about Final Shape?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Hard to say. I mean, right? I mean like people loved it, right?

[Greg Miller]

Did they?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I thought so. I thought all the Destiny nuts were Maybe they didn't.

[Greg Miller]

I thought it was like more shaky. I thought like how I got. I thought the conversation on Destiny right now is like, it reviewed very well.

[Barrett Courtney]

I don't know if it got the same amount of people in as previous DLCs have or expansion.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I was talking about like critically, temperature wise with Destiny's audience.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I thought it was a success.

[Greg Miller]

No, maybe I'm thinking about like post. Maybe I'm thinking about like a conversation after the layoffs because I think maybe after that there was like a slowing down of Destiny in a way where it feels like it's kind of done, except for smaller updates, which maybe was always the expectation.

[Barrett Courtney]

Is he calling Fran? Who do you think?

[Greg Miller]

No, he's calling some Destiny person.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Jerrica, Hannah, it's Greg Miller. You're live on gamescast. How are you? Great, how are you? I'm great. You're. You're. You know, you're a frequent contributor here. Kind of funny. We love that you've branched off. You're. You're my go to. For Destiny information. Okay. Oh, okay. I need you to tell me it was Destiny, the final shape, a success or not. Was that. That's a. Is that a good thing for PlayStation's year or a bad thing?

[Greg Miller]

A great thing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Great. Okay. Okay. That's. With you as a player. Do you know, did they ever talk about numbers? Did it bring people back? Anything like that? You know, I don't really know.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, it brought me back for months though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's a good sign, like consistently. All right. Yeah, great. That's all we need. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. All right, bye everybody. Follow JK Games podcast. We love Jericho anyways. Metacritic on Concord 62. Damn, I didn't see that coming. I thought it did better than that for most people. Not like, you know, I wasn't expect.

[Greg Miller]

I'd be curious to read in reading in the reviews because I'm sure for a live service game, I wonder how many of those reviews were. Oh, we're gonna take the two weeks or whatever and we're not gonna review this day one. We're gonna review this over time and then they take it off the store and they're like, oh, well, one out of ten, I guess. Like, I wonder if there are any of those scenarios.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I really would have. Yeah, I thought that would have meant higher. I mean, I know I don't get me wrong, like, because the message we've always said, now granted, we liked it. Not me, I don't play it, but like kind of funny is kind of funny. You guys like, you liked it.

[Greg Miller]

Andy liked, I think, like, I think kind of funny probably was. What, like sevens across the board?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, that sounds about right. Concord Six Access gave it an 80 game rant. 70 push square 70. What did I G. IGN gave it a 70. Twin fin in a 70.

[Greg Miller]

That's. And that's what I would expect. But maybe it was just that, like, I don't think anybody was giving that game more than a seven. So maybe it was that it got a lot of sevens and then quite a few people probably gave it like fours or fives.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Down here. But it's like Euro Gamer Portugal gave it a 40.

[Greg Miller]

Shinobi makes a good point. Only PlayStation biased outlets liked Concord.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Fair enough.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, that's accurate. Yeah. No bike Mike.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Biggest PlayStation that was the 23rd and then the 30th was Black Myth Wukong. Wrong. 81 on Metacritic.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Another success. And that was another juggernaut in terms of sales. Right? That was another one where we would report on the sales on games daily of like, oh, it's doing these outrageous numbers. So a huge success for PlayStation on that front.

[Greg Miller]

Huge success. I won. I wonder what that means for the future as far as. Does PlayStation keep getting like that exclusive launch for Black Myth games, right. Do they go after that for Black Myth 2? Or is it a case where whatever back room dealings that may or may not have happened with it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Don't make it sound both very, like insidious and like fucking Hamilton.

[Greg Miller]

The community made it sign. But I do want to be in the rumor.

[D]

But it happened, but it's still coming.

[Barrett Courtney]

To like, I don't know.

[Greg Miller]

The community made it that.

[Barrett Courtney]

They were like, give me proof. Give me a fucking source.

[Greg Miller]

The community made it seem like this was, yeah, some like in a dark room and like the elusive man was there. Like all this stuff would happen.

[Barrett Courtney]

This was happening in like a parking lot, like in a basement parking lot. Someone smoking a cigarette.

[Greg Miller]

People were invoking like the leaked court documents and stuff of like, and like regulations around. Oh, you have to make it clear there's an exclusive. Like all the people are invoking a lot of that stuff. So with all that said, right, I think this launching as an exclusive for PlayStation. I do think it's big for PlayStation, regardless of reasoning. Even if it is. Oh, we just technically couldn't make it work on the series S or whatever it is. I think this launching as a PlayStation exclusive big because I would say this is one of the biggest games of the year. And like when you talk about. I know this is not a PlayStation Studios thing obviously but when you talk about the quality of a PlayStation exclusive, I think this is one of those games that brought something. Wasn't my like biggest cup of tea like Black Myth Wukong I bounced off of after around I think like 10 hours or so.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

What was the song that we had? Was Black Myth Wukong combat bad? No, no, it's just not great.

[Barrett Courtney]

I gotta hate people like gave us for that when they weren't even listening to what we were saying.

[Greg Miller]

Hey, like that's kind of where I stand. I stand with Andy on that of.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We should have gone and protested. I was. I'm still ready. Let's go. Are the hotel workers still protesting?

[Greg Miller]

Let's go. That'd be such a good video. But I stand with that of like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Guys, we're a video game channel. We just like to chant. Can we join?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Like Black Myth Wukong was a game that I as I played it I was like man, production value on this insane great ass cutscenes. A lot of really cool things are doing visually but man, do I not care for some of the combat. Like it's fine. It's not, it's not bad. But it just wasn't great to me and. And I think quite a few people felt that way. But I think also a lot of people were like it's really cool to play a game of this amount of production that has a lot of cool shit going on. Right. And I think that's oftentimes that's enough for people and so I'll count this as a W on the PlayStation side for sure. And on the game release side.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I think so too. We move into September. Two weeks after launch. On September 6, Concord is shut down with all sold copies being refunded. Just like not only a fucking miss, but a colossal failure.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, right. Of just like a legendary failure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And like then just a backtracking on fucking vision. Like outrageous. Like what a crazy thing for PlayStation.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And I mean like not to just bite down and power through and let it go. And like I don't. It's. It's one of those things again. When this happened we all talked about everybody's like well yeah, you can see the writing. I was like well yeah you could see the writing but how many times does this happen happened even when you.

[Greg Miller]

See the writing that a first party.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Is like we're doing this, we're closing everything in.

[Greg Miller]

Like I know we've not. I don't know if we Ever got accurate sales for Concord. I think it's just been people reporting on like, what could be the sales. But I think even when you see the writing on the wall, I don't. I. It seems like this did so bad on such a level that's like, oh, you can never see it be doing this bad. Like, even I think most of us were like, yeah, this is gonna fail. Like leading up to it. I definitely was like, yeah, this is not going to be a success. But it seems like this is a success. Unlike we have been able to dig into yet. Like, I think there's still going to be stories that come out of Concord.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

About how badly it did a traditional. Like, you look at it like, okay, yeah, this sucks and nobody wants this. So you get it out, you limp along, you pivot to free to play. Like, we've seen so many games try to save themselves.

[Greg Miller]

I like the. I messaged you because the other day I think Arcadia Geddon announced that they're going. They're going free to play in 2025 message you. I was like, man, Arcanageddon is about to get it free to play. Like, how could Concord not get there? Concord got a week and a half, bro. Like, like so many other games have been able to at least limp their way. Not that Arcade again is limping. I don't know what the numbers are.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, like, yeah, no, no, you know, no disrespect to Illfonic and Arcade again, but like, when's the last time you heard anyone talk about.

[Greg Miller]

That's my point to it. Right. Of man. Concord at the very least had the.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Don't forget Foam Stars is still going to.

[Greg Miller]

Foam Stars is still. There's so many games. They're still going. Concord had the backing of places online. Concord had years of development, I would have thought. And this is why I stood by my pizza bet is I would have thought that at the very least maybe you'll make an attempt. Maybe you try. And for the fact that for the story to go so quickly of oh, we're taking. We're taking this down. Studio gets closed, which we'll get to in a sec.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Very quickly. Yeah. All right. September. We're still in September. That's October.

[Greg Miller]

It's such a wow how this must have been done bad on a level that again, we. I don't think we understand yet.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I think the stories that will continue to come out of that are going to be in crazy. The dog's shaking. So I'm like, well, if you get in the covers. You know what I mean? But then he's like, I don't want to be. I want to be.

[Barrett Courtney]

It might not be a cold shake, but.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I know, I know, I know. But still. Yeah, it's not the most. He, like, he was never. He's not that Usually that level of anxious, but we'll see. Also, I. Yeah, he's just living his life. I'm getting the photos from Nick, and then I'm getting messages from Cool Greg. Yeah, Cool Greg slacks me and goes, our male lady loves Cole. So Cole's just living his life out there, greeting people at the door, doing his thing. You got. You got. Love it out there.

[Greg Miller]

Gotta love it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Let's move on to September on the 6th. I already said that. I'm sorry. Concord shut down. Then Also on the 6th, Astrobot launches Metacritic 94. It sold 1.5 million units by November.

[Greg Miller]

If I'm visualizing this year of PlayStation as, like, a fight, like, if PlayStation, let's say PlayStation is a boxer, right?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sure, yeah. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

I think, you know, Concord being shut down after two weeks, after. After its launch is like the haymaker that it gets where you realize and you learn that they could bleed. And you're like, oh, man, that was a big. That was a big blow. And then, like, Astrobot is them, like. Like, turning right back around and trying to give an uppercut to, like, really stay in the fight here.

[D]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

What a wild day this is. Astrobot coming out, being an immediate game of the year contender, and I think an immediate darling for so many people. Yeah. Good for them. Like, great success here. Great critical success. I'm still. I'm still, like, in a place where I wonder what PlayStation thinks about its sales of Astrobot. I don't know if astrobot's doing what PlayStation wants it to do, but I.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Feel like you had to have realistic expectations, right?

[Greg Miller]

Like, for PlayStation.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, they're not square.

[Greg Miller]

They're not square. You're right. But also, 1.5 million.

[Barrett Courtney]

I'm just saying this probably did not have the budget of other games.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, 100%.

[Greg Miller]

You're right.

[Barrett Courtney]

You know, but I think it had.

[Greg Miller]

The marketing did not have the development.

[Barrett Courtney]

Cycle of other games of recent years.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, it's a quicker game. Right.

[Greg Miller]

Still expensive, though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Still expensive. But again, like, is this still one.

[Greg Miller]

Of the most polished platformers I've ever played?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And I know it sounds crazy because we're talking about video games and Mario. Mario. I just don't think platforms are as popular as they once were. And so I think you Enter into this knowing what you're doing. And I think you're Also, if you're PlayStation, who is movies and toys and merchant. Like, I think you enter into this knowing that this is a investment in making a character. People are going to buy plushies of and people are going to buy T shirts of and we're going to be able to theoretically, you assume, continue to put out, like, basically what toys that are Nathan Drake and toys that are cold, but they're Astrobots and stuff like that. Like, I feel like there was an investment here of making this a mascot.

[Greg Miller]

I hope they're smart about it and. Yeah. And understand that. I just get the worry that not that, like, I don't think the studio is getting shot down or anything. I think 1.5 million is like a great number for Astrobot. It's probably what I. What I would expect expect for Astrobot. But yeah, I just hope that they don't see that number and go, oh, let's push this a little bit less. Like, let's maybe not put as much marketing behind this next time or not do the plushie thing or whatever. I think you should still throw a lot of effort behind Astrobot.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Ben loves playing Astrobot and he loves his Astrobot plushie. He keeps it in his crib.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You brought it back for him. Thank you. October.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, that was the one I brought.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, the one from Japan. October the fourth brought us the Until dawn remake 69 and Metacritic. Yeah. Game littered with problems that people weren't necessarily asking for. And somehow wasn't the whole build to this. I was like, I don't know, do we need until dawn back? And then like, why wouldn't we just make a new one? And it's been really weird here.

[Greg Miller]

Now that we're here, I'm like, man, just a lot of odd. Like, all right, cool. Yeah. Until Don remake. That is pretty buggy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. We got to have it out there. So when they make the movie, when the movie works out, you can go play the game.

[Greg Miller]

And we're going to get to Horizon, Lego and like, we already talked about Conqueror. A lot of this has been like, maybe the weirdest PlayStation Whiplash.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

It's like the PS3 era.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

September 6th Whiplash on Concord or Firewall. Yeah. The Concord shutting down. And then Astrobot. Right. And then October. Right. The fourth is the Until dawn remake of the 69. Then the eighth is Silent Hill 2. Metacritic of 86. A game that everyone fucking loved this game. We were like, oh, wow.

[Greg Miller]

Which is like, not surprising because It's Silent Hill 2. But also surprising because those trailers didn't do justice to how much this game hit for people. Yeah, I was. Fuck, maybe I should have played this during the review period. Right. Like, it was one that I. That wasn't on my radar because I just assumed based on looking at those trailers that it wasn't going to be what people wanted. And now I'm like, damn, I should play this for before, you know, we get to game of the year stuff. So. Good for them.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Good for them. October 29, Sony announces the closure of Firewalk Studios in the permanent halting of the game's development.

[Greg Miller]

Damn.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know what I mean?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I mean, I've said writing was on the wall.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You knew writing was on the wall. Sure. Like, come on.

[Greg Miller]

But also, yeah, like to have this. Have this studio closure. Have the London studio closure. Closure earlier in the year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

It brings into the conversation, like, all right, let's see what happens with the fire with Sprite.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Able to drink Sprite.

[Greg Miller]

No, no. Haven Studios. That's what I'm talking about. I'll try those, like, F word. Fair games. Fire.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Of course, 29th also saw the closure of Neon Koi, which off gets lost in there. Of course, the mobile stuff they were doing. And then the 31st brings you Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. A Metacritic of 85.

[Greg Miller]

Cool.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I guess that's the thing where, like some of these wins are. Yeah, like, all right, but like, cool. Now you have Horizon on the shelf so when people want to buy a PS5, they can buy the entire Horizon thing. With the PS5 branding, it's like, I get it, but it's not exciting for a PlayStation gamer, I feel.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Imo. On November 7th, the PlayStation 5 Pro launches it. We've talked this to death. The reviews aren't glowing, they're not horrible, but it's very much that. That basically every review is. I wouldn't recommend it, but it does look nicer.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

If you're getting your first PlayStation, might as well. Or not, if you want to save money.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, good. And then Lego Horizon adventures on the 14th, a metacritic of 71, which I think is a miss for this. You think it's a miss for critical acclaim? Yeah. As beloved as the Lego games were, for as simple or childlike as they were, you would think that coming in and making a new one in Horizon, you'd be able to take all the learnings of the past and apply it to this, even though different developers. But again, I feel like the template of what a Lego Game should or shouldn't be is pretty established.

[Greg Miller]

I think it's a miss, but I think it's one of those ones that is so forgettable and under the radar that is anybody really thinking about, even if you're a Horizon fan, how much were you even paying attention to Lego Horizon adventures? This is when I almost put in the bucket of the rock climbing VR game for Horizon where like, it's not like this is Horizon's first mid game and I'm not even. I'm not even talking about the main line.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Janet Garcia punches through the wall.

[Greg Miller]

For the record, I think the mainline Horizon games are great, but like, you know, I think Horizon is just that franchise where you can have like side stuff that doesn't hit and like, I don't think it does anything to like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think it's more just a miss in terms of when we're talking about the year is that this should have been a super simple. Hey, here's a game that's a metacritic of 80. People really dig it. It's fun for all. You can play it on switch. It's a PlayStation game on Switch.

[Greg Miller]

I guess I just wasn't expecting it to do all that. Like I read 71 on the Metacritic. I'm like, yeah, that's about what I expect. Maybe I expected a 75 at least. But see, I think it goes back.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

To for me again where similar to Rise of Ronin where you're like, oh, this is a PlayStation Lego game. This should be better than the Lego games that have come before.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, and somehow work.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, that makes sense.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's it. I did. Ms. Chat called me out. Thank you for keeping me honest. Ghost of Yote being announced for September. September.

[Greg Miller]

During September.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. Right. In September it was announced. I've been going month by month and doing this thing which is super exciting.

[Greg Miller]

So do we grade now?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We do. It's such an up and down hot and cold whiplash year that to put it on the scale is hard. Barrett, can we see the review scale, please?

[Greg Miller]

So we're doing the 1 through 10 review scale.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I thought so. Yeah. That's what we review things on. Right, Right. Ten being a masterpiece, one being Gollum.

[Greg Miller]

I think. And this might come off as harsh, but I am thinking about like the standard that PlayStation has set. Right. Like I think I'm going maybe 6 or 6.5. I'm somewhere there. I might commit to a 6 though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I. I'm no BS. I was flat 6.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think it's okay. Like it's one of those where it's like there's stuff to love, there's stuff to like, there's lots of. To like, like there's stuff to love in here.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But then there's just so many things like oh, that sucks, that sucks, that sucks. And then there is no all of this plus Uncharted 5 or something.

[Greg Miller]

That's the thing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

God of War, whatever. A big game we're playing this year, Spider Man 3.

[Greg Miller]

Like what was the. What would we say is the big game? Like, I guess Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which is huge. But also like, you know, that's a third party thing that's going to come. The platforms.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Y. Y to me Personally, again a PlayStation fan, Final Fantasy Rebirth doesn't feel like, oh man, that was the Spider.

[Greg Miller]

Man or the God of War, you know, or the Ratchet. Right. So yeah, I think you're missing out on like the big fall title or the big PlayStation studios proper title. You do have highlights. And I think the thing is, I think the highlights exist outside of the. Outside of PlayStation's organization. Right. It is Final Fantasy. It is Black Myth, Wukong. I think it's even things like Stellar Blade that come through and are the highlights of the year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, I guess Astrobot would be the big PlayStation studios highlighted. But.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But again, you look at the chat and there's so many people in chat or there was one for sure in chat that was just like, respect Astrobot. But I don't like platformers.

[Greg Miller]

So.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And it's like, I guess you could say it to any game, but I feel like. And listen, if you are a PlayStation person and you've bought PlayStations like God of War, Uncharted Ghosts. Like these are games that are like, they're you. That's a PlayStation narrative exclusive first. That's why you're buying the system that feels like the PlayStation.

[Greg Miller]

I mean it might be. I think it'll be hypocritical from me as somebody who over the years I'm always like, PlayStation just makes the same games. Right. PlayStation makes a third person action narrative where you're a father taking care of a son or you're a mother or.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Your father, you are parents in some capacity.

[Greg Miller]

They always make those games. And we get a. We get the big game of this year being a really wonderful platformer that is wondrous and has polish and all these things.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Go save your children.

[Greg Miller]

And I guess you are saving them all back. What do you think about it? And I'm sitting here like, like, oh, man, give me a third person action narrative. But like, it's not even that I want that. I think it's more so that I don't think. I think Astrobot has the stuff as a game. I think it's a wonderful game. One of the best of the year. I don't think it has the stuff to carry PlayStation's year. Right. I think you need Astrobot plus the Spider man or Astrobot plus a Ghost of Yote or plus a Destrier. Like, I think it's so light.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You talked earlier about it, right? In terms of like, yeah, we're grading it, but we're also grading it against what PlayStation years have been in the past.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And that's a big part of it where there's just. What's the big headline? Not even like, like blockbuster game. What was the big blockbuster announcement news? This, this was an okay year. There was a lot to like here.

[Greg Miller]

But it's not highlights.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But I'm not looking back being like, man, 2024. You remember that year for PlayStation?

[Greg Miller]

No. And that's the thing is, yeah, I think they were highlights. I think it's also counterbalanced by the lowlights of this year. When you're talking about how big some of these layoffs were, how big of a failure Concord was. And then. Yeah, when you're talking about the other releases that, that, you know, felt mixed to like h. You know, when you talk about LEGO Horizons, when you talk about until dawn remaster, when you talk about like last was two. Remaster was, I think a great remaster, but it was also the one that everybody complained about because nobody wanted the last was to remaster. So just a weird balancing of the good and bad of PlayStation that I think nets it out at a six. Like if there was no Concord failure, if like you removed those things, I could see it being a seven or an eight, but yeah, like I couldn't see seven.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Sure.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, it was a fine.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, it was good year.

[Greg Miller]

This is too much weirdness this year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Of course. I asked you to super chat in with your reviews and we got quite a few here. Volk, Dasher, super chat and said eight out of ten great five PlayStation 5 exclusives are on my game of the year list. Four in my top five. An exclusive will likely win game of the year. PlayStation did what every manufacturer should do. Made their console the best place to play all the Games on in 2024.

[Greg Miller]

Five PlayStation games.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's like goddamn Riddler wrote in.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm on my thing. It's like, five are. Five are in my top 10. Four are my top five. An exclusive could win. So, yeah. Final Fantasy.

[Greg Miller]

Final Fantasy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Astrobot.

[Greg Miller]

Astrobot held hours two.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Black Myth. People really like Black Myth. Yeah. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Must have been a big LEGO fan.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Street Shadow super chatted and said, I gives PlayStation a 7 or 8 for 3 for the year. Concord knocks it down a point. Because three, not. Jesus Christ. Concord knocks it down a point. But three to four of the top game of the year games are only on PlayStation for consoles. Astrobot for game of the year.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, yeah. Silent Hill, probably the other one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean, people did like Black Myth. I could see Black Myth.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. But I think we're still missing a fifth game there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So when he said four are in his top five.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, I was trying to figure out the top 10.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, five or. Okay. I see you're saying.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Riddler Scooby five became a member and said, I feel like the pro gets more hate than deserved. It's like the Edge controller or Portal. An expensive item for those that want the deluxe experience, but not necessary for most.

[Greg Miller]

That's fair. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think it's just when we're talking about what it's gonna do, that's when you get into, like, what it do.

[Greg Miller]

For me. This is my personal feelings. Like, I'll never recommend it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

But like. Like, I'm not, like, I'm not critiquing anybody who's like, no, I really care about this, like, this level of fidelity. For sure. Do you?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You do you. And then the final super chat comes from Street Shadow. If we don't count the final. I already did this one. The final shape is a success. We can't do that now. Blessing. Greg, we talked about 2024. We agree it's a six out of 10. We're correct. Nobody else's opinion matters. Talk to me about the future.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, I didn't even know we were going to do this. I would have thought we were too late in this episode.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I figure this is a nice ending point. I don't think we have to even discuss. We can do a quick discussion on. Wrap the show up. Get out of here. Have a piece of pizza.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I'm not gonna read.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Not too much pepperoni there.

[Greg Miller]

There was an article that went up, I believe, about a week ago. I. The one I'm looking at is from Andy Robbins at Andy Robinson at vgc, who. I think this is one of those, like, npd, like, you know, Financial Call articles where he's talking about PS5 and Sony talking about their financial results. The name of the article is that PS5 hits 65 million as Sony says it to expect a mix of single player in service games. Games. There are kind of three big points to the article I think starting off right, talking about how well or talking about the current numbers of the PS5. So the company has shipped about 3.8 million PS5 consoles during the last three month period. That is down 29% compared to where we're at last year during the same period. But we have a lifetime of 65.5 million. If you're comparing that to where PS4 was, it's a little bit behind.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

So 67.5 million is where the PS4 was around the same time in its life cycle. But it's not far off. Right. That's a couple of million off there. So that's like kind of the first point of it getting into the business. We then talk a little bit about the live service stuff and how Sony has had this push for live service and they, they comment on it. I'll read this verbatim. They say commenting specifically on its PlayStation Studios business, Sony has acknowledged a mixed year for its live service ambitions. While Helldivers 2 has been a big hit, Sony has experienced significant teething problems with its push into the live service games market, including canceling Alaska's multiplayer game and pulling Concord from sale just after two weeks. The company said it would share what it learned from both Helldivers and Concord across its business and in the medium term it'll focus on a mix of single player and live service games. They say they intend to build on an optimum title portfolio during current mid range playing period that combines single player games which are their strength. And then they talk about like kind of they talk about leaning into like using the IP that they have. Right. The higher predictability becoming hits due to their pre proven IP is how they put it. But it seems like they're learning. It seems like they're trying to figure out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It seems like they're learning.

[Greg Miller]

Let's hope they wrote that they've like seen the response to Concord. Yeah, obviously they've seen the response to Helldivers too and they're trying to act accordingly. And it seems like also a solution to that is going to be them leaning into the IP that they already.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Own, which is what we want. Right?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. I hope I, I hope they're not discouraged completely from new IP because they do think of course new IP breeds life, right? Of course love getting a returnal, you know, love getting Those. But, but I think looking at your IP and going how do we utilize this to the best potential is what you should do. That sounds so capitalistic and so like markety. But I always look at Nintendo because I love how Nintendo operates.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Where you get.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You love that alarmo.

[Greg Miller]

You love the alarm, right? But even more so, I love how Mario has different like franchises within Mario. And it's all a delight. Mario Kart is basically a different franchise than the 3D Mario game, which is different from Mario Party. And all of the them have like their different sales, like you know what they bring to Nintendo as far as how well they do. And I think you can look at your Prof. Your portfolio and try to figure out like yo, you're PlayStation. You have so many different IP. Not just like the ones we talk about as far as Ghost Horizon, Spider Man, God of War, Uncharted, Last West. Even though I just listed six different ip, which is a lot that have that amount of success. But even if you look in your history, you have things like slide, you know, you have things like. I was gonna say crash. They don't have Crash. Fuck. But you have plenty of like those Japan, Japan studio IPs that you've not touched forever. You have fucking bloodborne. Do something. You have a bucket of IP that people are begging you to use. Use them.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Use them. We had one final super chat roll through. It is sticks at short or maybe it's stick sat short or maybe, you know, just come on. 10 out of 10 for Greg's mug in. Bless his. We didn't mean to coordinate with skate, but we are excited about skate.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I didn't even notice that. God, when do we get that skate game?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean next year, right? Early access.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Are you not definitely. Less so.

[Barrett Courtney]

Knowing what it is.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, like a persistent world like live.

[Barrett Courtney]

Service playing with a bunch of people kind of stuff.

[Greg Miller]

I'm down for that, honestly.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, me too.

[Greg Miller]

That's where the future's at. Come join us, Baron.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The future fucking sucks the screen. You're looking at an Xbox right now. Do that. That, ladies and gentlemen. And NB, that's kind of funny's review of PlayStations 2024. Like I said, we're kicking off a trio of these over the next few weeks. It will stretch on through December because of holidays and reviews and everything else, but be looking for the X cast reviewing Xbox up. Xbox up next. And then of course, yeah, Nintendo. Come on, get out of here.

[Greg Miller]

10 out of 10.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh Zelda. Oh Zelda.

[Greg Miller]

We got the Princess Peach game this year. Yeah, lots to talk about as far as there is going to be a.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Lot to talk about. You guys can hear us talk about it each and every day because Kind of Funny is all about live Talk shows. At 10am we start with Kind of Funny Games Daily and the nerdy news need to know about. Then at 11am it's the kind of Funny Games cast with the biggest topics in games. Then it's a video game stream for your amusement. Today it's Nick playing more Alien Isolation. Of course you can watch us live every day. YouTube.com kind of funny games and Twitch TV kinda funny games. Of course get the shows later on podcast services and YouTube no matter where you get them. Please consider supporting us with the Kind of Funny membership. Get all our shows ad free, the ability to watch the afternoon podcast live as you record them, and of course a daily dose of me in a series we call Greg Way. For now it's Nick's time. So until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.

[Greg Miller]

You don't handshake on the show.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm shaking a hand.