How to Fix Xbox - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

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How To Fix Xbox – Kinda Funny Gamescast

Podcast: Kinda Funny Gamescast
Episode: How to Fix Xbox
Date: April 1, 2026
Participants: Greg Miller (Host), Blessing Adeoye Jr., Andy Cortez, Mike “Snowbike Mike,” Paris Lilly

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Episode Overview

In this special themed episode, the Kinda Funny crew tackles the monumental question: “How do you fix Xbox?” Following recent leadership shakeups—Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond exiting, Asha Sharma ascending to CEO of Microsoft Gaming—the panel explores what’s gone wrong for Xbox and what it will take to get the brand back on track. The conversation is lively, at times passionate, and touches on everything from studio management and exclusives, to Game Pass strategy, brand identity, and the need to recapture Xbox’s lost “fun.” Each host offers their perspective—ranging from idealistic “dream world” fixes to more pragmatic tweaks—with insights from both industry veterans and long-time Xbox fans.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Does Xbox Need to be Fixed? Can it be Fixed?

• Panel’s Stance:
  • Paris: "Yes, it absolutely needs to be fixed." (05:23)
  • Mike: Xbox needs tweaks, not an overhaul—small fixes needed. (05:36)
  • Andy: Worried it might be "too far gone"—the brand has lost its place in gamers’ minds, and Microsoft’s priorities make a comeback difficult. (05:45, 07:37)
  • Blessing: “Can it be fixed? Not so sure... I think the biggest problem with Xbox is not Xbox, it's Microsoft.” (06:21, 07:31)
  • Greg: Skeptical, believes “the deck is stacked against them” under Microsoft’s corporate structure. (06:25, 06:56)

2. The Microsoft Problem & Autonomy

• Andy & Blessing argue the biggest impediment is Microsoft’s corporate demand for high ROI, “30% return on investment”—making necessary risk-taking for Xbox unviable. (07:19 - 07:54)
• Greg and Paris both voice that Microsoft’s real hope is in giving Xbox autonomy to pursue risk and restore the brand; otherwise, the brand could dissolve into “Microsoft Gaming” obscurity.
  • Paris: “Xbox…outside of Windows, is probably their most recognizable brand right now. That has more value than them trying for 30% margins...” (23:23-25:09)

3. Snowbike Mike’s “PowerPoint Fix” for Xbox

(09:00 – 15:47 and throughout: Mike runs a slide-based presentation laying out his ideal plan, with both humorous and earnest suggestions.)

• Believes in meeting the player wherever they are (PC, mobile, console).
• What he likes: Xbox ecosystem, portability, Smart Delivery, play anywhere vision (11:19).
• What he dislikes: Mass layoffs, especially after acquiring studios—“Why purchase them if you’re going to lay them off?” (11:45)
• Xbox Series S: Sees as a win for value and reach, underappreciated by the community. (12:40)
• Excited by Project Helix and dual-boot future hardware (13:17)

4. Game Pass Overcomplication and Value

• Paris: "They got to bring back value... Figure out what you’re going to do with Game Pass. What it currently is doesn’t work...Too many tiers." (13:57 - 14:50)
• Mike proposes: Return to only two tiers—Ultimate ($20), Console/PC ($10). Add more exclusive perks to incentivize subs (WoW, ESO, CoD, Fallout points, etc). (15:53)
• Paris & Andy stress: If Day One (Day & Date) games can’t be sustained affordably, consider killing it instead of bad PR over a $35-40 price. (54:08 - 55:47)
• Mike argues: "Day and Date is the only seller for Game Pass for me...I want first party games included at a cheaper subscription than buying them all straight up." (55:16)

5. The Exclusives Problem & Strategy

• Paris: Don’t put new first-party games on PlayStation “day and date”. Prioritize the Xbox box (“the box under your TV”) for at least six months to two-year exclusivity. (17:51 - 18:51)
• Blessing: Focus on value, options undercutting expensive next-gen consoles, Series S-like affordable device. (27:41-28:13)
• Andy & Mike: To become relevant again, "You make a game called The Rest of Us, starring Joe Miller..." (29:17, joking) and/or pay for major third-party timed exclusives.
• *Mike would aggressively chase major third-party exclusives: "I'd be at Rockstar's door banging on the door... Any of the biggest, baddest games each and every year." (37:31)
• Blessing & Paris push back: First-party IP focus is more sustainable; timed exclusives for legacy third-party franchises can breed resentment. Invest in making existing IP (Halo, Fallout, Elder Scrolls) “must-play” and exclusive. (31:36 - 34:23)
• Greg: “I think Xbox first party is going back to being exclusive under Asha.” (37:09)

6. Quality, Studio Management, and IP Development

• Studios must deliver “premiere titles” at high quality, quickly. “If until their own studios deliver games that Jeff Keighley has in the Game of the Year conversation, Xbox is just spinning their wheels.” (Paris, 45:55)
• Blessing & Mike: If you want to fix Xbox, you might need to “walk up to Tim Schafer and say, you have to do this now.” (46:39)
• Major lost opportunity: Not capitalizing on Fallout TV show popularity with a new game announcement—“Mandate: We can't be nice anymore, we gotta get results.” (Paris, 47:19-48:27)

7. Community, Fun, and Recapturing Xbox Spirit

• Xbox has lost its community spark (“the fun of the 360 era”)—needs to bring back personality and brand trust.
• Snowbike Mike: Rally for the return of Major Nelson/Inside Xbox as the positive face of Xbox. “If you want to bring back brand recognition and trust…you’d bring back Major Nelson and two others as the face of Xbox.” (61:23)
• Showcase and celebrate achievements, reward ecosystem loyalty—"I’d like to give you some Xbox points...People who are spending time and money and investing in my platform by earning achievements...how much is it to give them a ten dollar little free bonus?" (64:15)
• Make the Xbox Store/front end feel human, curated, and more like an event (e.g., Summer of Arcade, streaming watch parties). (63:24-65:09)

8. Hardware Direction and Next Gen Survival

• Need both a “premium” box (Project Helix, potentially $1,000) and a “value” box (Series S style) to compete with PlayStation 6’s likely high price. (73:13)
• Cloud gaming remains promising, but most consumers/families aren’t ready for streaming-first future. (72:37 - 73:13)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Paris Lilly [05:23]: “Yes, it absolutely needs to be fixed.”
• Andy Cortez [05:53]: “If Microsoft today...decided we're coming out with a video game console, it would fail. Like it would. It would fail because people stick to where they're at.”
• Blessing [07:31]: “I think the biggest problem with Xbox is not Xbox, it's Microsoft.”
• Greg Miller [21:32]: “I think Microsoft is so hung up on we gotta make money on AI that everything else has to make money, and if you're not making money anymore, why are we fucking doing any of this with games?”
• Mike [15:47]: “Game Pass has gotten too big. There's too many tiers. We need to go back...to two tiers. You are either in Ultimate, which gets you all of it, or you are in console and/or PC.”
• Paris Lilly [17:57]: “At least six months. At least something...if I got the FOMO that I want to play Fable or Gears of War...I better have an Xbox if I want to play it right away...”
• Andy Cortez [29:17]: “You make a game called The Rest of Us, starring Joe Miller and he's voiced by Joy Baker...”
• Blessing [41:56]: “How have they not supported those [key IPs]?...You have the IPs. You just need to nail them.”
• Paris Lilly [45:55]: “If until their own internal studios can deliver premiere titles that Jeff Keighley has in the game of the year conversation, Xbox is going to just be spinning their wheels no matter what they do.”
• Mike [61:23]: “In that darkness...there used to be a light...Major Nelson. If you want a mouthpiece...you want that figure again? I'm going to give you Major Nelson and two others and they're going to be the face of Xbox.”
• Greg Miller [66:56]: “If it was turning it on and it was a Major Nelson...talking to you about what's happening and what's cool...making it feel not like every other storefront, but a real community...”
• Blessing [73:13]: “I feel it as three pillars, right? Exclusives...services...and the box, right?... Xbox is kind of poised to hopefully give us a banger next generation.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |--------|---------------------------------------------------| | 03:13 | “How to Fix Xbox” topic introduction | | 05:23 | Does Xbox need to be fixed? Panel in agreement | | 07:19 | Microsoft's profit demands—the root of problems | | 09:00 | Snowbike Mike’s “PowerPoint” vision | | 13:57 | Paris pushes for revived value in Game Pass | | 17:51 | Panel on return of exclusives, what that means | | 21:32 | Greg: “Get away from Microsoft” argument | | 25:09 | Paris on Xbox brand value and autonomy | | 27:41 | Blessing lauds the Series S, future affordability | | 29:17 | Andy’s “The Rest of Us” skit (comic relief) | | 37:31 | Mike: Go for huge third-party timed exclusives | | 41:56 | IP focus vs. timed exclusives debate | | 45:55 | Paris: “You gotta fix the games.” | | 61:23 | Mike’s rally to restore Major Nelson | | 63:24 | Bring the fun back—community events, rewards | | 73:13 | “Three pillars” to fix Xbox, next-gen outlook |

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Conclusion and Takeaways

The crew agrees that Xbox desperately needs a course correction, but the panel repeatedly returns to a fundamental truth: The main barrier isn’t necessarily bad strategy or poor features, it’s the weight of Microsoft’s corporate expectations and limited flexibility. The next era requires more autonomy, bold investment, and a renewed focus on what made Xbox special—community, must-play exclusives, and real value for players. With new leadership, the right talents, and willingness to take some financial risks, there’s belief among the Kinda Funny crew that Xbox can still be “fixed”—but only if it recaptures both the passion of its fan base and the creative energy within.

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For more in-depth debate, jokes, and industry hot takes, check out the next “How to Fix” episode focusing on PlayStation!

Transcript

[Mike]

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[Andy Cortez]

days, but the truth is when a

[Mike]

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[Blessing]

Protein is now at Starbucks and it's

[Mike]

never tasted so good.

[Blessing]

You can add protein cold foam to

[Mike]

your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha. Try it today at Starbucks. Hey, sorry to interrupt your playlist but real quick. This might be better than music. We're talking free stuff. Yep, actually free. Just download TikTok search slash free. Pick items you want, share the link and watch the price drop to zero. Your song will be waiting. Your free Items won't open TikTok and start slashing now.

[Greg Miller]

If unwanted thoughts are taking over, don't wait to get help. Visit nocd.com to book a free call with their team.

[Mike]

If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows go to patreon.com/kind of funny.

[Greg Miller]

What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, April 1st. No fooling 2026. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller alongside Forbes 30 under 30 aka New York Game Awards nominated aka Jim Selfie. Poppy is blessing at a. Oh, yay,

[Blessing]

Junior good day, gre.

[Greg Miller]

Good day to you. Are we standing? So we're still standing on business here? Soup sucks, Mike.

[Mike]

Oh, oh, soup sucks. I don't.

[Blessing]

I don't mess great.

[Mike]

Can I say really quick? I've only ever.

[Greg Miller]

Mike.

[Mike]

I've only ever dipped my grilled cheese and tomato soup. I've never actually just gone no chicken noodle soup. I don't like the look of no clam chowder. I don't like the smell of chili powder.

[Andy Cortez]

Is good.

[Mike]

Absolutely not.

[Greg Miller]

Again, it can be overrated and still be whatever. Andy. Oh, sorry. Hispanic hearth up Texas treat rocks.

[Andy Cortez]

What are you talking about?

[Mike]

Are you smashing?

[Andy Cortez]

You think chicken noodle soup looks worse than clam chowder? Like clam chowder looks hides a lot

[Mike]

of it smells bad. I think.

[Blessing]

I like noodles.

[Andy Cortez]

I like chicken.

[Blessing]

Noodles will enhance the soup, but put

[Andy Cortez]

some saltine crackers in there. Oh, nothing better than, like being sick.

[Greg Miller]

It's just I don't want the. I don't want the carrot. I don't want the celery. If it's just the chicken, the noodle the broth, eat a vegetable. Just get into a fu.

[Andy Cortez]

Into a fuh a fuh a fu.

[Blessing]

You gotta lay.

[Mike]

But I'm saying I'm getting close enough.

[Greg Miller]

I'm getting there.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay?

[Greg Miller]

And of course, the best voice in the business, Paris. Lily.

[Paris Lilly]

You know, I live in beautiful San Diego. And just recently I went to a restaurant out in Pacific beach that had clam and shrimp chowder.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Paris Lilly]

Some of the best shit I've ever had. How you doing, Greg?

[Greg Miller]

I'm good, Paris. It's good to see you. Thank you for joining me. This is a very serious episode where we're gonna save Xbox, everybody. Because this is is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we run you through the biggest topics in gaming. Whether they be previews, reviews, or just topics we need to talk about, you can be part of them. YouTube.com kind of funny games. Watch us live and super chat over there. Just like Street Shadow is. Who says, I think you guys are ignoring ramen, udon, pho, wanton soup.

[Blessing]

And I don't think I like ramen.

[Greg Miller]

Those are great. Yeah, those are all great, but still.

[Andy Cortez]

Name six different.

[Greg Miller]

A really good sandwich there. Like, I'm just saying, soup gets KO'd all the time. It's just like my beef with fish just get out.

[Blessing]

Yeah, I'm not trying to, like, after this, you know, I'm gonna be hungry.

[Greg Miller]

We're ordering sandwiches, bro.

[Blessing]

That's my thing is like, I'm not trying to slurp my lunch.

[Mike]

Yeah, I want to eat my lunch.

[Greg Miller]

Your jaw hurt? Oh, you're sick. That's why you're eating soup.

[Blessing]

Yeah, it's like, no. I chose this one time I cracked

[Greg Miller]

a ginger ale and Tim looked at me and said, you're not on an airplane. Yeah, exactly.

[Blessing]

This took out my wisdom tooth. Like, why am I drinking this? You know I can chomp, chomp, bulk up. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Just like our Patreon producers did on patreon.com kindafunny. Thank you, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney the Psalm TW for making this show happen. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be topic of the show. How to fix Xbox, everybody. Of course, yesterday you saw us kick off how to Fix week where we did how to fix Kinda Funny on the Kinda Funny podcast. Because today's Gamescast is how to fix Xbox. Tomorrow's Gamescast how to fix PlayStation. So we thought we would get together the best and brightest video game minds here to talk about what's going on with Xbox. Of course, Boys. It's been a rough go for Xbox for the better part of a decade, but it's all come to a head recently. February 20th, with, of course, Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond leaving. Asha Sharma becoming the new executive vice president and CEO of Microsoft Gaming, stepping into that slot, and then the future now being wide open. But I would start with this question before we even get into opinions and things like that. Paris Lilly. Does Xbox need to be fixed?

[Paris Lilly]

Yes, it absolutely needs to be fixed.

[Greg Miller]

Do you think it can be?

[Paris Lilly]

Yes, I do.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Paris Lilly]

I have the answers.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, shit. Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, wow.

[Mike]

I love that. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Michael, of course, a former host of the X Cast Yourself.

[Mike]

Xbox needs to be tweaked with some small things. Not a big fix, but some small fixes do need to happen.

[Greg Miller]

Andy.

[Andy Cortez]

I worry. I, you know, let. I feel like they strayed too far away for a while and.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

You know, now it feels like if my. If Microsoft today didn't ever or have a game console and today decided we're coming out with a video game console, it would fail. Like it would. It would fail because people stick to where they're at. And I just. I just worry that maybe we're too far gone. Maybe we flew too close to the cuckoo's nest, you know?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Nailed it.

[Andy Cortez]

Crushed it.

[Greg Miller]

Bless.

[Blessing]

Does it need to be fixed? Yes.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

Can it be fixed? Not so sure.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Blessing]

But, you know, I'm. I'm excited to hear people express their opinions on it.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly. I think we go around a lot of times with the news, jumping into these conversations a little bit here and there, but never actually getting to go. So I'm glad we have a place to explore. For me personally, yes, Xbox needs to be fixed pretty clearly. Do they think they can? If I was a betting man, I would say no. And it breaks my heart. I want Xbox to succeed. This isn't me with an axe to grind, but I think there's a lot of things we're going to go through where the deck is stacked against them. Yes. We recognize from the rgv.

[Andy Cortez]

Andy Cortez, Rio Grande Valley. We don't play no games. One caveat on what I just said is that they could. Xbox could be fixed if Microsoft didn't care about being, you know, having the number one amount of money for shareholders. Like, they have more money than God.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

They could put a lot of money into this product. They wanted to fix it. It would just mean that their CEOs would make 200 million instead of, you know, 298 million or whatever. So, like, that's the big caveat.

[Blessing]

Yeah. I think I'm 100% with Andy, where I think the biggest problem with Xbox is not Xbox, it's Microsoft.

[Greg Miller]

Yes.

[Blessing]

And that's where I get into, like the. Oh, I don't know. But I think the capabilities are there. Right. Like, if the people at the top of Xbox made the right decisions, I think it could be fixed.

[Andy Cortez]

You're not bringing enough money for daddy and mommy.

[Greg Miller]

Like, 30%. 30% return on investment is what they were looking for on all these things.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

That's an insane number. No, Microsoft, that's not going to happen. And yeah, you know, when we were pitching these shows and how they would go and Yatan, we started firming up cast, like, I saw such an open freeform discussion here where, yeah, how to fix Xbox, I think we would go one by one, we'd all put out our plans, what in a perfect world, we'd do. Right? And for me, for sure, how to fix Xbox is to get it out from Microsoft. Now, is this an actual reality? That's a different conversation. But on how to fix Xbox, I would say yes, you get away from Microsoft as fast as possible, because I think that's what's in the problem. But one man here said, no, no, no, we're not going to have a discussion. All right? We're going to have a presentation.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

So, ladies, gentlemen, and nbs, we turn the entire show over to the master of hype, the leader of the kind of funny X cast, the man who bleeds green on a daily basis and has been burned by this company before, Snowbike Mike.

[Mike]

Thank you, Greg. I appreciate that. Of course, to everyone here at the table, feel free to raise your hand, chime in at any time. We're gonna have some fun on this presentation.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay?

[Mike]

I am very passionate about Xbox, as everybody knows here at this table. And that's listening. I believe in Xbox and team Green. I also believe in games and video games and all the fun stuff. It doesn't matter where we're at. I'm playing games. Okay. But let's have some fun, Barrett. Let's take it to the PowerPoint. Let's bring up Xbox. So get in. Take it a minute.

[Andy Cortez]

All right. The great, good, high quality Google.

[Blessing]

Yeah, you can like there's an awesome.

[Paris Lilly]

The latest logo.

[Andy Cortez]

GoPro. Largest. Yeah.

[Blessing]

You can do largest. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

As one does when you're trying to be perfect. You need more time.

[Andy Cortez]

I can see the low finest from way back here. Okay, that's not good. I did see you Put out a tweet though. Yes.

[Greg Miller]

Perfect is the enemy of great. Don't forget. All right, so just let him get there.

[Mike]

How would I fix Xbox? Blessing out of the. Oh yeah, Junior. I asked myself as I stare lovingly into my Xbox series.

[Greg Miller]

How many years ago is this photo

[Mike]

that looks child by the man that you see today? I've absorbed him like Demi Moore inside of the subscribe. I'm bigger now. Okay, but how I'd fix it next slide. I wouldn't change a thing. Oh, I actually believe in Xbox envision and now I say this, I'll raise my say really quick. I say this as Mike. Mike that's gonna play this game is gonna have a different vision on how to save Xbox. Mike right now at this table really enjoys and likes what Xbox is doing right now. And I believe in the vision.

[Greg Miller]

What is the vision right now?

[Mike]

Let's go to the next slide.

[Blessing]

Didn't a year ago you said you

[Greg Miller]

were disenfranchised or whatever you were going to disillusion anymore.

[Blessing]

Not your disillusioned last year about it.

[Mike]

I went to the YouTube thumbnail department and I thought, you know what? I'm going to make some thumbnails.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Mike]

I can see all my other counterparts do in the YouTube space.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Mike]

This is okay. The Xbox ecosystem is good and I like it. I love the idea of being able to meet me where I am the player. Right. I want Xbox to meet me on my terms.

[Andy Cortez]

What are those words say on the couch?

[Mike]

Meet me at the desktop computer. Yeah, meet me on mobile. I think that Sarah, Bond and Phil, when they were in third place, they had a vision of hey, we need to get to more players. We need to meet them where they're at because they're not coming to buy our 500 plus console and we need to make a move. And I believed in that move. And I like that move.

[Blessing]

Right?

[Mike]

It is the right move in 2026 and beyond to meet your players where you're at, no matter where they want to play. Right. And so for me right now, I like the ecosystem. I like the idea of my games being anywhere. I love smart delivery. I like play anywhere where there's one purchase and it is on three different devices now at this time. That is great for me. What I don't like next slide. This is not okay.

[Greg Miller]

Hi Fi Rush.

[Mike]

Cutting down incredible studios and firing laying off so many talented developers and people in your organization is not okay when you are building so much momentum. I think over the past five years that Xbox was building with purchasing and acquiring a numerous amount of studios. It was always Xbox doesn't have the games. Xbox has clearly the hardware, they have the vision and what they were doing. They just don't have the games. I love that they went out, they got a bunch of developers, they said let's go make games. But what's not okay is laying off all of those developers, right? Why purchase them if you're going to lay them off?

[Andy Cortez]

Someone's got to make the games, Mike.

[Mike]

So teams like this like hi Fi, Russia Tango, gameworks, many other talented, incredible studios and teams from Forza, over with motorsport, turn 10 and others, that's not okay.

[Blessing]

Chad.

[Andy Cortez]

Don't, don't, don't screenshot this out of context, please. Stop it.

[Mike]

Up next, you can screenshot whatever you want. People you gotta hear, you gotta be here. Up next, you should not have hated this as much as you did. Okay? Series S, the Xbox Series S too many people hated on this console and I appreciated this console. I like that they try to meet people knowing that too many people are buying PlayStations. We got to get into the homes on a secondary device and having a cheaper alternative. Here we are in 2026 asking hey, how do we make things cheaper? The Xbox Series S was that device and people hated on that heartbreaking next one.

[Andy Cortez]

What do the devs feel about it?

[Mike]

This is exciting.

[Blessing]

Loved it.

[Mike]

Now here we are in 2026 looking at the next console and the next vision and project Helix is very, very exciting to me. I love the idea of the dual boots. I believe in the vision of what you can do with the Xbox. Rog ally being able to have your Xbox play anywhere titles along with Steam epic games of Windows boot up, that thing is lit. It's very exciting and we're going to talk about that. On how Snow Mike. Mike would save Xbox because I like that now this was just all a precursor to say this is where Snowbank Mike is at right now. Because a lot of you are going to be like, oh shit. Like that's crazy, Mike. This is where I'm at.

[Blessing]

There's a lot of questions for a very long Paris.

[Paris Lilly]

Lay it on me, Mike. I love the enthusiasm.

[Mike]

Thank you, thank you.

[Paris Lilly]

I truly honestly do. But we got to poke some holes in this because I think you missed a critical component. Why Xbox needs some fixing. They got to bring back value. They got to take care of their core audience. I think one of the first things they need to do is you need to figure out what you're going to do with game pass this what it currently is doesn't work. So I think you're either lowering the price of it. I mean, there's obviously rumors of some new tier. I don't want multiple tiers. I think there's too many as there is. Right. So I don't need them to add another one into this. I think you need to simplify Game Pass, make it affordable for people, make it approachable. Bring back the slogan that we were saying for years on XCAD says the best value in gaming because it is clearly not anymore. Going back to the point about taking care of your.

[Mike]

I like that, Paris. Now let's go to the real game.

[Blessing]

I also want to.

[Mike]

Let's go to the real topic. Bear, bring me to the next slide. But if I did run Xbox, this is what I'd actually do. Okay. There's a Mike in 2026 who likes the vision of Xbox, but there's a mic in the boardroom that might change things. Okay, Bear, go to the next slide. Paris, with you. You are correct. Pairs. Game Pass has gotten too expensive. Game Pass has gotten too big, and there's too many layers and tiers to this. We need to go back. Next slide, Barrett, Courtney, to two tiers. You are either in ultimate, which gets you all of it, or you are in console and or PC. We need to return to the $10 and $20 price tag. $30 is way too expensive. Anything above $10 for just console is way too expensive. On top of that, we should be giving the players more benefits. You're right, Paris. The people who.

[Paris Lilly]

What the hell is a. Benny, Benny, Ifits okay, don't.

[Mike]

There's no spell check. And I. Little time, Paris. Little time. Okay? Don't worry about it. You got to give people more benefits. You should be adding in WOW subscriptions. ESO first Fallout on.

[Greg Miller]

That's crazy that that's not there.

[Mike]

Call of Duty, anything, any way that I can give back to the players, I should be doing that right now because you know what I. When you give people Call of Duty points, they're going to go spend them and then they're going to spend more because they want to be in that ecosystem. Sea of Thieves, Call of Duty, Fallout, ESO and WOW are all live service titles right now that are under the Microsoft and Xbox umbrella that should be giving back to the players. No questions asked. Right? And Paris, I totally agree with you. I think Game Pass has gotten too big. There's too many tiers. Core, Premium, Ultimate. I don't know what any of that is. We go Right back to ultimate and console and. Or PC. You pick which one. You're in Paris, you pick up where you were.

[Paris Lilly]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So picking right back up where it was. And I appreciate you having the slides ready to go there, Mike.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Paris Lilly]

When I talk about taking care of the core audience. Look, Activision changed everything. We already talked about that a million times. I think I see people in the community now that Ashes, you know, taken over. Hey, bring back exclusivity. I just don't see it. I don't see it. But I think there's a compromise in there that can benefit both them. Trying to obviously generate revenue on multiple platforms, but making people feel like, hey, we bought this box. We're the Xbox people. We have this vast library of games over the past 20, 20 plus years that we've been curating. Make them feel seen, make them feel like this is the best place I should be playing these games. And you do that by not putting games on PlayStation day and date. I'm not saying they don't go to PlayStation because I think that clearly happens. Not making it about PC, not making it about cloud making. First and foremost, it's about that box sits under your living room and everything else is just supplemental. So, like one year exclusivity. See, I don't even know if you can go that.

[Blessing]

See, I was going to put two year exclusivity, like, but I do think there needs to be some exclusivity.

[Paris Lilly]

Exactly. At least six months. At least something that if I got the FOMO that I want to play Fable or Gears of War E Day, man, I better have an Xbox if I want to play it right away because it's not going to show up on PlayStation or Switch. I mean, sure, PC is obviously still going to be a thing, but again, PC should not be the center and the focus of their strategy. It should be that box. Obviously. I know, Mike, you probably got 20 slides on Project Helix, so I'll hold my thoughts on that. But it needs to be about the box first and foremost. It needs to be about the people that have been investing thousands of dollars at this point into their digital library on Xbox that when that next box does come out, they know all that stuff's going to go with them. Right? And you keep that going. So again, I know everyone has opinions, so I'll shut up now. But I think those are the two key things that I think they need to. Asha needs to figure out, you know, first and foremost.

[Mike]

Yeah, Barrett, if you'd go three slides over, you're going to see Master Chief there with the big lockdown on it. And yes, it is time to bring back exclusives. If Mike was in the boardroom. Right. I think we have to make a push. If you were to say, hey, Mike, I want you to sell more Xbox consoles. We need to get back in it. All of these games have to become exclusive. There has to be a reason for you to come over. And it starts with great games. Of course. Right. Bear, go to the one right before that.

[Greg Miller]

I have a question for you.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

How many slides do you have? Do you have like a ton?

[Mike]

I got like 20.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, okay. Because I, I said thing where I want to let you cook.

[Mike]

But no, no, I want you to get, I want you to get involved. I think so far, me and Paris, the two things that we'd come, we'd have a conversation about is game pass, needing more game pass and exclusives. And of course this right here, it all comes down to great games. We've talked about that. Phil talked about that. Exclusives are what drive the system sellers right here.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Mike]

And we can't be laying off Tango, gameworks and other staff members. If you make a bad game, you get supported and encouraged. In Snowbike Mike's world, you make a good game, you get supported and encouraged, you make an incredibly successful game that we believe in. You get supported and encouraged. I took like Darth walking back and forth because as of right now, we have gone from Xbox need games to let's buy a bunch of games. Okay, now we have people making games. Let's fire them. That makes no sense at all from a trillion dollar company that has all the money in the world like we talked about at the start of the show. So go out there, support these teams that may make a bad game. Let's go back to the drawing board. Let's talk about what went wrong. How do we fix that? Let's identify that. Let's make it happen. You make a good game. Hell yeah. High fives all around. Let's get some bonuses. Let's support and encourage that you make a great game that changes the world. Get them or yeah, I don't care. Let's go support that. Because I need great games to force people to come over here. Sure, because you're competing with PlayStation that has great games galore and that's why people have gone over there the past two cycles.

[Greg Miller]

Do you want to jump in?

[Blessing]

You jump in.

[Greg Miller]

So I think again what I would come back to with this question and if we were going and having and Having this discussion, which we are.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

You're in the same pool as me where how do we fix Xbox? And again, I want to make it very clear we are talking how we would fix Xbox. These are not the moves I'm predicting happen. I don't. You know what I mean? Like, we can have that conversation of how much at the end of this, what we've said will actually happen, what Asha is working on and what Microsoft will allow, yada, yada, yada. Because again, how do I think you fix it? You get the fuck away from Microsoft so you can make the decisions that are pro gamer. Right. So if we were stepping in, Mike, what you're nailing, I think that would be a big part of mine, is simplicity. Yes. You know, it's funny, you brought real quick.

[Andy Cortez]

What do you mean by get away from Microsoft?

[Greg Miller]

I think Microsoft is so hung up on we got to make money on AI that everything else has to make money. And if you're not making money anymore, why are we fucking doing any of this with games? I don't think Microsoft's got. I think, again, Phil Spencer leaving of his own accord. Sarah Bond leaving after the fact. This pivot and everything else, I think it is that, like, as we talk about chips costing too much and the memory loss and all this different stuff that's happening in God, are we gonna be able to afford the next console? I think Phil Spencer, if he and Sarah, if they could have had the chance to get their vision of everything is a fucking Xbox off the ground. Like, give that an actual marketing push, which we talked about in Games Daily this week. Right. Sorry. I know, Paris, I'm against you, I swear. But, like, let that actually be a pivot for Xbox. When they said this is an Xbox, hey, guess what? This is the actual thing we're talking about. We're on the Today show. We're on Good Morning America. We're telling you everything is an Xbox. You watching this right now? You have an Xbox. We're driving this home to you, the mainstream. So the kids who want to play Fortnite understand that they can get through Game pass. They can be leaving fort right now.

[Andy Cortez]

So in your argument, you are. You want Asha Sharma to tell Satya and Adela, let us do our thing, cut us off.

[Greg Miller]

No, I mean, in my perfect world, we're getting away. Yeah, we're getting away from Xbox. Xbox. Microsoft isn't in this AI fucking race to the bottom that they're in all this stuff.

[Blessing]

So there.

[Greg Miller]

Because I think so many of the problems Xbox Faces is the result of Microsoft saying, of course you got to do this. You got to do this.

[Blessing]

The last thing is the one I'm hearing from I think all sides here. Right. Is like, we are kind of like very idealistic. We are idealizing.

[Andy Cortez]

We're living. I didn't want to.

[Blessing]

I don't want to saw what you're saying because I 1, 100 agree with every single point you're making, Mike. But it also exists in a dream world.

[Andy Cortez]

And the shareholders go, I don't give a.

[Mike]

It's like, yeah, dream world. That's episode. Or it's just gonna be what it is. Right now, back to my reality.

[Greg Miller]

I think that you are looking at the death of Xbox in the beginning of Microsoft Gaming.

[Blessing]

Because Eris.

[Greg Miller]

Go ahead. Hold on. Paris has been trying to get in there.

[Paris Lilly]

No, no. Okay, I'll go. Go. And Blessing, please come Right. Right after that. Oh, man. I shouldn't say that. Right after me. My point on what you're saying, Greg, obviously, in this perfect world, sure, they could spin off or do something remaining under the umbrella of Microsoft. This is where Satya Nadella needs to give Asha Sharma the autonomy to allow Xbox to have flexibility, not have these ridiculous margins held against them so they can do some risky and creative things to be. Because it's about the brand. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. I think when I think about Microsoft, Xbox is outside of Windows, is probably their most recognizable brand right now.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Paris Lilly]

And I think that has more value than them trying to get 30 margins of return on something. Right. So I think it's about letting the brand be the brand again. Whereas to your point, it was slowly but surely starting to steer towards. It's just Microsoft gaming. And I think if they can just say, hey, sure, we're not going to make a ton of revenue off of this. Yes, we've invested a lot, but I think that investment investment means more to the brand for Microsoft, if I'm making sense, means more to the brand of Microsoft than it does. Hey, it has to. We got to get some return on investment in a short amount of time. And yes, the AI stuff and all that is completely screwed up everything. But they need to protect the brand of Xbox and they need to do whatever. Whatever they can in the short term and obviously the long term to make the brand viable. Because I think the biggest problem has been people don't believe in the brand of Xbox anymore.

[Greg Miller]

Blessing.

[Blessing]

We've gone past it.

[Greg Miller]

And that's my thing. It's just like I don't believe that Microsoft believes in the brand of Xbox right now. I don't believe that Asha needs autonomy. I hope she has that. I hope that's the reality of it. I hope that it isn't just, I talked about this yesterday again on Games Daily, right? Of like, the end of life hospice care showing up just to ease Xbox into the great beyond and become Microsoft Gaming. We don't make hardware, we just publish games or whatever. I just need to see that proven. And again, I don't expect Asha to have proven that in the two months, month and a half she's been at the helm. Obviously not. But it's this idea of like, when Mike was at the beginning saying, I believe in the vision, I'm like, what the fuck is the vision of Xbox right now? Because I don't think they know. And I think they're slowly going to start getting there. And we can go to Asha's letter and have it be, you know, talking about second, the return of Xbox gaming lives across devices. Like, Project Helix is going to be fucking $1,200, and that's not going to win you back the hearts and minds of it. Where I think a $30 option to be streaming it on your phone would have been the way to future proof for this. But we didn't get there. And so now I really do feel more than ever, they're adrift. And so, Parris, you make great points about making the Xbox brand matter again and the 25th anniversary in Fan Fest. And, like, there is a way to do that, but I don't know how you're able to get the genie back in the bottle of, okay, we're bringing the Xbox series X price down again, and Project Helix is still a ways out. Or we're getting closer to announce it and it's not. We're gonna take an absolute fucking bath on that in terms of how much we're gonna charge you to get it to you early. Like, I don't know, man. And that's why, like, into the perfect world again. It's gotta be simplicity. Here is the game pass option for whatever that is. Mike, here is the console. You know, you complimented the Series S, which, of course, I loved my Series S. I had that X screen for it. I use it all the time. It's been gathering, you know, dust on my shelf. Even Megan in the chat said, thank you, Mike. It is what I could afford and had room for in my home, and I enjoy the damn thing. Parentheses. How was I supposed to know it was Gonna gum things up. Lol.

[Blessing]

That's where I'll jump in and say, please. I look at the Series S as one of the wins of this last generation, right? Early on, I don't know where we're at anymore, but we were talking about that as outselling the Series X in terms of numbers. The Series S is the one that people show up and actually buy because it is the cheaper option. I remember buying it for my nephews, right, As a new console because I looked at it and I was like, yeah, no, this. Plus I go to their mom and say, hey, get them game pass. Like, that's such a. That's such a powerful thing to be able to present.

[Mike]

Easy.

[Blessing]

And I think. I don't know. I don't know where you're driving, Mike, with your thing. I don't know if you have a similar thing, but I think you got to repeat that. I think going into the next generation, value is the thing that's going to speak to players. We're talking about a generation where the PlayStation 6 is probably going to be, what, $1,000 or more Xbox. The Helix is probably going to be $1,000 or more. Getting more expensive. You need an option that's able to undercut all that and go here you can play console games for cheaper than any other console. And that's the power that Microsoft has right now.

[Mike]

That's what I heard a lot less when I took it to social media to say, like, hey, we're going to do this. What's up? A lot of people drove home the value, right? And that is where that Xbox Series S was a win is right blessing. That's why I liked it so much of like, hey, I know we were hard on it on the development side and maybe it was holding back certain titles, but like, I think on the consumer side we needed that. And I think Xbox, even PlayStation, when we talk about that tomorrow, there needs to be a cheaper option. That is a layup win, right? Like, yeah, should be a way. We having too many conversations of layoffs. Money getting tighter around the world, just players in general battling a thousand games a day, coming to them and trying to say, how do I buy all of this? Where is that cheaper option to jump into? And that's. That's got to be a win.

[Andy Cortez]

At the end of the day, I think you. The number one solution is you make a game called the Rest of Us, starring a man named Joe. His name is Joe Miller and he's voiced by Joy Baker. And you bring back all the people pissed off about Last of Us Part two, you know, to be like, that's the way you get them back.

[Blessing]

But make it more traditional. You don't kill them off.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

It's a different reality in. In actuality, like if now we're. We're doing the. The idealist thing, which I'm way more happy about because I really struggle to find a way out, a way to kind of be back as part of like the big three that are always constantly battling with each other in idealist way. You take a bath and spend a lot of money on poaching big talent and saying, we're getting that one big exclusive. You're gonna need to come play that over here. When you talk about Halo, Mike, I feel, I mean Halo Infinite was exclusive for a lot. Like is exclusive. And I. That kind of came and went and that lost player base and I don't know if. I just don't know if Halo has that sauce anymore. I don't know if it has that. They have a game staying power.

[Mike]

I like that you bring that up.

[Greg Miller]

Paris. They have a game.

[Paris Lilly]

Yeah. Elder Scrolls 6. Imagine if that was exclusive. Yeah.

[Mike]

When I bring that up, right. Of like when I talk about Starfield, particularly when we talked about the X cast.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Mike]

I said this game needs to be a game of a generation. Right. Because Xbox is right at the moment of they're gonna let go of all the exclusives and they're gonna open it up and they needed to keep that tight. And I do agree. I think Xbox has to keep all their first party games exclusive. And on top of that, Andy, I agree with you. They need to go back to timed exclusives. If I was in the boardroom and it was Mike as the boss, we would go and battle for timed exclusives.

[Blessing]

What kind of exclusives?

[Mike]

Now you brought up a great one.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Mike]

We brought up Final Fantasy, we brought up Dispatch. These are the games where you're like, oh, wow, they still haven't come to Xbox. Right. I would go back to when Phil grabbed Tomb Raider and I know that was a shocking exact example I'm going to give because people that was optimist. If I had all the money and we were going full ideal, I would say, hey, we're going here and I'm going to back the Brinks truck up at a number of big third party games and I'm going to make them timed exclusive for a year or more. And I'm going to make players go, man, like I'm missing out on great games. Xbox players missed out on A whole Final Fantasy line that were incredible games, right? And a lot of people started to move because of that. So, yeah, for me, Andy, when I bring up exclusives, you got to start doing. I'm paying money and you're coming here.

[Greg Miller]

Let me get blessed.

[Paris Lilly]

No, go to blessing.

[Blessing]

So my pushback against the timed exclusive thing, right, is you, as Microsoft, as Xbox, you are the biggest publisher in the world as far as the amount of studios that you own, right? Like, I don't. I. I think the Kojima exclusive that they got going on right now, right, is like a promising. In terms, In. In theory, in terms of, oh, shit, we have a big name as to what Andy's talking about as far as poaching, McTown, all this, right? Like, that's an exciting one. But I look at the list of developers you have and go, yo, you don't even need timed exclusives. You just got. You have just make your first party games exclusive here.

[Mike]

But they're not good enough. You and I make them better. That's the problem is Xbox right now has been delivering 7 and 8 and they're good and great, but they're not masterpieces. They're not drop everything, right? Imagine if Xbox right now was in the position where physics was coming to Xbox. We would all be having a different tune of going, oh, shit, like, man, Kojima is bringing a stealth espionage game to Microsoft and Xbox. That one I probably don't want to miss out on.

[Blessing]

Right?

[Mike]

And there's a number of different third party teams that we could go down the list and be like, if you were to back up the truck and say, give them the money, Satya, you would do that, right? And so I, I do think there's some give and take there. I think the first party games right now, like Andy said, oh, Halo was exclusive. Yeah. And it wasn't good enough. All of these games right now aren't good enough. Elder Scrolls does bring some heat, right? But Halo, Gears, Fable is a question mark. But like, so far, none of those games have proven Greg will stop playing PlayStation and buy an Xbox for that.

[Andy Cortez]

Right?

[Mike]

And so I think you got to start with third party getting those time exclusives, Harris.

[Paris Lilly]

So this is where I'm gonna. I'm gonna disagree with you, Mike. I. And help. We used to talk about this on xcast, like with Final Fantasy. I'm not a fan of the third party time exclusives. So as a, as a fan, I just want the games to be everywhere, right? So when I think third party, no, I don't want to go back to that era of essentially gatekeeping a third party game on one platform. But to the other point that you're making about, I do think first party, you can do some timed exclusivity with that because it's your ip, you can do whatever the hell you want. So bring in timed exclusivity to their first party titles into the second part of what you're saying. It's about the quality. That's up to them. That's up to them and their studios and what they're, they're they're doing with these games. Gears E Day should be a, a must play. Fable should be a must play. The next Fallout should be a must play. Right? So you, you, you have, you have the ips, you have the studios. It's, it's up to them with their own internal. Exactly. To make them must play. And then you provide the incentive to buy your box and invest in your ecosystem by saying if you want to play it as soon as it comes out, you have to come to us. If you want to wait till it's on PlayStation, you're gonna have to wait a year or you're not gonna play these things. Go ahead.

[Greg Miller]

I wanna cut to ads. I'll come back to Andy and the one comment I wanna toss out is you said Greg's not gonna stop playing on PlayStation to come play these games when it's hilarious that in the past two years I stopped playing on PlayStation because of Xbox game anyway. Right. Like it really was a service that finally won me over.

[Mike]

Ecosystem,

[Greg Miller]

everybody. Of course we wouldn't have an ecosystem here. Kinda funny. If you didn't support us with your kinda funny membership, we wouldn't have spirited discussions like this. So please pick up a membership. YouTube.com kindaf Apple Spotify, patreon.com kindafunny you can toss us $10. We give you all of our content ad free. You get your daily exclusive podcast from me for 15 to 20 minutes called Greg Way. And of course you get good karma for supporting an 11 person, 11 year old small business. But right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsors. You finally sit down to game. Just you, your controller and zero responsibilities. When your brain decides that's the perfect time to say, what if I'm secretly a terrible person and everyone can see it but me and suddenly relaxing and enjoying yourself is impossible. Instead, your brain grabs onto that thought and will not let it go. Here's the thing. That kind of relentless thought spiral isn't just anxiety. It could also be ocd, a condition that's way too misunderstood and way more common than most people realize. But it doesn't have to be that way. OCD needs ERP or exposure and response prevention, which has proven to be the most effective treatment. And that's where NOCD comes in. NOCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment and it's covered by insurance for over 138 million Americans. All of their licensed therapists specialize in ERP therapy and will help you learn to take the power away from the intrusive thoughts in live face to face virtual sessions. If unwanted thoughts are taking over, don't wait. Wait. To get help, visit nocd.com and book a free call with their team. That's n o c d.com and we're back in the delegation once again. I'm sorry, once again recognizes the representative from the rgv, Andy Cortez.

[Andy Cortez]

It wasn't even like a really what

[Greg Miller]

you were going to say. You made a big deal about waving your hand over there.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean I just kind of raised it really quickly.

[Greg Miller]

Kept saying, oh, pick me, pick me, pick me.

[Blessing]

I did hear it. You did say it like that.

[Greg Miller]

I was, I was going to say drinker over there.

[Andy Cortez]

I was going to say Paris doesn't like timed exclusives. As a fan of the games industry and as a fan of gaming.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

But we don't care about fans of gaming. We care about. We want your money here now.

[Mike]

Thank you. Like my PowerPoint here is Mike is in the boardroom and you've come to me and said, mike, sell more consoles. Yeah, we need to dig out of this hole. More consoles. Timed exclusive.

[Andy Cortez]

We need to steal fans.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

I'll go as far as I don't even think timed. I think just exclusives. I and everybody keeps saying, oh, it's too when it comes up in general for the real conversation.

[Andy Cortez]

I didn't mean time. I meant the third party exclusive like

[Greg Miller]

the Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm talking and you were talking originally about there. I think Xbox. My decree is I think Xbox first party is going back to being exclusive under Asha.

[Blessing]

My thing was four years. I would love to hear the pitches on which timed exclusives you have to go.

[Mike]

You go after Rockstar's door. I would be at Rockstar's door banging on the door. And I know that's a crazy one. But also Microsoft is a trillion dollar company. We got money to play with.

[Blessing]

Right.

[Mike]

And so it's like my goal would be Any of the biggest, baddest games each and every year I would be there going, how do I support when

[Blessing]

you're saying rock stars door? Are you saying gta? Are you saying another different gta? There's no.

[Mike]

Yeah, well of course there's no way. But yeah, yeah, you can. If you were CEO blessed, you would knock on the door and send him an email.

[Andy Cortez]

You shoot for the moon.

[Blessing]

I think you shoot for the moon and I think that'd be a fucking.

[Greg Miller]

Maybe an exclusive skin.

[Blessing]

That'd be an insane thing. But also, yeah, I asked because I do think that there are, I think there are examples of bad third party exclusives that have got. I think Tomb Raider. I don't know if Shadow of the Tomb Raider was it Rise of the Tomb Raider.

[Greg Miller]

That's the first one. Yeah.

[Blessing]

I don't think Rise of the Tomb Raider helped them. That was a, that felt like a clusterfuck when they announced that. When you look online, I know what I'm talking about.

[Andy Cortez]

I think enough time has passed with the, the Tomb Raider thing though. Like yeah, we're in a different spot now with, with the industry.

[Mike]

What if I got Resident Evil 9? You would start going, damn, they're really making. They're making room at the table where I'm now questioning I'm missing out on these games. And that's what Xbox is. All I'm saying is that's what Xbox.

[Blessing]

I think the Kojima one is a better example just for the thing of like it's not a franchise thing that people are already used to being elsewhere. It is like, damn, you got a brand new game from the. A new IP from this creator that I care about. I think when you start to do it where it's like Resident Evil, that's been everywhere forever. Now we're taking this exclusive. That leaves such a bad taste in all the gamers mouths.

[Paris Lilly]

Isn't the compromise. Well, I think the compromise to everything you're saying is like Ninja Gaiden 4 is a great example of this. This Xbox published that they helped. That game wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Xbox. I think if they're actively going out to third party studios and working with them to bring a game to the platform, they absolutely should have some level of exclusivity with that because they invested the money into it. I think my thing was more of just about capcom. Resident Evil 9 as an example. Why are we making that exclusive? And it's not everywhere. But I do think the compromise in all of this is the play Anywhere aspect of it. They should go out and be making deals with more third parties to have Xbox play anywhere. I think that is an incentive for you to want to buy from the Xbox Store.

[Greg Miller]

But it's one too, again that they have that last. The partner thing we just did, everything was play. I believe everything was play everywhere, right? And so it's like they had started that train at sgf and again, I think that is such a Phil and Sarah, hey, we're getting this rolling. And yeah, it took too long to get rolling, but. But here it is. And it won me over. But clearly they didn't get enough in time. So now what does this mean to Asha Sharma to come in and be like, hey, I gotta change all this, right?

[Blessing]

One of the things I look at, right, as far as if I was to wear the CEO cap at. Xbox, a thing to do. And we're talking about software, we're talking about games, we're talking about first party versus third party. I look at the first party lineup and go to your point, Mike, right? Like, have they been killing it? Not necessarily, but I think they have the IP to do so. And I think investment in those IPs is what you need to, need, need to do. It's the way that we always joke about. I think it was Embracer that says we need to exploit Lord of the Rings. I don't think you need to exploit one ip, but you do have a catalog of IP that I think if you dial in and narrow down and go, what IP defines Xbox? And how do we support these IP as much as possible. You look at Nintendo, you look at PlayStation and when I think of Nintendo, I think of Mario, I think of Pokemon, I think of a handful of games and they're investing in those games. When I think of PlayStation, I think of last was. I think of a charted, maybe not Uncharted, Spider Man. Spider Man. And they invest in the horizon, they invest in those, right? At Xbox. I look at Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls should be leading the charge as like, this is exclusive and this is what defines Xbox. Halo, let's bring that back in the way that they're already doing.

[Andy Cortez]

Our identity, our identity needs to be Elder Scrolls, Halo.

[Blessing]

I'll say Banjo Kazooie, right? If you wanted to lean into kids, I think Call of Duty, Fallout, Doom, Forza, Horizon, lean into those.

[Greg Miller]

You took too long to make the Fallout. Like I think right now, with the success of that show and that being so mainstream, if they were able to say, yo, Fallout 5, New Vegas 2 through from Obsidian Whatever. Even remake is exclusive and you can only get it here. We own it. We're the best place to play, the

[Blessing]

best place to watch, the only place to play. Yeah, like I saw somebody in chat say, you know, does Xbox need a last list? No, they have Fallout. Like, yeah, they have the ip. You just need to nail them. That's why I'm not convinced. Yeah, third party.

[Mike]

I'd push back just a little bit of like, like, how have they not supported those? Right? Like, those are the flagship titles that you just brought up, right. I think over the past, what, five years now we've seen Xbox on the Metacritic side being like one of the highest publishers every single year, right. And it's like it is going to take time. You purchase Bethesda, you purchase Activision King, you buy, what is it, 14 new studios, right? And that takes time to develop those games. We talk about how these games are getting bigger and more time. It takes takes three years, five years, seven years to develop these games. And when you purchase Bethesda and they're now in the, oh, well, we're making Starfield and how our lineup is as we do this, it's like, all right, well now I'm kind of handcuffed waiting on you. As Greg would say, hey, let's start making other studios do that. And the messaging has always been, hey, we don't come into Tim Schaefer's house and make him make Banjo. We don't go to Obsidian, say, you've got to be.

[Greg Miller]

People who said that are gone and

[Mike]

those people are gone.

[Greg Miller]

That is Microsoft going, you were too nice, Phil. Sarah, that is not what we need. We need this.

[Andy Cortez]

We will be in a lot better position. We would be in a lot better position right now in terms of how we wanted to kind of forecast what they should do if the big, long awaited, brand new IP from Bethesda, Starfield came out and was a 10 out of 10 across the board, masterpiece level.

[Mike]

We wouldn't be talking about Bethesda.

[Andy Cortez]

Like, we would be in a much better spot right now because we would go the next one. People are going to show up immediately. But now, I mean, I would even say going back to Fallout 4, which wasn't the mut the lotted. Like, everybody loves this and it's the best thing ever sort of video game. I, I think we're in a weird spot with it now. Obviously Skyrim delivered and people love Skyrim, but we're in a weird spot with that where like they're not even a, like a safe Bet in terms of

[Greg Miller]

everybody loving the video game specific audience.

[Mike]

You got games like Baldur's Gate 3 that pushed it forward. And now we compare these two. We go, go, you don't got it like that, right? We look at Crimson Desert, we look at Dragon's Dogma, games that are in this fantasy realm that are pushing certain features of the game forward. And you look at Bethesda and go, you seem to be a little bit behind. And it's like, what do you need to get there?

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Blessing]

I think all the scrolls will get us back, though.

[Paris Lilly]

We all hope.

[Mike]

Right.

[Blessing]

But I think that, like, I. I just think Starfield is too different of a game. I. I think that game is too disjointed as far as how you explore that world. I think Elder Scrolls brings it all back to basics. Hey, you see the mountain over there? You can boots on the ground. The mountain over there, you can walk there. Hey, the factions that you love and know, here they are. Hey, the quests, the vampires, the dragons, all these things that you know are here.

[Andy Cortez]

But we had Mass Effects, and Mass Effect was a very similar thing.

[Greg Miller]

Let Paris get it.

[Paris Lilly]

No, I, I just want to comment that I love this conversation currently because this is the problem. The problem is you got Bethesda, you got double fine, you got all these studios five, six, seven, eight plus years ago, and we've not seen the results that we should have been getting from them. I think about Halo Infinite in this conversation a lot because that was. That was the face of the Xbox series. X Master Chief is literally on the box when they launched it, and the game didn't deliver for various reasons. But the fact that your number one ip, or at least it was your number one ip, did not deliver in this generation is the fundamental problem right now. And to your point, there's a lot of people making those decisions are no longer here anymore. You have the IPs. You have to get them out in a timely manner at quality and make them must play. And the fact that they have not been able to do that up until recently has just. That's the problem. So I'm. I'm sure she's coming in. And speaking of Asha Sharma, and that is probably the mandate. Mandate. We can't be nice anymore. We got to get results. And if until their own internal studios can deliver premiere titles that Jeff Keighley has in the game of the year conversation, Xbox is going to just be spinning their wheels no matter what they do. You got to fix the games.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

If happy employees can't make 10 out of 10 masterpieces.

[Paris Lilly]

We're.

[Andy Cortez]

We're gonna get the disgruntled ones to for and force them to work on.

[Greg Miller]

Pour your anger into the arts.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Like, I think.

[Mike]

Think I.

[Blessing]

Obviously, there are so many complexities into how studios pick projects, the pro projects they want to do and why you would give one studio project over over another. I know we bring in, you know, Double Fine. They're doing whatever they want, Right? Like, I wouldn't literally do this, but I think an option would be to go, hey, we're knocking on Double Fine story. We're giving you Banjo Kazooie and going, hey, we really need one of these, and we need it to be a banger. And, like, after you make this, maybe you can make something for yourself, right? But, like, we are dialing in to these ip. We need good games out of these, because this is what we think is going to pop off.

[Mike]

I mean, that is the fun conversation, right? Of like, if you were CEO, would you walk up to Tim Schaefer and say, you have to do this now. Right? Because we talked about Phil and we asked Phil and it's like, no, he didn't do that. Right? So it's now the new CEO that would lead Xbox to fix Xbox. The person to say Obsidian Outer. Outer worlds is great. Love that you did a. Vowed no more. You're making Fallout. Have a good time, right? Hey, Tim Schaefer, you're making Banjo. See if Thieves Team over at Rare. This is great. Keep it going. You're making something else, right? We need Aviva pinata right now. Remember, everybody wants Animal Crossing, right? It's like, we got to make these games. And as of right now, the question is, does the CEO want to do that? Will you be.

[Paris Lilly]

I. I have to. I have to say this was. With all due respect to Todd Howard, why. And maybe there is, but why hasn't there been another studio incubating a Fallout game? A new Fallout game, not a remaster, whatever. To me, when I think about these are the mistakes that Fallout TV show, even if you didn't have the foresight when you were developing the show to start getting something going, you clearly knew after season one. And the fact that they're not talking openly about that and showing that we got Greg, you already said it. This is the IP that people would be going crazy over right now. And we get Fallout 76, which I love, by the way, but that's a live service game. That's, you know, a multiplayer game. People want a single player, new ip, Fallout and the fact that we're not seeing the tough decisions like you're saying, you're telling Tim Schaefer, hey, you're making Banjo. Someone needs to tell Todd Howard, well, this studio, Obsidian, whoever, they're making the next Fallout. And we're not hearing that.

[Greg Miller]

You know, I mean, I think the answer there again goes back to. And this is so speculative. First off, we don't know. Maybe somebody is doing right.

[Paris Lilly]

We don't know.

[Greg Miller]

But I imagine the perspective was what Mike referenced already. Hey, we're buying you guys, but we're not changing you. You are Bethesda and you are operating there. And so we'd love to do this. And Todd's like, no, we really want to do the follow. All right, we trust you. We know you make great games. I think it's as simple as that. And it wasn't the business imperative to do it. And now the winds have changed and they're so dramatic that like by turning and saying that that's great, but then how many years removed are you from getting the fruit from that trip?

[Mike]

These games are becoming so big. Like, when I think of a Bethesda title, right, that's a seven year project in my mind, like, these are getting so big where the fans want it to be extra big, we say, oh, we'll take it smaller. But like, when I think Skyrim, I want the biggest and the baddest game available, right? I want Fallout to be the biggest and the baddest. And that means, well, guess what, Todd, in this team, they're going to take about seven years to make this. And now when I do buy them and they're making Starfield, which is two years after the purchase, then we get to Starfield and it's not Game of the Generation. Well, now I have another five years until Elder Scrolls. It's like, oh, yeah, you're just so far behind the ball of what the players want and what you need to match the state where you're at.

[Andy Cortez]

Can you imagine if they like just found a way to strong arm into getting exhibition 33 as an exclusive dude? And a lot of that, a lot of it comes down to me with like, you know, yes, you could spend a seven years to a decade or whatever on the, the gigantic game that is, you know, ever. It just goes forever. Every mountain, all that in terms of like budgetary stuff. But like, if you could also just come up with a fun game that has a story that hits, that makes people go, damn, I, I wish I could play that, but I don't have.

[Blessing]

And that's the kind of exclusive that I think you need. Yeah, I think a. A Clear obscure is a. That is the kind of thing you need to. You need to seek out more so than a Resident Evil Requiem as an exclusive. Right. I look at on the PlayStation side they're doing, they. They start off the generation with like multiple of those. Whether it be a Cana Bridge of Spirits, whether it be a Stray. Are these console sellers? No, but they were the talk of the town the years that that they came out. And as Xbox, you have those connections. You have people that are on the ground floor. I know, bringing in these third party titles. But within the last year, we've seen some of those third party titles fumble as far as what the publishing looks like. Like, why isn't that Wu Tang being published by Xbox? What's going on? What's going on with that? Are we going to see that Kojima game come out under Xbox? But those are the things you should. You should be seeking out.

[Mike]

I mean. Yeah, in reality those are all rolls of a dice. Right. And that's why it is so scary. Like right now in 2026 where you're like, hey, we're tightening up our belts. We're not going to go fund whatever Perfect Dark, that Mad Max game contraband that they were making. It's like, like, hey, we've given up on that.

[Blessing]

Right.

[Mike]

In an ideal world, yeah. We'd be rolling the dice at the table.

[Blessing]

Is it a roll of the dice though? Or is that like a team that you build and you have the skill

[Mike]

to be like three months before Expedition 33. No one knew that game was going to be amazing. Right? Like, yeah, but like there was. When did comprehension. Then when it came out at launch, it was like, this is the greatest game ever made.

[Blessing]

Like, at what point did PlayStation realize stray was going to be a good game?

[Mike]

You know what I mean?

[Blessing]

Like, I think you have. You have teams of people that go, go. Hey. Your job is to go out in the field and see what people are doing and make these research. Yeah. Like not every game is a role of the dice. Like that you can see it happen in real time. Of this is something special. It is. There is that percentage of it that

[Mike]

is nowhere near Expedition 33.

[Blessing]

I mean, I'm not saying expeditions are 33. I know.

[Greg Miller]

I mean the PlayStation push though, right? I make that feel.

[Mike]

Seven strays. But it wouldn't be enough to chip away at the deficit that you're facing. Right. You need a hey, I got Final Fantasy I got Capcom to give me the next Mega man, the next Resident Evil. Every single game that you've ever won has to come over here because the only way to go, what, 5 to 1, 7 to 1 on a deficit like that is to start taking games that people really want and love.

[Blessing]

Sure.

[Mike]

And then say, hey, come over.

[Blessing]

I use Stray as an example of like a bunch of different games that PlayStation has done that with. Whether it be Stray, whether it be Rocket League, Rocket League, League, Rollerdrome, bug snacks, Sifu. Like there's a long list of quality games that they've been able to find to go, oh yeah, we're gonna get that exclusive.

[Greg Miller]

Plant our flag on that.

[Blessing]

Plant our flag on that. And that is a team that is doing that and reaching out to these developers.

[Mike]

Those are good. I just. On the flip side, I just don't think those are console sellers or make somebody sure everything, you know what I mean? Even if you got 50 of them, it still wouldn't. We've seen that with Game Pass. Right. Game Pass partnerships, Game Pass titles with indies, third party games that are on the smaller side. There are so many games here that Blessing and Greg on the PlayStation side, they got to pay 20 or 40 on. Hey, this is. It's over here included for $10 or less. Right. And nobody made the move over there. Right. It's like you kind of got to go bigger than that, unfortunately.

[Greg Miller]

So do you keep Game Pass around and you're. You're taking over?

[Mike]

Yes. Game Pass in my. In my world is still around. I think Game Pass is one hell of a value. I think it is a must have in your ecosystem here. Like I said, I'd go back to just ultimate and console and or PC. I'd find a way to make it twenty and ten dollars. Even if I'm losing money. I have to have this as like get in board, get on this. And I'd still make first party games day and date with that. They would still be still be the Game Pass, you know and love.

[Paris Lilly]

And then I slightly disagree.

[Mike]

Online would be dead. You would never pay for Online on my console ever again.

[Andy Cortez]

Ever again.

[Mike]

Especially with Helix, that's being a dual boot system. There's I have the slide up there or Barrett, if you want to bring it up. Xbox Live, anything online is dead. You are not gonna pay ever again for that. Right. Because I need you to know that I have your back. I want to save you as much money as possible and I'm making sure that you can play everything without worrying about having a subscription I know, yeah.

[Paris Lilly]

And to your point, Mike, sorry, but with, with Game Path, first of all, I agree with you on Helix. There's no way they can have a multiplayer paywall and that just wouldn't make sense if it's everything that we think it's going to be. But the, the point about Game Pass, I'm fine with Day and Date if they can make Day and Date more affordable. If they can't figure that out, like, look, if you need to take Call of Duty out, take Call of Duty out, but if they can't have some form of Day and Date that's affordable, to be honest, just get rid of it. It just get completely rid of it. Make. What is it, the premium tier or whatever it is and just say, hey, we're essentially just another version of PlayStation plus where it does exist, there's the play anywhere aspect of it, there's a cloud streaming aspect of it. But we're getting rid of Day and Date because it is not, it is not financially viable for us anymore. We can't support that unless we have a 35, 40 tier. No one's going to buy that or pay for that. And honestly, I think having something that expensive, that, sure, it's an option, it just doesn't look good. It's. It's bad press for them because no one's going to pay attention to the cheaper tier. Everyone's going to point to the more expensive tier and it's just bad pr.

[Mike]

It's so interesting you bring that up because, like, Day and Date is the only seller for Game Pass for me, right? If it's not the first party games day and day and included at a cheaper subscription fee than buying all these games straight up, then it's like, what is the point of it, right? Because all of these smaller indie titles, all of this, it's great for discoverability, it's great for families out there that want to try some games and jump around. But we all know people are coming because we don't want to spend 70 on Halo, 70 on Fable, 70 on Call of Duty. I want the first party games. They got to be included on that Day and day.

[Blessing]

Do you think that is. What percentage of players do you think that is? Right?

[Mike]

I think it's higher than you think.

[Blessing]

Because I look at again, my. I know I keep using my nephew as the example, right? But I looked at his mom and was like, like, hey, Game Pass is going to be the way is going to be how we can play so many games and they're not, they don't care about day and day mine. These kids don't give a. They're playing Roblox anyway. But they look at the catalog and they're like, oh yeah, I can play split fiction with my little brother or whatever. Right. Like, I feel like when you're saying the day and date thing that speaks so much to the hardcore game gamers, which I know are a lot of us.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing]

But when we're making all these things of we're gonna cut online, like don't pay for that. We're gonna bring down the price. We're gonna do XYZ things. Something's got to give. And I think that would have to be the thing of like, oh yeah,

[Greg Miller]

you're going to pay for Xbox. Well, especially if you went back to your games being exclusive. That would be the win right. Of like, all right, cool, we're getting 70. When you do want to buy the new Halo, new Gears, whatever, and we're getting you Game Pass subscription service stuff.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And again, just being one of the companies that you have more money than God, you can afford to take losses on some of those smaller things that, that engender like full time permanent fan bases. Like you are creating fans for life. If you give them wins here and there and, and showing them like we're not going to charge you for those little small things. We're not going to nickel and dime you here and there. Yes, everything else in the world is going up money wise, but Game Pass, we're going to keep it at 20 bucks instead of going to 30 or keep it a 15, whatever the hell it's going to be. You create fans for life. You create people that want to stick around in your ecosystem and that is that, that, that, that just brings in money tenfold in the long term. Like those become long term fans.

[Paris Lilly]

The brand.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, you know, super chats are coming in obviously throughout the show. Thank you so much. GM Padre said Xbox should be leveraging exclusive in game benefits all of Fortnite to make people go, oh, I get that here. Another cheeky suggestion could be conversion of gamer score into reward points or some kind of thing.

[Mike]

Oh yeah, I have one of those. I'll show you in a little bit.

[Greg Miller]

The most important I think there in that is what Mike already brough up of the fact that, the fact that Elder scrolls online, Fallout 76, all this stuff isn't incorporated in some way and it is the Fortnite Battle Pass subscription service. A crew, Fortnite Crew that's in there and it's like, to your point, Padre, how do you get that message out from kind of funny games Daily and into Blessing's nephew's head? Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's back to the argument I've Talked about with xCloud and Fortnite and streaming that when you couldn't stream it on your phone anywhere else. And it's like. Like Ashley's kids watching me do that and being mystified. But it's like they don't know that you could do that with Xbox X Cloud. Like, how do you get that into a digestible, simple way that anyone can understand? And that's been Xbox's, I think, one of their biggest problems throughout this whole thing.

[Andy Cortez]

Also, immediate win. You bring everybody to your fan base and to your platform. You put back. Back paddles on the button on the standard controller.

[Mike]

I mean, it'll be interesting to see what the future of controllers is like, right? Because you see Nintendo Switch 2, they have that now. So it's like, man, it's the next PlayStation controller. Is the next Xbox controller gonna do that? It'll be interesting.

[Andy Cortez]

Make it standardized so that.

[Greg Miller]

That.

[Mike]

Oh, the.

[Andy Cortez]

The normal ass Xbox controller feels so good to play. It just doesn't have those back buttons and the elite ones. Fucking bumpers always falling apart, you know what I mean? Like, the amount of time I have, like three dead elites at home and then the. The rubber starts peeling off. It's just give me the standard ass Basic controller with the back panel.

[Greg Miller]

Mike, you got more slides you want to get to?

[Mike]

Oh, yeah. I think we're having a great conversation, so I don't want this to derail it, but I'll finish out my slideshow just for funsies. Okay. I want to bring up passion, Andy. When I went to social media, I got a lot of comments, a lot of negativity out there. I just want to say that gamers are passionate. Xbox fans are passionate. Right? We all are passionate about this hobby that we love. It's our escape from the real world. It is where we forge friendships, memories, and moments with ourselves and our family and our friends for life. Right? It is something truly special. And I saw your comments on Twitter, and there's just a sea of negativity out there, okay? There's just a sea of darkness. And out in that darkness, there used to be a light. There used to be a beacon of positivity in the Xbox world of hope. And that's why I think we need to bring back. Barrett. Hit the slide. My man. Major Nelson.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Because when you bring up positivity and you see these people who are so passionate, but maybe they've been enshrouded in darkness and negativity for so long, maybe they're like me, they're scared. Right? Blessing, you brought it up. A couple months ago. I was uptight at Xbox, right? We let the exclusives go. The question was, why am I buying this Xbox? And people are out there like me, right, worrying about, hey, all these purchases that I made, are they going to go away? Is Xbox a dying brand that maybe I shouldn't be buying their hardware? Maybe I should be going off to other places and like, why should I invest in you, right, if you're not investing in me in reality right now, Xbox is still a great place to play. There's so many positive things going on in the Xbox world. And yeah, if you jump ship over to PlayStation or Nintendo, thankfully all these Xbox first party games are now not exclusive. They're over there, right? And maybe you're gonna have a better time there, but for the players who stay, you do have something really special and great going on. And I think the Die Hards know that, right? But there's so much negativity in the world, there's so much doom and gloom that maybe they've gone a little negative themselves.

[Blessing]

But.

[Mike]

But one man out there always brings out the lights, Larry. One man out there always brings out the fun and the positivity and he makes those people who have doubted it or maybe are worried and scared and negative themselves. He makes them go positive. Are you campaigning for this, Major Nelson?

[Paris Lilly]

So Mike, Mike, I have to tell you, I saw Larry at gdc. We had a conversation. He wants on the show.

[Andy Cortez]

Larry Legend.

[Paris Lilly]

He wants to be on. Yes, he wants to be on anytime you got to do the one on one with him.

[Mike]

Man, I would love that, Paris. But. But I truly believe if you want to bring back some positivity, win back some brand recognition and some trust in gamers, you would bring back Major Nelson in a big way. I've put two people behind him, give him a team of three. I think we bring back an inside Xbox type vibe where a lot of people have gone negative on seeing CEOs, heads of gaming studios, all this stuff come on podcasts and stuff like that. Hey, if you want a mouthpiece, somebody you can trust and believe in, you want that figure again? I'm going to give you Major Nelson and two others and they're going to be the face of Xbox. They're going to be the one taking all the calls, they're going to be the ones coming out here to tell you what's positive, what's new, what's hot, what's hip in the Xbox world. And these are the people that you can trust in and believe in. And sure, they're going to be the mouthpiece, they're going to give you the corporate talk, but at the same time, when you see Major Nelson, there's something different about it that gamers kind of put it all down and go, okay, let me listen. Yeah.

[Blessing]

The one pushback I was going to give for Major Nelson, I love Major Nelson, is that I think we do need younger people, right? And like I, I love the idea of team of three Nelson, then two younger people. Somebody in chat said that they could tell, they could tell Roger's silhouette from a mile away.

[Mike]

And so. And then my final one is bring the fun. Right? We've talked a lot about the business side of things, but when Xbox gamers look back on their final slide here, Barrett, for everyone, it is the fun of Xbox and those memories and it's very hard to capture what Xbox was on the 360 days, right?

[Greg Miller]

Xbox 100, bring it back.

[Mike]

Summer of Arcade is fantastic and an amazing idea and did an awesome job highlighting one game of week throughout the summer for five weeks. Well, guess what? Now there's a billion games and it is too difficult to highlight anything. But Summer Arcade is a fun idea that you can do on the storefront. I'll tell you this. Xbox, Steam, any other storefront does a great job doing a lot of spring summer sales. Of course, ID and Xbox sales. You have fun. Steam Next fest demos, like they're doing that. And I know it's not the 360 days because there's not a hundred games to play, there's a million. But these are fun ideas. I bring up the Netflix one, the watch parties with your friends, right? We talk about Netflix and Xbox having conversations, right? This would be a fun way to bring people back, having them remember, hey, my Xbox avatar sitting down, watching a movie together. We have now lost the party chat vibe that we all grew up with. And I know on this audience it's a little bit older. They know that we've gone to discord. We've now gone to team speak. We're on our own things. It's not quite the same energy, but it is still the same energy at its core. But something with a Netflix watch party would be fantastic. For you who love achievement, your boy Snowbike Mike would like to reward you. I want to reward the people who spend the time in my ecosystem. A lot of people want badges for their achievements. They want cool things next to their profile. I'd like to go even further. I'd like to give you a little piece of cheese. I'd like to give you some Xbox points. Back in the day, like we saw with PlayStation Stars, program Xbox had it right? Of like, hey, how, how much do I really lose if I go? People who are spending time and money and investing in my platform by earning achievements and playing games, how much is it to give them a ten dollar little free bonus?

[Greg Miller]

Great idea. Especially trying to win people back from these ecosystems.

[Andy Cortez]

Little, little five dollar Best buy reward zone card.

[Mike]

You know what I mean? For you to do that. That's right. And so at the end, you see down at the bottom, right, a live stream. Something really special is about to happen with this new project Helix having a dual boot PC inside of it, right? And we've already seen you can live stream from your PlayStation Xbox in the past. But I think there is something so cool and exciting that this is a PC. How do I maybe integrate with Twitch a little bit more? How do I get Jason, Ronald and the team to work and have that go above and beyond just the hey, here's a camera on the corner and you're streaming from your Xbox, right? Because a lot of younger generations, they want to stream, they want to make content. I've told Tim, many young kids I know they literally, they are asking for PCs because their favorite streamer content creator is on PC. Guess what? Your Xbox is now partly a PC. How do we go even further than that and make it as easy as a click and you can customize your own stream. You can go above and beyond and make it super difficult where it's not Andy going above and beyond, but like, hey, I can click on this and have a cool Twitch stream for my friends to watch.

[Andy Cortez]

I love this comment that says. To be honest, Mike, I feel like most of this has already been lost on the Internet. But I agree with you entirely. That comment came from AOL America Online.

[Greg Miller]

I think, you know, yeah, you stumble on a great point here, right? Of like, I think something that would be an easy win for Xbox right now would be having faces. It would be, hey, like every, you know, however you want to term it. Everyone in the world wants a community, whether that is irl, whether that is being a kind of funny best friend, whether it is not being a console warrior to the worst degree of it. But I play Xbox. I'm excited for the Xbox 25th anniversary and whatever they're going to do, see

[Andy Cortez]

someone with an Xbox shirt, you go, oh shit.

[Greg Miller]

And if it was turning it on and it was a major Nelson, a Jeff Rubenstein, a Tina Amina Amini, they're talking you about what's happening and what's cool. And it is you turn it on, it is the official Xbox podcast automatically plays and it's immediately, here's the best games you could be getting right now. And it is rewarding. It's like making it feel not like every other storefront. Tomorrow we're doing how to fix PlayStation. A big part of it's gonna be that They've lost the PlayStation personality for me. Greg Miller right. And so it is that idea of like, like whether I'm looking at Steam, whether I'm looking at Xbox, whether I'm looking at PlayStation, whether I'm looking at Nintendo, I'm just looking at another storefront, a digital wares, right? And so why not you bring up how good Steam is at showcasing, hey, here's this crazy sale for detective games or whatever. Like take that a little bit further. And PlayStation of course as always has half assed it where it's like, here's Shuhei Yoshida's like list of games and it's like why aren't you actually doing that? Why isn't Shu an actual like back when he worked there, obviously like a little person pop up on the PlayStation Store that is this curated list rather than some weird blog post or some buried wish list like Surface that to the front that you have human beings that are gamers like you person who maybe doesn't have someone to talk about games to, which is why so many people come and become a part of our community. Or a person who really just doesn't know you did only buy it for NBA, but suddenly they're telling you about whatever Arcady basketball game over here. You know, I don't know whatever he wants with AI, But I don't want it to be some fucking AI. I want it to be a human being.

[Mike]

Final one Bear if you go to my final slide here, of course a lot of people have brought up, hey, I'm still missing that Activision titles on Game Pass, right? Where is the Transformers, right? But I would even go a step further and go, hey, if we're gonna bring back the fun, let's look at some of these titles like blessing brought up of like what are we missing here, right? We're sitting on a Starcraft in a Warcraft An RTS world that should clearly be brought back. We have a Heroes of the Storm that can bring in mobile players to have some fun. One, we're seeing a huge pop right now in an animal crossing Pocopia Tomodachi Life. Like bring in Viva Pinata Doritos Crash Course 1 versus 1 over 100. These smaller legends like these are great titles. Let's start figuring out how to bring them in. Whether they be through game pass and backwards compatibility or. Hey, do we need to start making these games? Let's get on it. Right? And so I go to my final part.

[Greg Miller]

I. I swear the last three slides

[Mike]

where I bring up game studios and CEO Stomach. Mike calls.

[Greg Miller]

All right.

[Mike]

And I bring up playground games first. This is a script that I. Bam. Forza Horizon. Forza Horizon in Japan. Oh, it's already in Japan. Ah shit. My bad, my bad. New idea. Forza Horizon North Pole. Take the hottest driving sim and put it in the coldest place on earth. Mr. And Mrs. Claus are hosting the generations Forza festival with all the hottest elves, snowman and reindeer.

[Greg Miller]

You can hear the stock price drop dropping.

[Mike]

What's that? You said reindeer. Yeah, that's right. All eight of Santa's reindeer are now the most aggressive drivatars on the track.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay, okay.

[Mike]

Oh, oh, hold up. They're releasing Fable this year. Scrap the North Pole, let's go Forza Horizon Fantasy Land. That's right. You ever thought about drifting in front of Cinderella's castle? Taking it to the red Jonah Arc. Yeah, that Jonah.

[Greg Miller]

Is that her Name?

[Blessing]

Jonah Arc.

[Mike]

PlayStation Playground Games, Forza Fantasy.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, okay.

[Mike]

These are just game cars and ideas that I would go out and make.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

Jonah was a real person.

[Mike]

You know, I wrote that.

[Blessing]

I didn't think that was gonna be the last one you ended on.

[Greg Miller]

It was so strong.

[Blessing]

I thought you had like a.

[Greg Miller]

You know, it was like the honorable mention slide of things. I want to get you out of here. Of course. Cuz there's still more stuff. Mike's playing Drain sim after, which is exciting. We've talked a lot about this. We've gone. There's been a lot of great stuff out there. B. Barr like just wants to violate agreements. It says just make Call of Duty exclusive. Yes, I know the contract, but void it. Do you think the administration will force anything? Just give Trump. Trump a made up award.

[Mike]

Yeah, I would make Call of Duty back to the three year cycle. I know right now they're going to try to get back to that, but we have gone back to back years. We've gone back and forth between. Just between Modern Warfare and Black Ops. I would really push to have these developers get some more time. Figure out how we can get back to a three year, three different title lineup. Right here. I think we are missing some sort of futuristic or jumping back to World War II. I know there's usually the down years but like we can't keep doing Black Ops back and forth. Modern Warfare back and forth. Right. We do need to get back to the three year cycle. I am always on board for like Call of Duty yearly is a must for me. It will stay yearly. But I want to give them more time. I want to get back.

[Paris Lilly]

No, they already said. I thought they already said they were. They're not doing that anymore. They already said that.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, they said they said that.

[Mike]

What?

[Paris Lilly]

Yeah,

[Blessing]

but they said they're not doing the.

[Mike]

Yes. Yeah, I just mean like a CEO. Mike. I would get us back on three years no matter what. Like right now we're not there. We would be. We would be there still.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, the final subhead here. I have super chats and I, I called it. It's a lost cause. All right. Lasers Shark. Or I guess it's. Yeah, it's laser shark. 47 exclusives won't pull me from PlayStation their code. But then chaos killer x7 says current gen gamers are too invested in current ecosystem. Xbox needs a cheap box streaming only plus premium console to get their foot in the door for next gen. Yeah. And it really is that question now of what do you do here if you can't get exclusives to get somebody over? Can it be services? Services worked on me because then it was an easier way for me to play all my games. But as we often know, the way I play games, the way we all play games isn't necessarily how everybody else plays games.

[Mike]

Yeah, we talked about the Keystone Pocket back in the day of like hey, what's that streaming puck, right? And then it quickly moved to like, well, why even make a puck when we can just get integrated on TVs and all your other devices? And that's the right call. It's like just get that Xbox app everywhere. Right? But there's that conversation we still have to this day. People don't fully believe in cloud yet. Cloud isn't up to snuff in most areas for people, right? For me, yeah. Unfortunately I have crazy Internet and it does run well and I can believe in it, but a lot of people don't have that in life. Like that's still a five, ten year window. Out of like cloud is here. Cloud can be that ease and like

[Blessing]

I'm still, I'm still of the mind of like even further out as far as what cloud looks like for that being the main way that people start to game. That's just a big challenge with Internet and everything. But I to piggyback off of that. And to you Greg. Yeah, like I think bowling down this conversation, I feel it as three pillars, right? It is exclusives, it is these, these IPS that we're talking about, right? Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Halo, getting these back to being exclusive games. It is the services that Greg mentions making pass banger and and then it is the box, right? Like if you're, if your competitors are putting out these thousand dollar boxes, if Helix is going to be a thousand dollar thing, right. How do we get an Xbox series S esque device to come out at A$500 at A$600 but still play all these games that people care about. That way you're making it affordable. You're giving them the Elder Scrolls exclusive game that people are going to show up for and you're giving them game pass that they're going to love.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Blessing]

I think in a weird way I think Xbox is kind of poised to hopefully give us a banger next generation.

[Greg Miller]

But we shall see if Microsoft. Let's see Paris, final word.

[Paris Lilly]

See this goes back to the beginning of what you asked. Can this be fixed? Some said yes, some said no. I think it can be fixed. I think the opportunity is right there in front of them.

[Greg Miller]

Well, I hope so everybody. This has been a cathartic kind of funny gamescast. Thank you all for joining us. Remember we're here each and every weekday having the big topics and the big discussions. Tomorrow will be how to fix PlayStation. So get ready for that one. Of course our live program programming day is far from over because this is the live talk show network. That's right. We kick off the day with kind of funny games daily into gamescast. Sometimes we talk movies after that, sometimes we talk about other stuff and then we go stream a video game. Mike's playing Drain Sim. He's been talking about this one forever.

[Mike]

Can't wait for this one Greg.

[Greg Miller]

It's going to be a good one.

[Mike]

This one actually surprisingly good.

[Greg Miller]

If you're watching this later or listening later on a podcast service, remember of course like subscribe share, come to YouTube.com kind of funny games where you can watch Mike play Dream Sim and do everything else including get a kinda funny membership to keep the lights and mics on YouTube.com kindafunnygames, apple, Spotify and of course patreon.com kinda funny to get everything we do ad free, get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller, in a series we call Greg Way. That's 15 to 20 minutes of me podcasting my heart out for you exclusively. And of course, get good karma for supporting an 11 person 11 year old small business. For now though, the Gamescast is over, so until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.