Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - How to Fix Xbox - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

If you’re struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NOCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started: https://learn.nocd.com/KINDAFUNNY Thank you for the support! Run of Show - - Start - How to Fix Xbox - Mike’s Presentation - Some Rebuttals - The ONE Big Exclusive & Timed Exclusives - Ads - First Party Games - Game Pass - SuperChats - Finishing the PowerPoint Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If unwanted thoughts are taking over, don't wait to get help. Visit noCD.com to book a free call with their team. If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash kind of funny. What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, April 1st. No fool him. 26. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside Forbes 30 under 30, AKA New York Game War is nominated,

a.k.a. Jim selfie poppy is blessing. Eddie, oh, yay. Do you. Good day, Greg. Good day to you. Are we staying in salt. We're still standing on business here? Soup sucks, Mike. Oh, soup sucks. I don't, I don't mess up. Great, great, great. Can I say it really quick? I've only ever dipped my grilled cheese and tomato soup.

I've never actually just gone for soup. Chicken noodle soup I don't like the look of. Clam chowder, I don't like the smell of. Chili? Absolutely not. Again, it can be overrated and still be whatever. Andy, I'm sorry, Hispanic Hartthorpe, Texas treat. Chicken noodle soup rocks. What are you talking about?

Are you smashing chicken noodle soup looks worse than clam chowder? Like, clam chowder looks kind of weird. Clam chowder hides a lot of it. Clam chowder smells bad, I think. I like noodles. I like chicken noodles will enhance the soup. But put some saltine crackers in there. Oh, nothing better than like being sick.

It's just I don't want the carrot. I don't want the celery. If it's just a chicken, the noodle, the broth, okay, but then again, I'm just getting to eat a vegetable. Just get to a fah. Into a fa? A fa. You got to lay a long gait.

But I'm saying I'm getting close enough. I'm getting there. Okay. And of course the best voice in the business, Paris, Lily. 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. Okay. Some of the best shit I've ever had.

It's fantastic. How are you doing, Greg? I'm good, Paris. It's good to see you. I'm glad. Thank you for joining you for this very serious episode where we're going to save Xbox, everybody. because this 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, reviews, or just topics we need to talk about. You can be part of them. YouTube.com slash 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, f, wantonsu. And I don't think we all-

Those are great. Yeah. Those are all great. But still, a really- You just named six different. A really good sandwich there. Like, I'm just saying, gets caoed all the time.

It's just like my beef with fish. Just get out. Yeah, I'm not trying to like, after this, you know, I'm going to be hungry. We're what it's sandwiches, brother. That's my thing is like, I'm not trying to slurp my lunch. I want to eat my lunch. You jaw hurt. Oh, you're sick.

That's why you're eating soup. It's like, no, I chose this life. It's like the one time I cracked the ginger ale and Tim looked at me and said, you're not on an airplane. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Just took out my wisdom tooth. Like, why am I drinking this?

You know, I can chomp, shop, bulk up. Yeah. Just like our Patreon producers did on Patreon. Patreon.com slash kind of funny. Thank you, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney the Somme, twining for making this show happen. For now, let's begin with what is, and

forever will be topic of the show. To fix Xbox, everybody. Of course, yesterday you saw us kick off How to Fix Week, where we did How to Fix Kind of Funny on the Kind of Funny podcast, because today's games cast 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 ahead recently, February 20th with, of course, Phil Spencer and Sarabon 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 Lily.

Does Xbox need to be fixed? Yes. It absolutely needs to be fixed. Do you think it can be? Yes, I do. Okay. I have the answers. Oh, shit.

Okay. Oh, wow. I love that. Yeah. Michael, of course, a former host of the Xcast yourself. Xbox needs to be tweaked with some small fix. It's not a big fix, but some small fixes do need to happen. Andy.

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

Yeah, nail that crushed it. Bless. Does it need to be fixed? Yes. Can it be fixed? Not so sure. But, you know, I'm excited to hear people express their opinions on it. 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. Real Grand 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. They have more money than God. Yeah. 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 $298 million or whatever. So, like, that's the big caveat. Yeah, I think I'm 100% with Andy, where I think the biggest problem with Xbox is not Xbox. It's Microsoft. Yes. 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.

You're not bringing enough money for daddy and mommy. Like, you know. 30% return on investment is what they were looking for on all these things. Yeah. 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 yet, da, da, da, da, and we started firming up casts.

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 for 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 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. Yeah. So, ladies, gentlemen, and NBs, we turn the entire show over

to the master of hype, the leader of the kind of funny Xcast. the man who bleeds green on a daily basis and has been burned by this company before. Snowbike, 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 going to have some fun on this presentation. Okay. 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. He loves games. 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 it and take it in a minute, all right?

It's a good, good, high quality image. I got a good image of Xbox. Thank you. I googled it. Yeah, you don't get a lot of that. You know, like, there's not even the latest logo. Go for largest. Yeah, you can do largest. Yeah.

As one does when you're trying to be perfect, you need more time. I can see the low fineness from way back here. Okay. That's not good. Next slide, please. I did see you put out a tweet though yesterday. Perfect is the enemy of great. Don't forget.

All right. So just let him get that. How would I fix Xbox? Blessing out of the O'Yean Jr. I ask myself as I stare lovingly into my Xbox series. How many years ago is this photo? You look like a child. This young man was eaten by the man that you see today. I've absorbed him like Demi Moore inside of the substance.

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 Division. And now I say this.

I'll raise my hate. Say really. I say this as Mike. Mike that's going to play this game is going to 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.

What is the vision right now? Let's go to the next slide. Didn't a year ago you said you were disenfranchised or whatever and you were going to use Xbox anymore? Not disaffrey. You're disillusioned last year about it? I went to the YouTube thumbnail department and I thought, you know what?

I'm going to make some thumbnails. Okay. It's like I see all my other counterparts do in the YouTube's face. Okay. 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.

What are those words saying? On the couch. Meet me at the desktop computer. Yeah. Meet me on mobile. I think that Sarabon 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, right? 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 it is 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. High-Fi rush. 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 in 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? Someone's got to make the games, Mike. So teams like this, like high-fi, Russia, Tango GameWorks, many other talented, incredible studios and teams from Forza over with Motorsport Turn 10 and others, that's not okay.

Chat, don't, don't screenshot this out of context. Please stop it. Next, you can screenshot whatever you want. You got to be here. Up next, you should not have hated this as much as you did. Okay? Xbox Series S. The Xbox Series S, too many people hated on this console, and I appreciated this console.

I like that they tried to meet people knowing that too many people are buying PlayStation's. 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 it. on that. Heartbreaking. Next one. What are the devs feel about it? This is exciting. I've loved it. 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 Raj Ally, being able to have your Xbox play anywhere titles along with Steam, Epic Games,

Windows boot up. That thing is lit. It's very exciting. And we're going to talk about that on how Snowmike Mike would save of Xbox because I like that. Now, this was just all a pre-scircer to say, this is where Snowback Mike is at right now. Because a lot of you are going to be like, ah, shit. Like, that's crazy, Mike.

This is where I'm at. There's a lot of questions. Peres got out. Paris has been very long. Paris. Lay it on me. Mike, I love the enthusiasm. Thank you.

Thank you. I truly honestly do. But we got to poke some holes in this because I think you missed a critical component to 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. 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 X-Kats it's the best value in gaming because it's clearly not anymore. Going back to the point about taking care of your... I like that, Paris. Now let's go to the real game. Let's go to the real topic. Barrett, 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. Pairs, Lily. I 100% agree 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 were 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, pairs. The people who have stuck. Benny I-fits. Okay, don't. There's no spell check, pairs. And I have a little time, pairs, a little time, okay? Don't worry about it, fans.

You got to give people more benefits. You should be adding in WOW subscriptions, ESO first, fallout on their stuff, 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? 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. See if these Call of Duty, Fallout, ESO, and while 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 GamePass 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 Consulate or PC. You pick which one you're in. Paris, you pick up where you were. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So picking right back up where it was, and I appreciate you having the slides ready to go there, Mike. 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 Asha's, you know, taking 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 games over the past 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, It's not making it about PC, not making it about cloud, making first and foremost, it's about that box that 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. See, I was going to put four. Two year exclusivity.

Like, but I do think that needs to be some exclusivity. 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 a 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 on 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 foremost. 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. I have a question for you. Yeah. How many slides do you have? Do you have a ton of time? I got like 20. Okay.

Okay. Because I think I want to let you cook, but I don't want to get in there and I want you to get involved. I think so far, me and Paris, the two things that 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, right? 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 Snowmike Mike's world. You make a good game, you get supported and encouraged. You make an incredible, successful game that we believe in. You get supported and encouraged.

I took away to me like Darthenol. Walking back and forth on the other side. Because as a good one. 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 and make a bad game.

Let's go back to the drawing more. 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. Do you want to jump in? You jump in. So I think, again, what I would come back to with this question and if we were going and having this discussion, which we are, right? You're in the same pool as me where how do we fix Xbox? And again, I want to be 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 AHA 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, what do you mean by get away from Microsoft? I think Microsoft.

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 good. I think, again, Phil Spencer leaving of his own accord, Sarah Bonn 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, and God, are we going to 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. Give that an actual marketing push, which we talked about in Games Daily this week, right? Sorry, I know, parents, I'm going to get to 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 their game past, So in your argument, you are, you want Asha Sharma to tell Satya and Adela, let us do our thing.

Cut us off. No, I mean, in my perfect world, we're getting away. Yeah, we're getting away from Xbox. Okay. Microsoft isn't in this AI fucking race to the bottom that they're in all this stuff. Okay. So there, because I think so many of the problems Xbox faces is the result of Microsoft saying, of course, you've got to do this.

You've got to do this. Of course. The one I'm hearing from, I think, all sides here, right? It's like, we are kind of like, very idealistic. We are idealizing. I don't want to, I don't want to it's all what you're saying, because I 100% agree with every single point you're making

Mike, but it also exists in a dream role and the shareholders go out. I don't give a fuck. Yeah, no, yeah, that episode is dream world. It's got to be a dream world, that's episode, or it's just going to be what it is right now. Back to my reality, I think that you are looking at the death of Xbox in the beginning of Microsoft gaming.

Paris, go ahead, hold on, Paris has been trying to get in it. No, no, in, to that time. Well, you were going, but you're going, and you're going to get the thing. Fine, fucking bless you go. Everybody each other. You go. Okay, I'll go.

and blessing please come right right after that oh man i shouldn't say that talk right after me um my point on what you're saying gregg obviously in this perfect world sure they could spin off or do something like that but remaining under the umbrella of microsoft this is where satia 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 able 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.

Sure. 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 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 to 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. Blessing. We've gone past it.

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, you know, Asha needs autonomy. I hope she has that. I hope that's the reality of it.

I hope that it isn't just, you know, 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 $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 Paris, you make great points about making the Xbox brand matter again, and the 25th anniversary in Fan Fest, and like, there's

a way to do that, but I don't know how you're able to get the 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 nonsense, and it's not, we're going to take an absolute fucking bath on that in terms of how much we're going to 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 got to be simplicity.

Here is the game pass option for whatever that is, Mike. Here is the console. You know what? You complimented the series S, which, of course, I loved my series S. I had that X screen for it. I used 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 going to gum things up, L.O.S. That's where I'll jump in and say, I look at the series S is 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'd 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 to families. And I think, 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.

These are only 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. That's what I heard a lot, Blessing, 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 witness, 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, it should be a way. We're 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? That's got to be a win 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 Troy Baker. And you bring back all the people pissed off about Lasso's party. You know what to be? Like, that's the way you get them back. You make it more traditional. You don't kill them off. Yeah, it's a different reality. In actuality, like, if now we're doing.

doing 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 going to 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. I like that you bring that up. Paris, they have a game. Yeah. Elder Scroll 6. Imagine if that was exclusive.

Yeah. When I bring that up, right, of like, when I talk about Starfield, particularly when we talked about the X-Cast, right, I said, this game needs to be a game of, of a generation, right? Because Xbox is right at the moment of they're going to let go of all the exclusives, and they're going to 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 in battle for timed exclusives. What kind of fun exclusives? Now, Blessing he brought up a great one. 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 thing. That was the exact example I was going to give because if I 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 let me get blessed in my let me get to bless the yeah no no my pushback against the time to exclusive thing right is you as Microsoft as Xbox you're the biggest publisher in the world as far as the amount of studios that you own right like I don't 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 have a big name as to what Andy's talking about as far as as coaching big talent, all this shit, right? Like, that's an

exciting one. But I look at the list of developers you have and go, you don't even need time to exclusives. You just got, you have, just make your first party games exclusive here. But they're not good enough. You and I talk about this. That's the problem is Xbox right now has been delivering seven and eights 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 Fizzint was coming to Xbox. We would all be having a different tune of going Oh shit. Like man, Kajima is bringing a stealth espionage game

to Microsoft and Xbox. That one I probably don't want to miss out on, right? 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 do think there's some give and take there.

I think the first party games right now, like Andy said, oh, HALA 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, right? And so I think you've got to start with third party getting those time exclusives. So this is where I'm going to disagree with you, Mike. And hell,

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 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 time to 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 in their studios and what they're doing with these games. Gears E-Day should be a must play. Fable should be a must play.

The next fallout should be a must play, right? So you have the IPs. You have the studios. 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 until it's on PlayStation, you're going to have to wait a year.

Or you're not going to play these things. I want to cut to ads. I'll come back to Annie. And the one comment I want to toss out, as you say, Greg's not going to stop playing the 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. The ecosystem. In the ecosystem. Everybody, of course, we wouldn't have an ecosystem here. Kind of funny. If you didn't support us with your kind of funny membership, we wouldn't have spirited discussions like this.

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If unwanted thoughts are taking over, don't wait to get help. Visit nocd.com and book a free call with their team. That's N-O-CD.com. and we're back in the delegation once again Rep, I'm sorry, once again, recognizes the representative from the RGV, Andy Cortez. It wasn't even like a really, it was just, what you were going to say.

You made a big deal about waving your hand over there. I mean, I just kind of raised it really quick. You kept saying, oh, pick me, pick me, pick me. I did hear you did say it like that. I was going to say, Drinker over there. I was going to say, Paris doesn't like timed exclusives as a fan of the games industry and as a fan of gaming.

Yeah. but we don't care about fans of gaming. We care about we want your money here now. 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 whole more consoles. Time to exclusives are the answer. Yeah. I'll go as far as I don't even think timed. I think just exclusives. And everybody keeps saying, when it comes up in general for the real conversation. I mean time.

I meant the third party exclusives. like the final panace. 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. My thing was four years. I would love to hear the pitches on which time exclusives you go after. I do think

I'd be at 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 as a trillion dollar company, we got money to play with, right? 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?

You're saying rock stars door? Are you saying GTA or are you saying another different rock? There's no. Yeah. Of course there's no way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can, if you were CEO blessed, you would knock on the door and send him an email. You shoot for the moon.

I think you shoot for the moon and I think that'd be a fucking maybe an exclusive skin. That'd be an insane thing. But also, yeah, I ask because I do think that there are, I think there are examples of bad third party exclusives that I've got. I think Tomb Raider. I don't know if Shadow of the Tomb Raider, was it, Rise of the Tomb Raider. That's the first one, yeah. I don't think Rise of the Tomb Raider helped them. That was a, that felt like a cluster fuck when they announced that when you look

online. I know what I'm talking about online. I think time's past. I think enough time has passed with the two-rader thing though. Like, yeah. We're in a different spot now with with the industry. 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. 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 brain 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. Isn't the compromise, well, I think the compromise to everything you're saying is, like Ninja Guide and 4 is a great example of this. Xbox published that. They help, 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 Nine 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 it from the Xbox store.

But it's one too, again, that they have. 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 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 got to change all this time. 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 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 Las Was, I think of a charted, maybe not in Chartered. 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 it, right? Our identity. Our identity needs to be Aldous Scrolls, Halo.

I'll say Banjo-Kazui, right, if you wanted to lean into kids. I think Call it Duty, Fallout, Doom, Forth of Horizon, lean into those. You took too long to take 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 it from Obsidian, whatever, even remake is exclusive and you can only get it here.

We own it. We're the best place to play and the 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 on the third party. I would push back just a little bit of like how they not supported those, right? Like those are the flagship titles that you just brought up, right? And I think over the past, what, five years now, we've seen Xbox on the Meta Critic 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 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 is we do this. It's like, all right, well, now I'm kind of handcuffed waiting on you.

And 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 subsidy and say, you've got to make this. And the people who said that are gone. And those people are gone. That is Microsoft going,

you were too nice, Phil, Sarah. That is not what we need. We need this. We would 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. We wouldn't be talking about Bethesil like this. 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 fall out four, which wasn't the lotted like everybody loves this and it's the best thing ever sort of video game.

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. We're like they're not even a like a safe bet. In terms of everybody loving the video game. They speak to a specific audience. You got games like Baldersgate 3 that pushed it forward. And now we compare these two.

We go, you don't got it like that, right? We look at Crimson Desert. We look at Dragons Dogma, games that are in this fantasy realm that are pushing certain features of the game forward. And you look at Bethes and go, you seem to be a little bit behind. And it's like, what do you need to get there, right? I think all those roles will get us back in, though. We all hope, right?

But I think they, like, I just think Starfield is too different of a game. 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 fucking dragons, all these things that you know are here.

But if we had, we had Mass Effect. And Mass Effect was a very similar thing. Let Paris get it. No, 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 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.

We can't be nice anymore. We've got to get results. And if until their own internal studios can deliver premier titles that Jeff Keely has in the game of the year conversation, Xbox is going to just be spinning their wheels no matter what they do. You've got to fix the games. Yeah. If happy employees can't make 10 out of 10 matches,

we're going to get the disgruntal ones to force them to work on. Pour your anger into the arts. Yeah. Like I think, obviously, there are so many complexities into how studios pick projects, the projects they want to do, and why you would give one studio project 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 find story. We're giving you a banjoozy 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. I mean, that is the fun conversation, right? 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 World's is great. Love that you did have vowed. No more.

You're making fallout. Have a good time, right? Hey, Tim Schaefer, you're making banjo. See if these teams, over at Rare, this is great, keep it going. You're making something else, right? We need a Viva Pignada right now. I don't 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? 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 life service game. That's, you know, a multiplayer game. People want. 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 or city and whoever they're making the next fallout and we're not hearing that 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 too right we don't know but let 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 fall. All right. You know, we trust you. We know you made 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 by turning and saying that that's great, but then how many years removed are you from getting the fruit from that tree? 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 than the baddest. And that means, well, guess what? Todd and 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 fix the state where you're at. 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

seven years to a decade or whatever on the gigantic game that is, you know, ever, it just goes forever, every mountain, all that shit in terms of, like, budgetary stuff. But, like, if you could also just come up with a fun game that has a story that fucking hits that makes people go, damn, I wish I could play that,

but I don't have that system. And that's the kind of exclusive that I think you need. Yeah. I think a clear obscure is a, that is the kind of thing 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 start off the generation with like multiple of those, whether it be a cane of Bridges spirits, whether it be a stray. Are these console sellers? No, but they were the talk of the town that used 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-Teng game being published by Xbox? 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 be seeking out. 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, hey, we've given up on that, right? In an ideal

world, yeah, we'd be rolling the dice at the table. Is it a roll of the dice, though? Or is that, like, a team that you build and you have the skill to be like, this is good. Three months before Expedition 33, no one knew that game was going to be amazing, right? Yeah, but like, there was more apprehension than when it came out at launch. It was like, this is the greatest game ever made. Like, at what point did PlayStation realize

Stray was going to be a good game? You know what I mean? Like, I think you have teams of people that go, hey, your job is to go out in the field and see what people are doing and make these things of people. 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.

Yeah. That is nowhere near Expedition 33. I mean, I'm not saying straight. Expeditions are 33. I know. I mean, the PlayStation should get stray the push, though, right? I can make that feel like that was a same strays, but it wouldn't be enough to chip away at the deficit that you're facing, right?

Sure. 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, five to one, seven to one on a deficit like that is to start taking games that people really want and love.

Sure. And then say, hey, come over here. 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 Rock a League, Rock a League, Roller Drome, Bug Snacks, fucking, seafood, like there's a long list of quality games

that they've been able to find to go oh yeah we're going to get that exclusive. Plants our flag on that. Planned our flag on that. And that is a team that is doing that in reaching out to these developers. Those are good. I just, on the flip side, I just don't think those are console sellers or make somebody drop everything. You know what I mean? Even if you got 50 of them,

it's 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 of like, hey, there are so many games here that Blessing and Greg on the place each side, they got to pay $20, $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. So do you keep Game Pass around and you're taking over the world? Yeah, 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 Consolander PC. I'd find a way to make a $20 and $10. Even if I'm losing money, I have to have this. as like, get involved, get on this. And I'd still make first party games, day and date with that. They would still be the game pass you know and love. And then?

I slightly disagree. Online would be dead. You would never pay for online on my console ever again. Ever again. Especially with Helix. That's being a dual boot system. I have the slide up there, or Baird if you want to bring it up.

Xbox Live, anything online is dead. You are not going to 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. And to your point, Mike, sorry, sorry, in any minute you, but with game pass,

first of all, I agree with you on the 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 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 to 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. 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 a 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 financially viable for us anymore. We can't support that unless we have a 35. a $40 tier.

No one's going to buy that or pay for that. And honestly, I think having something that sure, it's an option, it just doesn't look good. 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.

It's so interesting you bring that up because like day and date is the only seller for game. That's for me. If it's not the first party games, day and day 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've got to be included on that day and day. Do you think that is, what percentage of players do you think that is, right? I think it's higher than you think. Because I look at, again, I know I keep using my nephew as the example, right? But I looked at his mom and was like, hey, game pass is going to be the way, is going to be.

be how he can play so many games. And they don't care about day and date. These kids don't give a shit. 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? I feel like when you're saying the day and date thing, that speaks so much to the hardcore gamers,

which I know are a lot of us, right? But when we're making all these things of we're going to cut online, like don't pay for that, we're going to bring down the price. We're going to do X, Y, Z thing. Something's got to give. And I think that would have to be the thing of like, oh, yeah, 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 Haley, the new gears, whatever, and we're getting you game pass subscription service stuff. 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 engender like full-time permanent fan bases. Like, you are creating fans for life if you give them wins here and there. 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 of 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 just brings in money tenfold in the long-term. Like, those become long-term fans. It's a brand. Yeah, you know, Super Chat. 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. Oh, I have one of those. I'll show you in a little bit. The most important I think there, and that is what Mike already

brought 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 Blessings' 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, 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 XCloud. 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. Also, immediate win, you bring everybody to your fan base and to your platform. You put back paddles on the button on the standard controller. I mean, it will 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, is the next PlayStation controller? Is the next Xbox controller going to do that? It'll be interesting to see. Make it standardize it. I hope so. Yeah. That, 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, I have like three dead elites at home. And then the rubber starts peeling off. It's just give me the standard ass basic controller with the back panel. Mike, you got more slides you want to get through? 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 same thing. sea of negativity out there. There is 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. Yeah. Because when you bring up positivity and you see these people who are so passionate, but maybe they've been enshrouded in darkness and negative,

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 investing my money there, 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 going to 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 diehards

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. But one man out there always brings out the light. 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 campaign? And it's Major Nelson. So Mike, Mike, I have to tell you, I saw Larry at GDC, we had a conversation. He wants on the show. Larry Legend. He wants to be on. Yes, he wants to be on.

Anytime. You got to do the one-on-one with him, man. I would love that, Paris. 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 podcast and stuff like that. Hey, if you want a mouthpiece somebody you can trust and believe it, 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 putting it all down and go, okay, let me listen. Yeah, 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 love the idea of a team of three. Exactly. And then to younger people,

somebody in chat said that they could tell, they could tell Roger's silhouette from him all the way. 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, Bair it 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? Xbox One versus 100. Bring it back. 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

any game. 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 TeamSpeak. 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 achievements, 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 is, right? Of like, hey, 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 $10 little free bonus? It's a great idea, especially trying to win people back from these ecosystems.

Little $5 Best Buy Rewards Own card. I would love 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 and 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 of times, the young kids, 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. 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. 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. You see someone with an Xbox shirt,

you go, oh shit. And if it was turning it on and it was a major Nelson and Jeff Rubenstein, a Tina, I mean, 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 can be getting right now when 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 going to be that they've lost the PlayStation personality for me, Greg Miller, right? And so it is that idea of like, whether I'm looking at Steam, whether I'm

looking at Xbox, when 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. In PlayStation, of course, as always, has half-assed it, where it's

like, here's Shuh Hey Yoshita's like list of games. It's like, why aren't you actually doing that? Why isn't she an actual, like, back when he worked there, obviously, 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 too, which is why some people 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 arcadey 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. Final one, Baird, if you go to my final slide here, Of course, a lot of people have brought up, hey, I'm still missing that Activision backcompat titles on GamePass, right? Where is the Transformers, right? But I would even go a step further and go, hey, if we're going to 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 and an RTS world that should clearly be brought back. We have a heroes of the storm that can bring in mobile players and have some fun. We're seeing a huge pop right now in an Animal Crossing, Pocopia, Tomo, Dotson. life like bring in Viva Penaata Doritos crash course one versus one 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 I swear the last three slides of it's final slide where I bring up game

studios and CEO Snowbike Mike calls all right and I bring up playground games first script that I... Bam! Forza Horizon. Forza Horizon in Japan. Oh, it's already in Japan?

Oh, 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. I can see. You can hear the stock price driving.

Dropping. What's that? You said reindeer? Yeah, that's right. All eight of Sandus Rainier are now the most aggressive driver's on the track. Okay. Okay.

Oh, hold up. They were releasing Fable this year. Scrapped the North Pole. Let's go Fort Sarizon. Fantasyland. That's right. You ever thought about drifting in front of Cinderella's castle, taking it to the red line with Jonah Arc?

Yeah. Jonah? Jonah? Is that your name? Jonah? Playground games and bring you Forza fantasy. Oh, okay.

These are just games that I would go out and make. Okay. John O'n't know if Mark was a real person. You know, I wrote that. I didn't think that was going to be the last one you edited on. It was so strong. I thought you had like a, you know.

It was like the honorable mention slide of things that are going on there. I want to get you out of here, of course, because there's still more stuff. Mike's playing drain sim after this, which is exciting. We've talked a lot about this. We've gone a lot. There's been a lot of great stuff out there. B. Barr 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 a made-up award. 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 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, bottom warfare back and forth, right?

We do need to get back to the three-year cycle. I am always on board for like, call duty yearly is a must for me. It will stay yearly. But I want to give them more time. I want to get back to three. No, they already said. I thought they already said they were,

they're not doing that anymore. already said that. Yeah, they said that. Yeah. That, well, I don't, but I don't think they said they're not doing the. Yes, yeah. I'd just be 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 there still. Okay. The final subhead of here, I have Super Chats, and I called it, it's a lost cause, all right? Lasers Shark, or I guess it's, yeah, it's Laser Shark, uh, 47. Exclusives won't pull me from PlayStation. They're cooked.

But then Chaos Killer X-7 says, current gen gamers are to invest in current ecosystem. X-Box 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't 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. Yeah, we talked about the Keystone puck 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 calls. 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, I'm fortunate.

I have crazy internet and it does run well. And I can believe in it. But a lot of people don't have that. And like, that's still a five, 10-year window out of, like, cloud is here. Cloud can be that. Even, like, 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 the internet and everything.

But to piggyback off of that and to you, Greg, yeah, like, I think pulling down this conversation, I feel it as three pillars, right? It is exclusives. It is these IPs that we're talking about, right? Alder Scrolls, fallout, Halo, getting these back to being exclusive games. It is the services that Greg mentions, making game pass banger. And then it is the box, right? Like, if your competitors are putting out these $1,000 boxes, if Helix is going to be a

$1,000 thing, right? how do we get an Xbox series S-esque device to come out at a $500 but still play all these games that people care about? That way you're making it affordable. You're giving them the Aldo Scrolls exclusive game that people are going to show up for and you're giving them game pass that they're going to love. Right.

I think in a weird way, I think Xbox is kind of poised to hopefully give us a bangor next generation, but we shall see. If Microsoft. Let's see. Paris Final word. See, this goes back to the beginning of what you ask.

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. Well, I hope so, everybody. This has been a cathartic, kind of funny games cast. 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 programming day is far from over because this is a 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. 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.

Can't wait for this one, Greg. It's going to be a good one. This one actually surprisingly good. If you're watching this later or listening later on a podcast service, remember, of course, like, subscribe, share. Come to YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, where you can watch Mike play Drain Sim and do everything else. Include get a kind of funny membership to keep the lights and mics on.

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