Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Tim on ALL the Video Game News of 2026 (So Far) - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Click this link https://www.boot.dev?promo=KINDAFUNNY and use my code KINDAFUNNY to get 25% off your first payment for boot.dev. Thank you Boot.Dev for Sponsoring!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/KINDAFUNNYSign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/kindafunny Thank you for the support! Run of Show - 00:00:00 - Start00:03:00 - Topic of the Show: What’d I Miss?00:03:30 - What have you been playing00:07:30 -Do you think there's value in challenging each other's opinions?00:14:15 - Pokopia, Whats your thoughts? Did you play it? Do you like it?00:15:40 - Why is pokemon screwing things up?00:18:20 - Nintendo switch 2 boost mode00:20:52 - What is Nintendo doing?00:26:15 - Leaks, Nintendo bans, and remakes00:32:24 - Ad00:36:00 - Blue Point Studio shutting down00:38:59 - Thoughts on Sony00:42:52 - Hi res Portal00:43:50 - is Asha Sharma going to ruin Xbox?00:46:25 - AI buying all the ram up and creating the shortage What do you think the next 5 years is going to look like00:50:33 - Give us the optimistic take on the game industry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Go to boot.deb and use code Kind of Funny to get 25% off your first year on the annual plan. If I'm wanted thoughts are taking over, don't wait to get help. Visit NoCD.com to book a free call with their team. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash Kind of Funny. 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, and welcome to a very special Kind of Funny Timcast for Wednesday,

April 16, 2026. Of course, I'm your host, Tim Gettys, and I am going to cover all of the new stories you want me to talk about that I missed during my paternity leave this year in 2026. I was essentially gone for all of the year so far. I mean, maybe I was here for January, but I missed the tail end of January, all of February, all of March, and a little bit of that April there. So a lot has happened. A lot of studios have closed. A lot of bad decisions have been made. There's been some ups. not too much. I hope we find it in some of these. But I asked you to send in voicemails. We put out a phone number yesterday asking y'all to tell me what stories you want me to discuss, what things that have been going on are kind of funny. You want my input on. So we've gathered a bunch of those voicemails and we're going to go through them today. This is the kind of funny games cast. As you know, we do it each and every weekday live. And normally, I'm asking you for a bunch of super chats to help make the show happen, leave your thoughts, leave your comments. Today's going to have to have. have to be a slightly shorter show than normal because Greg Miller's doing something very, very cool that I don't think I can announce yet, but he's going to need the studio. So I need to kind of not get too crazy. So if you're going to super chat today, it's just because you're trying to support this face. You know what I mean? Maybe I'll get to it if I can, but we got a lot of voicemails and they're good. So I don't want to waste any time. Shout out to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney the Somme twining. And who knows, there might be enough

for me to do another episode like this. If there's interest, please let me know because I was watching on my couch in my bed. Anywhere I had the chance, I was listening to the boys talk about movies and games and everything. And I now understand what it's like to be you. The amount of times I'm sitting there listening to them, oh, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, and just being like,

I need to be involved in this conversation. I can't believe they're getting this wrong. I can't believe they don't know this. I can't believe they can identify this obscure Nintendo song from a game that only came. out in Japan in 1983. What I'm here for, and I'm back, baby. So let's get into it.

The topic of the show. Tats, tats, tats, tats, tats, tats, tats, tats. Weird when it's just one person. The topic of the show, what did I miss? What did I miss during my paternity leave? Kev, are you ready to bring up the first voicemail from Area Code 734? Yep. Justin from Michigan, longtime listener of Tad of Funny Games.

and I was just really personally curious about what games have you actually had the chance to play? No very busy with the baby. Congratulations, by the way. But I'm just curious why they actually had a chance to play and what have been some of your favorite games

so far this year? Bye. That's thank you so much for calling in, Justin. That's an excellent question and something that I also was sitting at home kind of itching to get a mic in front of me to be able to talk about because, man, this year's kind of been

really nice for me. A couple surprises, a couple known quantities have delivered. I going into the year wasn't sure how many games I was going to be able to play with Sammy on the way and then being here. So G and I kind of talked and were like, what is the

plan with me and games during my paternity leave? And the goal was that I would have time to play and review Resident Evil 9 Requiem. And that ended up being the case. That worked. I came to do the games cast and that was awesome. We then found a really good kind of rhythm

between Miji and Samira. that I got to play a lot more games than I kind of expected to. So I've been bouncing around a whole bunch of shit. Like around Resident Evil 9, I got so hyped about it that I ended up going back and playing like half of Resident Evil 2, like the whole police station section, and Resident Evil 4 remake,

just because I, you know, you understand why if you played 9, that all makes sense. But yeah, it was very into Resident Evil there. Then I also beat Chrono Trigger for the first time. in 20 years, I want to say, and my God, that game is a freaking classic. Like, I really can't wait for the day that they do a remake of it,

because more people need to experience that, that story and that world. And while the game holds up, I do think a remake would just make it more accessible to people in the sense of, like, them being interested. Because old game is old to a lot of people, but I will say the Steam version, I know that it dropped in like 2019 and was a disaster.

They have fixed every problem. It is the definitive way to play that game now. It's so, so good. What else was there? All right, new games. Pragmata, or Pragmata, just did the games cast review of that. Replaced was another one that I'm still working my way through now, but I really, really, really love it.

And I implore you to check it out yourselves. If you look at that game and think it's interesting, just know it's slow. It's a slow game, but just play it slow, live it slow. it's a great experience. You're going to love it, I think, I think. And then Screamer. Screamer is the one.

When we first saw it at state of play, whatever it was last year, I was like, all right, this super over the top, stylish anime inspired 90s racer, arcade racer. I'm like, all right, this looks cool,

it sounds cool, but is it actually going to be good? Wes and I were really hyped for it. And then when the codes came in, I got one, but I was kind of like, I'll have this for a rainy day. I don't know if I'm actually going

to give this thing a shot right now. And then Bless beat it and was slacking the team. It was just like, dude, the end of Screamer was a religious experience for me. And that's all I needed to know to be like, okay, this thing's about to deliver. And Boy, did it. I love Screamer. Like it is, right now I'm thinking about like my, my top 10 games of the year at the end of the year. We're only in April.

But like, in no order, like Resident Evil 9, Pragata, Screamer. They're all and replaced. They're all on my list. Like, for sure. I'll be very surprised if any of them get kicked out by the end of this. I think Pragmato would be the bottom of my list so far, but I really love that as well. So yeah, Screamer is so damn sick. It plays like no racer you've ever played before.

It's like a dual stick racer where you're like drifting with the right stick. And the moment it kind of clicks for you, it is so satisfying. And the story is so cool, so well presented. hype as fuck and bless was right it's a religious experience at the end amazing performances in that let's get to

the second voice mail from the 757 hey Tim this is Logan from Virginia the thing I wanted your opinion on is we saw this with Crimson Desert where reviewers review the game it comes out

audience maybe has a different reaction people are confused people are angry and personally I like having my opinion challenged because that gives me the opportunity to like discard the opinion or strengthen the opinion, whatever. And a thing I liked about the prognata review you guys did is you guys push back a little bit on each other, what you didn't like, what you did like. So I'm curious, Tim, do you think there's value in challenging each other's opinions or is it easier if we all just go, hey, it's all subjective? you know, there's no accounting for taste. There's a very interesting, nuanced conversation to have here.

I do think that at the top level, the answer is, like, reviews are opinions. That is the point of them. There is no objective review of something. It is somebody's thoughts on an experience that they had with content, media, product, whatever you want to call art, whatever you want to call it, right? And I think that as long as the reviewer is presenting what they are reviewing and how they are reviewing it, it's kind of on the recipient to either listen to that or not listen to it, and that's where they can get angry. Because if you say this is the parameters in which I am reviewing this, then it's like, all right, cool, it is that person's opinion.

Could you have critiques of someone's review? Absolutely. Because like some people could give bad reviews. and I don't mean bad as in giving a negative score. I mean, like, the way they present their opinion is bad. I've given many bad reviews. I'm sure I have. There's been a lot of times that I have been very aimless in my words and searching for things that I can't kind of pull.

I'm doing a bad job explaining the experience that I had. Like, that's a bad review. I don't really hold myself too accountable for that because what we do here is conversation. So it's not about having that perfect review. And I do think that we have the luxury being able to talk it out with each other. even if I didn't nail it on my first try, I'm able to then, on a Games Daily later, re-explain how I feel about a game or update my thoughts.

And it's to me more about the conversation than anything. Like, people get so up in arms and tribal about review scores. And like, cool, good for y'all. It's a little weird and it's a little crazy, I think. But I get it at the same time. Like, there's a reason that that all exists. And in terms of going back to us, like, with the Pragmatto Review, where I liked the game significantly more than,

Blessed Raj did. It's like, yeah, it is their opinions. I think they both did an excellent job of explaining why they felt the way they did about their experience, and I think I did a great job explaining why I felt the way I did. The question of do we

is there value in challenging each other's opinions? I think that there's a lot of nuance to that because I don't think that the, you'd think the obvious answer is yes. I don't think the obvious answer is yes, though. I don't think there's and just challenging to challenge. It's, I do think chemistry has a lot to do with it.

I think that knowing Roger, knowing blessed, being able to have the conversation that we did of where we're pushing, where we're disagreeing, all of that, that is the conversation. That is the content that we are making. And I feel like, yeah, with that, it's like there is value and challenging. But there's not value in proving someone wrong about what they think. And I even feel like the concept of, oh, a reviews better when there's dissenting opinions. It's like, I don't think that that's just the default, always the case answer. I do agree that a lot of times when you hear kind of pros and cons and different perspectives,

yes, it allows you as a consumer, I guess, to make up your mind about what you look for in something. But the reality is it's like, then you're just kind of doing a self-fulfilling prophecy thing of like trying to hear what you're trying to hear. And you can see people out that are going to do that. There's just no right answer with all of this stuff. I guess to me it's all entertainment. And I do think that there's levels to things where there are people that take their critical jobs incredibly seriously. And they are very editorially minded. And that's all that matters to them is reviewing every single aspect of this thing and like making sure that their review is art.

That they think of their review as a piece of work. And good for them. That's amazing. I don't think of it that way at all. I think that what we do here, we try to frame things like that sometimes, but I'm not reviewing things trying to inform the consumer. No, I'm a human being that likes things or doesn't like things. And I'm talking about that experience.

And if you tend to like the things or not like the things I do, that's awesome. Because at the end of the day, to me, I have the most fun consuming something that I love, talking about it with other people that love it, and then hopefully having more people love that thing and love it too. I'm not in this to debate like why I love this thing and and what, but it's bad. It's not as good as this other thing. It's like, cool. Is there a fun conversation there? I'm down to have it. But like I think replaced is a great example where it's like I was, I still haven't even beat it. But my experience so far with it, if I were to put a score, I was like, you know, critically, objectively, objectively from certain things that I'm looking for for what a game of

this level of budget and production and everything, what I'm looking for, it's kind of in that 7.7.5 range. Like, there's a lot to be designed. I feel like it's a nine, though. But if I say it's a nine, then people are out, Tim just overrates every game.

And it's like, that doesn't bother me because I'm like, if it's a nine to me as an experience, which so far it really is, I just feel like when I'm sitting here with other people and the three of us are reviewing it from one standpoint, I think it's important to kind of be in line. with that standpoint. And again, we talk about all this stuff. If you listen, you understand.

If you don't, you'll have things to be mad about. At the end of the day to me, it's about making, engaging content and the chemistry between the conversation. And is this worthwhile to listen to? I think a bigger problem with the like challenging different people's opinions and stuff in review form is it doesn't allow us to talk about spoilers. And I feel like if we're really going to talk about in a, we're arguing, there's a debate here. You need to be able to to talk about the entire experience and not have to like tiptoe around things because you're not trying to spoil that experience for the audience. Like if the review that you're doing is more of a informing consumers type thing, then I feel

like the room for challenging. It's like, it's not so much about that as much as it is about presenting an argument of why you feel the way you do. I was very rambly there. I think I made some sense. Let's get to the next one from the 301. Tim, welcome back. boy, it's the king, the baby blue.

We're glad to have you back, mate. Thank you. I'll keep short, I'll keep it simple. Pocopia, what's your thoughts? Did you play it? Do you like it? Let us know. Take care and welcome back.

The king has returned. Pocopia is the greatest way to say the name of that game. I've heard anyone say that. Pocopia is what I've heard of. I am not playing it. It is not my type of game. but I am thrilled that it seems like everybody really loves it. I love that this game is succeeding against all odds.

When it was first announced, the vibes were bad. Everyone was really, really down on it. And here we are seeing a game kind of come through, become a massive hit saleswise critically and kind of just within the community. Did it have the legs? Does it have the legs that an animal crossing New Horizons did? No, I don't think that needs to be the thing we're measuring against. I take this as an absolute win for Pokemon company and for Nintendo.

and for a switch to exclusive. So, yeah, an excellent, excellent game for them. And I had out my fantasy critic because I believed, your boy believed. And that was right. Next one from the 9113. Hey, Tim. Welcome back. Glad to have you back here.

It's great seeing you on content. Thing number one I want to hear your take on is Pokemon. Pokemon champions seems to be a dud. They've had issues with Pokemon Gale of Darkness there. Why are they screwing up so much? many things right now. I want to know your take. Appreciate it. Yeah, man. Pokemon. Why are they screwing things up? Because they're Pokemon. They're too big. And I don't want to say too big to fail because they failed many

times, many times. Many products have come out, didn't hit the mark or whatever. But the failures don't even hurt them because they win so often and so easily that they don't really need to worry too much. Now, I look at things like the gale of darkness issues that are now solved. You know, that wasn't a great thing. But I always, to see that as clearly a much lower priority for Nintendo, putting out a GameCube classic, whatever. Is that even Pokemon company's fault? I don't think so.

I think that was more on the, like, I mean, the Nintendo side of things, but again, they figured it out so it's fine. Pokemon champions, they announced it, what, a year ago, it's finally out now. This is going to be the way that competitive Pokemon is played going forward in tournaments and at Pokemon Worlds and all of that. They had to get that right because Pokemon World, is in a couple months.

It happens every year. So at a certain point, you got to just put the thing out and work with it. But I do think them dropping in April, them dropping it not on mobile yet. They're waiting for that. This very much is the early test beta

than they're figuring it out. Does that suck? Absolutely. Is that a good thing? No. Are competitive players pissed? Yes. Will this be fixed by worlds

and will everyone be happy? No. That's all I got for you. Like, I just feel like there's not a world where this could have been a success story. I feel like this is the type of thing that comes with people pointing at all the issues because there's just a lot of things that could have issues. And I do think it'll get better over time.

But I don't think it'll ever be perfect. And this is also a thing of like looking at GTA6 with it's online. Like prepare yourselves. There's like no way that there's not negative headlines. Even if it's amazing and making a lot of money and people are happy with it, there's still going to be so many things to be. be like, well, why is it takes along for this? And oh, man, there's this problem and I couldn't get in here. It's like, there's no solving certain things, even if you have more money than God in the

case of Rockstar and Pokemon Company. Are these excuses? No. Is this reality? Yes. Let's go to 832. Hey, Tim, it's Derek H from Texas. Welcome back. Grats on the baby and make sure you tell Gia that she's doing a good job. He is. The one story in the past couple months that made me think of you and wanting to hear your response on it was when Nintendo released the handheld boost mode for the Nintendo Switch 2, which makes Nintendo Switch 1 games run on the handheld at the specs they would on a regular on a TV. So, yeah, have there been any games that you've tried it with? Anything that looks cool.

Love to hear it. Maybe get some recommendations. Have a great day. Goodbye. I am obsessed with handheld boost. on the Switch 2, I was very bummed that it didn't exist to begin with when this console first launched, which for those that don't know, meant that playing Switch 1 games that weren't enhanced on Switch 2 or for Switch 2 with like a patch, they might run better performance-wise

in sense of frame rate, but they were locked to whatever their handheld resolution was when you were playing handheld on Switch 2. The Switch 2 has a 1080p screen, Switch 1 had 720p. So essentially you're playing a 720P game on a 1080p screen, which doesn't look that good, especially when the screen is so much bigger than it was on the Switch 1. But if you plugged your Switch 1 into the dock, your TV could play 1080P.

Now this boost mode allows you to essentially play TV mode on your Switch 2. So you're playing in 1080P with the performance boost and all of that. And it really is a godsend to games like Pokemon Sword and Shield that looked like a damn mess. on the Switch 2. So I've been very, very happy with this. Them just dropping it on like a random Tuesday. It's just so weird.

They're not even making that big of a deal about this. That's weird. We're in a new era of Nintendo, man. Like they are in a place right now where they're just doing shit. And it's interesting because the last time they were here was 2020 during the pandemic when they just announced Paper Mario

the Origami King on a random Tuesday on Twitter. And it was like, huh, that seems like a weird thing to do. but that was obviously a different time contextually with what was going on and expectations on a Nintendo Direct or all of that. Is this the type of news you put in the Nintendo Direct? No, not necessarily, but I do think that it is

a little weird how unceremonious this was because it's actually a very big deal. Yeah, let's move on to the 330. Hey, kind of funny. And Tim, welcome back as a dad of two. it only gets better from here. I need Tim to talk about Nintendo. What are they doing right now?

Where are the games? What's the plan for Switch 2 going into the future? This is kind of like a Wii U situation. They release the hardware, and I'm not seeing any games. You need to hear what Tim thinks about this. See you. So I love Nintendo, and I have my entire life. and I follow them as a fan of their games and with an intense interest in their business.

And I've been there through the ups and through the downs and there's been a lot of downs. There's been so many ups. And even when there's downs, there's still some ups. You look at the Wii U and I've said this so many times. The library of the Wii U has so many damn iconic classics on it. The hardware sucked. The idea of it didn't work. the gimmick of the tablet was never fulfilled.

And every attempt that they had at it couldn't match the perfection that was the Wii moat matching the gimmicks of the Wii games that used it. With where we're at now, the Switch being able to port all those games and kind of get credit for all the classic games that were on the Wii U.

And then now the Switch 2, some of them are getting Switch 2 editions. I think the biggest difference between where we're at, we're at from Wii U to switch to switch to switch two, it's the third party support. And I've been saying this for the last year, plus Nintendo needs to nail the third party support

and the switch two because that will be the difference maker for them. We know that they're going to continue to put out first party titles. They're no longer making games for the DS family systems and a console family systems. There was just one stream of games coming out at this point. They had to port all the things from Wii U to switch. Now we're running out. already of games that are going to get Switch 2 editions of Switch Native games.

I can imagine we get probably five more. There's no world where we don't get a Smash Ultimate Switch 2 edition. The fact that we haven't gotten a Switch 2 patch even for that game, I think, is evidence of that. But the fact that we got Mario Wonder already, the fact that we got Animal Crossing already, like we're running out of games that need that Switch 2 edition or even not need. Like Kirby and the Forgotten Line didn't need one. but it got a second chance at life at sales with forgotten land plus StarCrossed World that came out.

Mario Party, et cetera, et cetera, all those other ones. There's not that many left, so we're going to have that. We know we have a bunch of games coming. I know right now there's not a 3D Mario. I know right now there's not a brand new Zelda. I'm not concerned. Those things are going to happen. And I think they're going to happen.

It's not like we're talking about PlayStation where it's like, shit, man. When's the next naughty dog game going to hit? when's the next Sony Santa Monica game? Like it's going to be 10 years before we're playing this. It's like, no, we're going to be getting a bunch of stuff. And we might not get all of it. It has been many, many years since we got Super Mario Odyssey.

We did get Super Mario 3D World plus Bowser's Fury. Bowser's Fury was awesome. We got Donkey Kong Bonanza, something a little bit different from a portion of the same team that made Odyssey. Like, we got to just kind of look at this for the realities of it of like, you know, Nintendo's going to deliver. I'm just, I'm not concerned about that at all. The third party side is where I think they really dropped the ball, not supporting third party teams with the dev kits the way that they needed to

for the launch of the Switch 2. But here we are now. There are millions more Switch 2s out there. There's an install base that is substantial enough to entice the third parties to want to support. And we're seeing the evidence that if they put in the work, people will show up and the games can work beautifully. We have Final Fantasy 7 remake Integrate. It's awesome on the Switch 2.

Square is supporting. We have Rebirth on the way. Rebirth, mind you. A PS5 exclusive game. Remake was on PS4. So all eyes of me are on rebirth of can they make this game run well on the Switch 2.

My gut tells me they're going to pull it off. We look at Pragmata. We look at Resident Evil 9. This is the first era that we are getting Nintendo, the first era since the Super Nintendo, nah, sorry, GameCube to an extent that we are, Nintendo 64 didn't have it, but GameCube to an extent that we are

getting third party support day and date at the same time as the other consoles with versions of the game that that are good people like. And I've said this forever and people always doubt me, but I know that I'm right about it. The Switch audience is different than the other audiences. There are so many people that buy a Switch because they want Nintendo games. They want to play these other games, but they just can't. And that's why things like Hades have such success. Final Fantasy 7 remake is a perfect type of game that people that are Nintendo only

gamers hear about and are like, I will. would love to play that. And guess what? They are. Resident Evil, another example. We're going to start to see a lot more of that. I'm not worried about the switch to at all from a first party, third party, or otherwise perspective.

Comparing this to the Wii U. Silly. Hogwash. Move on to the 469. Hey, Tim, this is a big fan. Glad to have you back on the team again. I'm curious how you're feeling about kind of Kit and Krista really down on a Nathan hates leaking and kind of what you expect from like elite culture from Nintendo if you think

Nintendo's going to be a lot more, uh, ban happy and aggressive against leakers. And if you think Nate, um, they're going to be more on him. But hey, W for that leak because I can't wait for that new Starbox game. Glad to have you back. Have a good one. Uh, Kev, can you also play the one from five, seven, three? You know, Kev? Tim is me.

Welcome back. I have a question. for you. A lot of rumors around remakes over Nintendo, Star Fox, Legends of Zelda. What do you want to see? What are your thoughts? Full remake, remaster.

Because I'm going to be honest, in 64 games, you haven't aged that well. I think it made a lot of work. What do you want to see? Let me know, Tim. Bye! I love it. I wanted to kind of put together these two because they're kind of talking about the same

things from different angles. There's been a lot Nintendo leaks recently. Specifically, these ones from Nate the Hate that involve Star Fox, a new Star Fox classic style game that has very funny writing that will be announced in April this year on Nintendo Today or Twitter and come out in the summer and that a Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time remake is going to come out on the Switch 2 later this year. Those rumors were also aligned with release timings for Rhythm Houselieu. heaven and some other games and those things are coming true. Nate the Hate has a very, very good, not perfect, but very, very, very high hitting track

record with these type of things. So I believe this. I want to believe that these things are happening. A lot of that comes from the fact that I want these things very desperately. There's been another cavalcade of rumors that have been dropping as well, like left and right, about maybe a Super Metroid remake coming out later this year. In addition to that, a Metro Dread follow-up coming out. I think it was next year that they're talking about.

With Mercury steam working on those things. And then people are talking about Luigi's Mansion. People talk about Mario Maker. There is just the thing with League Culture right now, like go into the Kitt and Krista side of it. Kitt and Krista, friends of the show, love them. They're so awesome. I listen to their stuff all the time

because I really love their perspective on things. They worked in Nintendo for a very long time, on the marketing team. They understand the inner working. of that company in a way we all never will. They had to deal with things that none of us would want to deal with. The WNDs, you know what I mean? Guess what?

They have to deal with them too. And now that they're out, it's a different company. So their understandings of how things are now is coming from a place of extreme knowledge, but is also very different. It reminds me of us when we left IGN. We know how IGN works. We know it better than anybody. Well, the moment we left, it was a different company.

and we didn't know how it worked anymore. And we had an idea and we were, I'm sure, would get most of it right. But us leaving caused things to change at IGN. Perfect example. Us leaving was the breaking point of more people can be on camera at IGN. When back in the day it was like essentially a rule that if they weren't Naomi, Damon, or Greg or Altono, if you really, really, really try, it wasn't going to happen. And then all of a sudden it's like literally everybody is allowed to be on camera.

Those type of changes shift how things go. apply that to Nintendo, much bigger things. So I say all of that to get to Kit and Krista, specifically what they're talking about, not liking the leaks and thinking Nintendo's not going to leaks. Yeah, they're right. They're absolutely right. Nintendo is not going to like this at all.

Why would they like this? They don't gain anything from this. They want to control the message at all times. Then there's the conversation just about leak culture as a whole. And it's hard, man, because I love it. You know, I seek it out. want to know more when I hear about these things. I want to know the legitimacy. And even if it's not legitimate, I still want to talk about it. I want to talk about the, wouldn't it be cool if,

you know, or like all of it. Like there's so much fantasy booking, fantasy game creation that we that we have here. It was just like, wouldn't it be cool if? And oh my God, can you imagine I want that? Like, yeah, and that's kind of where rumors come from, right? Is that people want something. So they act like it's going to happen to excite people. I think that we're at a point where where the internet and social media and all of this is where you can't get away from it and that can be kind of tough because it's not fun that movies are spoiled for you before you see them. It's not just trailers ruining a movie.

It's like I know if I think that the leaks are accurate, it's like I know a lot more about Avengers Doomsday than I'd want to know going into that movie and being surprised and it will make it a lesser experience. When they announce these games, when we rate the showcase, we're going to be like, It was fine because we knew about it. This happened when Resident Evil 3 was leaked, the remake at the state of play.

We would have popped the fuck off. But otherwise, we were like, eh, it was a fine showcase. It was like, no, it was fucking awesome. Who gives a shit, though? It's a showcase. Is the game good? That's what matters. So I'm all over the place with this.

At the end of the day, it's like the reality we're in. And it does kind of take the wind out of the sales of how exciting some of my favorite things could be, which are reacting to an Nintendo direction, being genuinely surprised about something happening that I'm incredibly excited about. But I'm incredibly excited about these games. I'm going really long on this right now. I need to throw to an ad. So I'm going to do that right now.

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that's Shopify.com slash kind of funny. And the one thing I don't want to get too far into there is the Star Fox and Zelda stuff. Like we're doing another Nintendo show tomorrow on Gamescast. I'm sure that stuff will come up. I have endless things to say. I can't believe Star Fox might be coming back. I'm hopeful.

I'm very hopeful. We'll see. But let's get to someone from the 7-5, Mr. Tim Gettys, happy to hear you back on the KF mini shows that they have. So much, so much news that's your father now. I would say one to look into is the Blue Point studio shutting down, especially with the news of the Bloodbourne remake, like your thoughts on that. Appreciate you, man.

Love everything you do. Thank you very much for that. Yeah, man, Blue Point shutting down. Definitely one of the biggest bummer news stories that happened while I was gone. I honestly can't believe it. Like, it's such a shocking thing where it's like, you know, hindsight, you look at it. It goes, well, no one's safe. So, like, yes, I can't believe it.

Literally nobody is safe. But, man, the Blue Point One in particular is such a bummer because I feel like they are one of the rare teams that, Every time there was a showcase, whether it was a PlayStation-specific one or a Keeley event, we would always be like, is this going to be the one where BluPoint announces their next project? Like BluPoint have earned such a place in the industry that we look forward to them with expectations, that the thing's going to be awesome and worthwhile. And where they're at currently reminds me a lot of like Grezo on the on the Nintendo side, where they would do a lot of different ports of games.

They did the, you know, Aquarine of Time, like, remake on the 3DS. And then they did Link's Awakening. And then they ended up in that amazing style and ended up doing Echoes of Wisdom, a brand new game. And I feel like BluPoint after the Uncharted remasters and then, you know, Demon Souls,

the Shadow of the Colossus, like these major success stories in remakes. Like, we were waiting, like, what is their next thing going to be? be is it a remake is it a original prod like original content for bloodborn there was so much potential a castelvania metal your solid one like think about everything i just said those are all so exciting and for a decade to pass it felt like of us talking about what are they going to do next what are they going to do and then for it to just not happen and then to be closed it's so ridiculously upsetting

And then to hear it's like, oh, they were working on a multiplayer god of war game. Man, come the fuck on. What are we talking about here? Like that is, it's so, so sad, so much talent's gone. And I think that a huge hole in PlayStation's library is going to exist forever at this point. They had something special there and they don't anymore. And you can't just replace that. Like what Blue Point earned is irreplaceable.

So incredibly. upsetting news. Let's get to the 252. Hey there, it's then. This is Zach from North Carolina. Hope you're doing well. I guess I was just curious. What are your thoughts on Sony at this point in time? I'm not sure if you've touched on this at some other point on kind of funny here recently,

but, you know, what are your thoughts on, like, them closing Blue Point and, you know, just their current scope in the gaming landscape? Thanks for doing this. You know, PlayStation Man, like it's, they're in a very tough spot right now where I kind of feel like they're in a dry spell for their releases. But I'm not really mad at it. Like I'm getting a lot of use out of my PlayStation 5. And sure, I wish that I was getting sequels to my favorite franchises more consistently and had more PlayStation first party games to play. But I really do feel like when I look at the games coming out,

If you are just playing on a PS5, you're sitting real pretty. If you're playing on a bunch of different consoles, then yeah, I do think the PlayStation offering is less than stellar. Like I look at last year, and it was definitely my least played console that I consider myself an active player on, which at this point would be switch to PC and PlayStation.

So I, because at this point, any Xbox game I'm playing on PC, period. if not PlayStation, depending on the timing of it all. One thing I will say is for as much as I am trying to be full PC gamer, like I have a dope PC now, I have an amazing setup.

I figured out most of the quirks that I could have possibly had issues with in terms of being able to play on the go on my Steam deck, via remote play upstairs, on my TV downstairs, on my computer, like all that stuff. It's incredibly technically challenging,

like PC gaming is. I figured it all. out and despite that, it works beautifully and despite that, I still find myself preferring the PlayStation 5 experience. It just works in a way that PC gaming, even if it works, it doesn't quite work the same. Little tiny things like the dual sense. The PC supports dual sense and the PC claims it supports dual sense the same way that PS5 does. Telling you from direct experience, it does not. And I love the dual sense. It's my favorite controller and I love the way that both Sony and third parties use it

and I played Resident Evil 9 on my PS5 and I played a lot of it on my PC after and the PC looked significantly better than my PS5 Pro. I'm in a very lucky position that I have that type of hardware but it felt better to play on the PS5 because

of that dual sense because of the just the tech in it and how the PS5 used it. 3D sound for some reason on the PS5 the Dolby Atmos sounds mixed better than it does on my PC. It's the same thing.

Same speakers. Same everything. I know the settings are right. So I don't know. There's just little things like that that I'm like, I keep finding myself going back to the PlayStation 5 because it just works the way I need it to. I'm surprised by that. But yeah, in terms of the games, it's like I do think right now a lot of it is more third party support. Can't wait for Wolverine. Can't wait for Soros. Like there's really good shit coming out.

But yeah, I do think that they're pushing. towards live service really fucking fucked them and we're seeing that we all called it we all knew what was going to happen and here we are in the slump but still it's a slump that I would still call better than many many years of video games we've had in the past so

let's get uh I'm not gonna do the voicemail for this just be I want to get to the point here because I want to get to some other topics but someone wrote in talking about the PlayStation portal and talking about being able to stream your entire cloud service dude the PlayStation Portal is another example like Nintendo doing the

upgraded hardware boost thing. It's incredible how many firmware updates have had substantial changes and fixes and improvements to the PlayStation Portal. I recommended the portal when it first came out with some caveats. I now recommend the portal wholeheartedly hands down. This thing's awesome. Then adding the new high-res 1080P, it looks so much better than the portal used to look and the portal

already looked really good. I still wish it was an OLED screen. love that the dual sense functions the way that it should and going back to what I was just saying for that last call DPS5 portal combo it just works it works in a way that remote play otherwise even though it's technically better has more issues consistently let's go to the 203

Tim the thing that you need to give your take on and you know don't let anyone tell you otherwise is is Asha Sharma going to ruin Xbox? I bet no one has asked that question yet. Obviously the Xbox situation is probably the biggest new story that I missed while I was gone overall. I've been talking about it here and there on Games Daily, so I don't think I need to get fully into the whole Xbox situation. But I do want to answer the question of, is Asha Sharma going to ruin Xbox?

And I definitively think the answer is no. I think that Xbox has already been ruined. The question is, can Asha Sharma unruin it? And it's too early for me to place bets. And I think it's silly. Right now, she's saying all the right things. At the very least, most of the right things. Is she saying too much?

Probably, if she said any less, would it be too little? Probably, we're at a tough point. We're just going to have to kind of wait and see what happens. I do think that the reality is we need to start putting parameters around the conversation about fixing Xbox because the reality is I don't see a world in which Xbox is competing for number one against PlayStation. The question for me is like can Xbox find a place for itself that they consider a success and that consumers look at and consider a success because that would be fixing Xbox and at a certain point you don't even need to

have the conversation about who's winning the console war. They lost the console war, just period. It's the silly thing that doesn't matter, though. PlayStation is winning. They see themselves as winning. Nintendo is winning. They see themselves as winning. Xbox doesn't see themselves as winning. They see themselves as losing.

And that's the thing that I think that they need to fix. And that I overall am, I mean, I'm at the very least interested in seeing how this all goes. But there's a bunch of clear problems. We know that. Can they address those problems? I'm not sure the answer is yes to all of them, but I think that we've done exercises and have found answers to most of them.

And I think it all comes back to the games at the end of the day, and there's a potential lineup here. It really hit. There's a lot of words there that are hypotheticals. Let's get to the 7-20. Hello, my name is Sean. I'm from Colorado. I hope we're doing well.

But my question is, I think you may have touched on this before, but with AI buying all the RAM up and creating the shortage, what do you think the next five years is going to look like, especially with new consoles, including the Steam Machine and PCs for that matter? Is it going to be just nothing? Or are we going to just going to have to put a lot more money into things? This was horrible.

I'm sorry, I might redo this. The question remains. What does it seeming look like in the next five years with the AI shortage creating the RAM shortage? Oh, boy, I'm sorry. This was awful. You did great. You did great, Sean.

That's very funny. It's going to be expensive. That's the answer. It is going to price a lot of people out. There's no way around it. I feel like it's going to cost somebody something. It's either going to be companies having to take a massive hit on selling their products or putting that on the consumers.

And I think that more often than not, it's going to be on the consumers. It's concerning, obviously. The stats continue to show that the poor gamers out there, the people spending money on games, are the people with, guess what, money. It is the higher earners that are indulging and putting the most money into this industry at this point. And that is a situation that potentially will not,

grow the gaming industry. And it's scary when what happens when those people don't have money? You know, I feel like we're just at a point that things are just getting more and more and more expensive. And not only is there no sign of change in sight, like there's a sign of change negatively. Like it's, I really look at this RAM situation. And I think about the steam machine. I'm just like, they're still saying it's coming out this year, but I'm like, is it really, though? And like when you look at things like the steam deck even, and like it's hard to get them because of the effects of all of this, it's,

At a certain point, we have all these different teams that care passionately about video games and their survival and sustainability and entertaining people and all of the viability as a product that care about that stuff so much. But if the same components that power those video games are making more money somewhere else and there can only be a finite number of the thing created and made, gaming's going to take the hit. because while gaming is one of the biggest earners and all of that stuff, it's like, well, it's also one of the costliest things to produce products for. And with where we're at right now, it's just getting harder and harder to kind of find ways to make the numbers go up. And that's all the stockholders want. So, yeah, I'm pretty, I'm pretty down on this overall. Like, I don't think it's going to get better.

I do think things are just going to continue to be expensive. And that's why I, um, the only hope I have is that. And I want to be clear. I'm not saying this all the way of like every single element of the AI stuff that's going on. But I am hopeful that the AI stuff that we have seen so much advancement on in the last couple years with things like frame generation and other tech like that, that will allow games to run on cheaper hardware and allow us to have console cycles that last a little bit longer so that the PS are a lot longer even or even forever to some extent. Ah, it's going to be tough. All right.

I'm running out of time here, so I want to see which one should I get to. Let's do this. Directly counterpoint to what I just said. Let's go to 951. Tim, welcome back. It's good to have you. Back from attorney leave, Hope all is well with you and your family. Give us the optimistic take on the game industry right now.

I'm very aware of how not great it is right now. And I think that we need a little bit of hope. I think we need a little bit of optimism of what we can expect, good things that happen in the gaming industry of. Are there any new studios that are going to be exciting? Are there any new, you know, games that hopefully will pave the way for goodness? Please give us hope. Thanks, then.

Bye. I mean, my optimistic take is we are in an era that there's never been a better time to be a gamer. And I mean that genuinely and enthusiastically. There are more ways to play games. there are more games to play. There are more iconic classics to go back to that you might not have played before. There are more remakes of those classics that give a new coat of paint to something that you might have loved. There are new indie games coming out by the dozens every single day.

And there are too many games to play that we love. This week is a great example. How many reviews did we have on the games cast? So many. For games that are every shape and size, every level of quality, some of them, I think most of them, had split thoughts on the panels we had. It kind of funny. Like, there are games for everybody out there.

There are so many deals for people out there. There are things like GamePass that allow you to dabble with a bunch of games and see what's up. Steam's been more popular than ever. And offering hardware is going to get even more people into that ecosystem, which allows for incredible deals. We have sales left and right on Steam that allow people to jump in, maybe buy a bundle of every single game in a franchise where you never played Resident Evil. You played nine.

Well, guess what? you have nine plus games to go back to an experience for the first time. And it's not all just old stuff. When I look at new stuff, it's, I've been doing this for so damn long that I remember, even not being in the industry, but being a kid following the industry,

playing on N64. And we're talking about a console that we look back now with such reverence as having the best games of all time and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The story then was, where are the games? There's nothing on the N64. Oh, my God.

There was a drought for six months before another title came out, whatever. And that was the freaking truth. But we're able to look back at it and be like, all right, but classic, classic, classic, we don't have to feel that kind of drought. We're at a point now that we're talking about the PS5 having a drought. Like, are you serious? There's 100 amazing games that are going to come out in 2026 on the PlayStation 5. They might not all be from PlayStation, but that's more games than the N64 has in total in its library.

That's not exactly true. but it's not that much of an exaggeration. We're in a good spot, everybody. Enjoy video games. There's cool ones out there. Thank you for being a part of this show. Like I said, have to cut this one just a little bit short. Had a great time doing this, though.

I know there's a lot more news and kind of topics that have come up in video games this year that you probably want to hear me yap about. And if that's true, let me know. Maybe we'll do a follow up to this episode. Or if not, I'm sure I'll touch on a lot of the things as we go on in the future. tomorrow's games guest is going to be how to fix Nintendo. I need to put some thought into that. I want to come up with some good things.

But anyways, I love you all. Thanks for hanging out. Goodbye.