Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - WTF Will the Games Industry Look Like in 5 Years? - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

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Here we go. Someone's already claiming this is our year. Someone else said that last year too. A round of Jameson, Ginger, and Lime arrives at a table. Smooth enough for kickoff, smooth enough for extra time. New friends pulling up a stool. Debates about whether that was a handball. Cheers rising like a roar around the room.

Because match days are about the shared moments. How did Jameson to your match day lineup? Jameson, it's what you bring. Please enjoy our products responsibly. If you want a $3,000 a month payday for life, what would you feel free to do? Maybe take a long weekend, every weekend, or try a bunch of new hobbies. Would you feel free to upgrade and listen ad-free? Don't worry, we get it.

Every $20 ticket could win you $3,000 a month for life and supports life-saving cancer research at the Princess Margaret. Feel free to buy your payday for life ticket today. Raffle number 155-214. Please play responsibly. It's kind of funny's Patreon Pledge, support us at patreon.com slash kind of funny. We really appreciate it. What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Thursday, July 9th, 2026. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside looking for games, Lucy James. Hey, how are you?

I'm good. I didn't, I forgot. I complimented you IRL, but I didn't compliment you on Games daily yesterday. So I'll compliment you on Games cast today. The haircut's great. Thank you. Yeah, I, uh, I, I, uh, really like it. It's so much easier to style. I bet. I don't have to do anything. Sure, sure. And over there, the master of hair, it's Andy Cortez. Can you cut up, man? I wish I had a more blue sweatshers. Yeah. Lucy and I would be like the inverse. Yeah. Yeah. We'd be the in, you know what I mean? Yeah. Andy, how would look like we're part of Team Rocket or something? How would you like to answer the

criticisms? Lofted. Shot your way by one Lucy James yesterday of how you eat cookies at preview events. It was an objective. No hands. And also, I can't talk with someone with a neck my length. Sure, sure. Like, I appreciate that's what you called out on Games Daily about how Andy ate the cookies at the blood of Don Walker. The blood of Don Walker.

Remember Don Walker. Mm-hmm. But not the, not the Dawn Walker. Well, that's what I was screwing up. I wasn't calling Cohen by his God-given name, Dawn, AKA, Don Walker, Walker. Dawn Walker, Texas Ranger. That's how you ate. right there.

Yep. While these people are to tell, here. The embargo details are. Crumble, crumple. Is that, is that man over there? I didn't want the hands to touch the face. Yeah.

You know, I don't want to come back here and end up having to miss a week and a half. Appreciate that. I mean, you know with me, though, I take antibiotics. I'm back in three days. Sure, sure, sure. I'm back in three. Yeah. I don't like this comp and narrative.

I don't like this. Nick started. I can't stop it. I mean, I wish I could put my foot down But there's been a lot of comp day narratives Of happening, Lucy I don't know if you know we've been sending Andy On nonstop international trips

And so then whenever he comes back And takes a comp day Nick's like, why is he? Where isn't 80? But it's also just like Nick not really known What happens here? Yeah And Nick was in the stream room with Roger One time he was like, what's up with Andy

And all these comp days? Like he's like a funny way to talk shit A reason to talk shit, right? And then he's doing my expects report He's like, damn, you were gone lot, man. Like, yeah. Yeah. That's, like, why would you?

But it just doesn't matter to Nick because it's just whatever, you know, he doesn't know what's going on. Do you guys do not have like a daily stand up or something? We do a weekly. We do a week. I like that. Then you're not, you know. Yeah, but I mean, Nick would have to pay attention. Nick would have to be there.

People would have to, the streaming guys wouldn't have to change the fucking game for before we actually get to the day. Yeah, one day, Lucy, Nick ended up. Now it's an airing of grievances. Nick ended up calling in he called Greg texted Greg I thought about telling the story to Lucy I'm at the Lego Batman

event preview event down in L.A Tim was off as well still in paternity leave I think maybe at that point his pandemic yeah yeah and Nick we like it was the day after the weekly meeting where we went through the next week of we you got in the weekly meeting what should happen is you find

we recap what's going to end the week then here's the full run of next week's content this is everything we're actually doing And then you look ahead one week of like, here's like we're noodling for headlines and what's going on, things to pay attention to. So the day after we did that. So the most fresh locked in information. I'm at this Lego event. I sent Nick out of the blue text me.

And he's just like, hey man, this doctor's appointment ran longer than I think it is. So if you guys don't need me in the office, I'm like, I'm in L.A. There are no adults at the office. All these like, never mind. I'm already at the office. Yeah, he said, never mind. I'm at work today. I got it here

Everything's A-OK Just like everything's A-OK In the video game industry Not really Of course we're to talk about that Because this is the kind of funny games cast Each and every weekday We come together to talk about the biggest topics

In gaming whether they be previews, reviews Or just things we need to talk about Of course we usually do it live on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games Twitch.tvs slash kind of funny games And podcast services around the globe But of course we have Lucy in Four games daily on Wednesday

There's a million things going on We're pre-recording this one. But of course, you had a chance to be part of the show, just like you usually can when you super chat over on Patreon. I like to use their little quip feature, which is their in-house social media thing. And so I put up a question there about what the fuck will the video game industry look like in five years and plenty of kind of funny best friends wrote in over there,

just like you can for free if you follow our Patreon account and use quips like I do. Remember, we wouldn't be here without our Patreon producers. So thank you, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, Delaney the Sompatting, and Lax Nomad. For now, Let's begin with what is and forever will be topic of the show. What the fuck will the games industry look like in five years? Believe it or not, everybody, kind of funny, he's been around 11 years. So it was shocking the other year when a time capsule we did in 2015 of what will games look like in 10 years.

The subreddit was like, hey, this is due. And we got to go through and listen to what me, Tim and Colin said about what it would look like. And then actually see how it paid off. As we are here, in a pre-recording, so God only knows what's happening on Games Daily Thursday morning in terms of what horrible things. Obviously, it's just gone through. Yeah. It could all be over. Xbox and these gigantic layoffs, of course, 3200 this fiscal year, 1600 already done.

We saw yesterday a vow to cancel or at least a skeleton crew put on it so they can keep working on it case they ever need it. And instead we're getting a fucking fallout from a Bensidian, them doubling down, massive layoffs, 150-some id, infoogian. gone, 50 some obsidian people gone. I'm just talking about the most recent Xbox stuff. Never mind PlayStation saying they're no longer doing physical. Never mind Valve saying we're making a steam machine. Oh shit. Ram costs a

gazillion dollars. So this isn't what we want. Then you got a Raga, you got the crisis and then you got a PlayStation 6. Nobody knows what's. And so I thought, rather than come out here Lucy and say what's going to happen in 10 years, because in reality we don't know what's happening in six months.

Let's set it a little bit easier and go, what will happen what the fuck will the games industry look like in five years which of course would be 2031 if you can believe that. Old digital I feel like it's an easy one to begin with. All digital. All digital. I think the I mean it all depends on what happens with the elephant in the room of AI. Sure.

It all depends on whether all those investments actually come to fruition and whether all these companies go, oh, actually it's not really making us money like we thought it would. It's not making us these gigantic amounts of money. Let's pull back. And if that happens, then hardware prices would go down a bit. I mean, not five years counting for inflation. Who knows, right? The argument right now.

Gassing up, you know, it'll be $120 from my. If you're watching in 2013, the argument right now on July 8th, 2026, as AI continues to be, this is the trend in the market we're running for. I'm sorry for opening LinkedIn there, but I did see something about AI. Oh, it's already, it's already refreshed. It was about like Ford already scaling back on AI because of it turns out that AI is not good. Yeah. So the argument that's being kicked around right now, of course, is that AI, AI, of course, is a bubble. There's no way to make as much money out of this as people think.

It's the trend that all the shareholders and stockholders are running through. Somebody's trying to find gold, yada, yada. What I've heard in fall in line with is that even if the bubble, quote, unquote, bursts, you're going to see that account for 30 to 40% of the people trying to get into AI move away from it, which still leaves 70 to 60 ready to fucking go on it. So to your point about in five years have components in memory and RAM come down, thank you you pray yes

but even if they did what the argument right now is they'll never go back to what they want Oh I don't yeah totally agree because they've shown

that they can charge more and they will continue to charge more and then their profit margin will increase yeah totally agree but as far as hardware goes and as far as game budgets go I would I mentioned on games

the other day loose that like if today Sony were trying to to green light a new Spider-Man game. They would never Greenlight Spider-Man 2 for what it cost back in the day.

The 200, whatever million. No, especially considering Marvel's cut. No. Yeah. Like, so I think that we will start to see smaller, closer to double A, maybe 2.5a, 2.5DA,

games being made. I think that the budgets will likely be you know, maybe as low as half of what we've seen these massive AAA games being made for as the country gets more expensive to live in and as employees need to pay for, you know, housing and things like that.

And everything just gets more and more expensive. I think budgets will go down for what these games are, what they're allocating for game development. And we will start to see smaller experiences at a faster clip for less money and developers

all around the country will struggle to get employed and will likely look for other ways to make money smaller teams um you know

indie squads whatever it may be I just don't I think the land of AAA will stay the same when it comes to call of duty when it comes to FIFA

Madden all that shit anything else we will start to see just, it's going to look like a different world out there. And it's also going to move to China, Korea. Yes. It's going to move over. It already has been.

As I said, I wrote a quip up there on Patreon. So many people chimed in with their, what they want to talk about, their takes talk on. I want to piggyback off something you're saying that I do think is feasible and is you'd hope the future

if we're going the same way. You're talking about like they'd never put as much into Spider-Man today as they would back then. I also think it's about getting as much a juice out of the orange as possible. Shiv wrote in with a longer post that I'm sure I'll go back to. I hope so. From my Shiv. Yeah.

Excuse me, Shiv. I don't know if that's a capricious bag, Greg. That's a good one. Thank you. It's the only one I can do. Shiv wrote in with several bullet points, but overall, I'll read you the top portion here, okay? And then I'll go to the bullet point that talks about we're saying. I'm going to be hopeful for this one.

Right now we're in the shit. And I agree with Greg that it's going to get worse for a, while now as the industry as a whole pays for companies chasing trends and forcing AI down our throats. But I think in five years the industry will be rising out of the ashes. Parentheses, like a Phoenix, but I don't want to be corny.

Multiple bullet points, but I like this bullet point to your point, Andy. I'm hopeful the industry moved towards the PS3 slash 360 gen mindset of games, where sequels and trilogies are iterative and reuse assets to keep the look of the game for a while and not take eight years because

we'd rather have more games than more than more revolutionizing. I think that's a really, we talk all the time, especially right now in, if you're in the future, 2026 July, getting ready for GTA 6. And when you go back and talk about GTA and how long it's been since GTA 5 and the space between 4 and 5, and then you get to GTA 3, GTA Vice City,

GTA San Andreas, here are industry slash entertainment medium defining games that are coming out back to back. I just add a clip where you're like, I played all of them through. college. You know what I mean? Like a four-year period. It's like, what the hell? That's amazing of how that's going. And so when you jump into this conversation,

I do think there's a lot of smart money there. Again, what I always talk about is making these games with realistic budgets in mind. We're not going for the 30% ROI. We're going for a 5%. And then keeping the team together to iterate on the next

thing and the next thing. Your Final Fantasy 7 remake. Exactly. You're uncharted, being 50 million. Uncharted. to Uncharted 3, right? Like learning from this and keeping his team together to make games at a faster clip. As this industry currently

is in recede mode, we are running back from pushing the boundaries and thinking there's so much money in this and we continue to see horrible things happen. Like all these layoffs at Xbox, everything you're seeing at PlayStation with studios being shut down. This is going to continue to happen as evident by the fact that we're halfway

through the Xbox layoffs, God knows where we'll be by the end of fiscal year. I do think again, as I've said on many shows, but to boil it down to this argument, you have to come back and take care of that core. And I think that core audience is going to be stoked to play 10 to 20-hour campaigns or whatever we're doing and then get another game in that lineage in two, three years

rather than wait forever. Now, on the flip side of that, when we talk about, you know, I always just go back to that one Matt Piscuitella article about, about the 18% of gamers that are the only ones that buy more than two games a year. Isn't it 16%? 16, something like that?

Yeah. Fuck, who knows? No one listens to Matt. And not only do, I think that we'll see more and more of those smaller budget games with smaller experiences and smaller timelines, shorter timelines. But I think that there's, as much as capitalism loves making money and overcharging for things, I think there really is something to say about Mario Kart World being put out for 80. and Nintendo not really looking at an $80 title since.

It seems like Pokemon, wind and waves might hit that 80, but it's so fascinating to me that, like, that was the experiment. And that was the guinea pig. And it underwhelmed a lot of people who played it. And also, you know, it just didn't seem to be like the hit that it was going to be. And I think nowadays, again, like I mentioned at the start of this, we know these people love overcharging for shit, but there's something about looking at Silk Song for $20.

I'm not saying they don't ever go down to $20, but I think I see a lot more $50 or $60 experiences being like kind of what the norm could be for these smaller experiences, as opposed to we made a 10 to 15-hour journey. We're still charging $70 or $80 for it. I think there's something, you know, you want people to buy more of things and people look at that $80, $70 price. And that's, like, extremely daunting for people who are struggling right now in the world where,

you know, everything is crazy expensive. And so I think there's something there. And there's market research there for like, if this game sold for, you know, I think about Yacht Club saying if we sold Meena the Hollower for $30, bucks, I think we sell a lot less than we do than us selling it at 20. Yeah. And I think that all that just kind of makes sense. You know, they talk about like how a $5.99 game is $5.99 game is $10.

You're talking the acro crab. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I totally agree with that shit. Like a $2599 game is still $20 to a lot of people. And, you know, I think a lot of people will sort of take. lessons from how many successes people have seen on Steam with these random breakouts you know oh for sure to jump back Sir Kana of course always talking about this this is from their report back in October 24 all hail the Super

gamers accounting for 16% of total US gamers and growing from 36 million in 2022 to 38.3 millions today the Super gamers are the industry's most valuable consumers this gamer segment mostly made up of young males from the ages of 13 to 34 plays heavily across multiple platform and spend significant amounts of money on gaming. And that's what we're talking about it, right? And everybody else are one, maybe two games a year. Black hole game.

And they will be gun and ball gamers. Yeah. You know, let's play the, let's play Fortnite for free. And it's unfortunately, it's conditioned a lot of people to expect free your experiences. And, you know, not to say that that's wrong, but it's like, I look at my I give my my consoles to my nephew

and I'm and I sometimes I'm just like Aaron do you ever just like buy him a game like he's like no he's just always playing Fortnite he's playing the rivales we talk so much about right yeah yeah my my physical isn't black hole game

yeah I quite like Roblox yeah yeah I mean for reading from that same report right they're talking about Gen Alpha is less engaged than you might think children age 2 to 12 had the most significant decline of any age group down 6% since 2022. On the other hand, while the average video game spending for teens and young adults is down slightly,

these young players remain the industry's most valuable age group in terms of all time and money spent. But of course, when they're coming into playing something free to play or finding their forever game, Black Hole from Matt Piscitella, that's a problem. Let's jump off of that, okay? Ian Johnston wrote in, made this prediction for five years. Live service will be dead. Focus more on single player games with big push on. DLC instead probably claims of cut content to ensure lots of DLC revenue.

I can't imagine. Come back 2010. I would love that. Oh, of course. I mean, it's not going to happen. Yeah, that's my thing where it's like I, I do think we are receding. We are coming back to a place where PlayStation has to get sit there and go, we need to make single player narrative games.

That's what our bread and butter is. That's what the audience wants. CFO wants to monetize the existing fan base. fucking put out infamous remasters, make new story games, make them shorter, make them faster, do the whole thing

and spin it up that way. But I don't think live service is dying anytime soon because I still think you have these whales of Fortnite in Roblox in Minecraft. And you know, when you listen to the shy guy,

Jason Shire, who won't take Shriar, the YouTuber, talk about live service. His live service definition, which is accurate, is just you're spending money in this thing as an ongoing proposition,

right to things. It's not necessarily a battle pass. It's not necessarily that. But like, that level will still be there. I don't think we're going back to the golden age of it's just single player of games we're getting and it's already to rock and roll.

Yeah, exactly. I'm at this weird spot right now with with Grand Theft Auto 6 where like, you know, it's not great that they're blocking a lot of content and putting it behind that paywall. I understand all that.

It's not good, right? Pretty bad consumer practices is there. but I really feel like it may be the last hope for the industry and this definitely sounds like I'm you know kind of going doomsday

doomsday with it all but I mean I'd be one foot in the bunker if it was already for me somewhere we're at like I the reason I say that is like I feel like Grant that thought it will be the last game of its kind for probably a long, long, long time to look that way and to play that way and to be this massive

budget close to, you know, whatever, 600 million. Who knows what even the budget is at this point after the over decade of development. It has to be a bill. It's, yeah, it's got to be creeping up pretty high up there. And, and my hope is that with how popular it's going to be, right now, kids that are ages 5 to 15 to 20 they don't give us shit about what games look like or feel like

yeah and like no shade roblocks but that's what I'm saying exactly and me as a kid it was always damn look at the graphics on that new thing yeah look at the oh my god you're getting well the 64 64 bit and PlayStation 32 bit the graphics can look better there Mario can run everywhere crash panic could you can only go side-aside, but Final Fantasy is there.

And you don't have, there was always that strive for like, I want that next big, beautiful, great thing. And that's a lot of the reason why we're kind of in this hole, because it's a hub, but just balloon and things like that. But I think that GTA 6 can be as massive as it is and can show a lot of younger audiences what that premium product looks like. and in hopefully like like I am crossing my fingers of this

to make them go man look at how kind of shitty Roblox looks and that look at you know I don't want I want to play this god of war now because it looks that way I want to play fable yeah I want like that premium experience and and I hope that it could show

because of how popular it would be and how much it would break out beyond just the gaming community when we're used to yes, God of War comes out, Ragner Rock or whatever, and it sells a great amount. So to Spider-Man, but it's still like, it's,

Grand Theft Auto would be, like, it's going to be this worldwide event. Yeah. It is going to be the Super Bowl where everybody, if you don't watch football, your eyes are on that thing. If you don't watch the World Cup, if you don't watch soccer in the MLS, you are watching the World Cup. My parents thought will be that. Who don't know anything about our industry are going to talk to me about Grand Theft Auto.

Yes. Yeah, exactly. I'm with you. to a degree. I hope and I so like let's just talk about the hope and then talk about the reality. Yes, yes, yes. Where I do think it's going to be such a breakout game. It's going to open a lot of

kids and people's eyes to what video games are and what they can be and all these different things. I'm not so hung up on I hope it's the graphics they walk away talking about as much as the gameplay and what it's doing in the narrative and all this other stuff, let alone whatever the premium experience. Exactly.

So I just want to make sure. And so we're in the same premium experience box we're talking about. I'm just on a different little bit of a side of it. I know you are there too. Yeah. I hope that's the case and I hope that opens people's eyes. And I think it will. I think inevitably that will,

there will be those gamers who are on the cusp of, I only play Minecraft, I only play Call of Duty. You go and play this and like, oh shit, maybe I do want to find it. As always, I think that's a single percentage point.

That is not a single digit percentage. That's not going to be 30% of everybody who play, who, oh, God, I got to go, you know, but what I think is so terrifying about this situation. right now is that

GTA 6 to make that impact is launching it the worst possible time. When Hogwarts legacy came out and it was my TikTok algorithm filled with people leaving the store, you know, boyfriends film their girlfriends, girlfriends film their boyfriends, of them leaving

with their PlayStation 5 and Hogwarts. I bought this system for this game. I'm not even a gamer X, Y, and Z. You look now at the prices of these units. And I think it's the people who are the lapsed gamers who are the dads who became lawyers, the moms who became doctors, but remember playing this in high school or college at a dorm or whatever,

they're excited to come back to it. They're going to go, okay, cool. And then they're going to look at these prices on these consoles and be like, no fucking way. And $80 for the game. Exactly. That'll be the thing. They'll go to clicking.

They'll go to $80. They'll cost more than ever. I didn't know that. How much is it to get a PlayStation? What the fuck, $800? Unless it's going to be. But that's the thing. It's like if it's going to ever be on a G-Force now or whatever we're a streaming situation.

but that won't work that exactly because no because exactly because that has never permeated into the mainstream consciousness where everyone is still so concerned about consoles to your point about GTA in the World Cup

it's like it will be the ultimate the ultimate FOMO game like people will buy it just to play it and but really the longevity is with online yeah like that's going to be the new black hole that's going to that's going to be the thing that sucks up everything

and I hope so because I think there are enough PlayStation 5 units out there that can convert people to just buy the game. I'm not even necessarily thinking like, will this thing sell a whole lot of hardware for people who don't play games? It's more of just like, there's a lot of kids out there with PlayStation 5s

and the PlayStation 5 has been out for six years by this point. There's a lot of pieces of art. There's a, you know, Scroll down at Xbox. Bear just highlighted 93 million PlayStation 5. Xbox 1 is around 30 to 35. 28. Last updated a few years ago.

Yeah, I think they're around 35. I think all reporting is been around 30. There's a lot of pieces of hardware out there where kids are still just playing Marvel rivals or Apex. Like, it could be, I guess I'm more looking for like they could become now buying this big premium game for $80. and hopefully Break out of what they play all the time.

Break out of what they play all the time and show them a different experience. There's the people of just rebooting these systems. How many systems PlayStation 5s or Xboxes sit unused because they were bought during the pandemic. They were bought for a specific title that your friends have moved on and don't play anymore. The ability to boot that back up and then yes,

turn it on and say, okay, what else is happening here? But then we go back to these circana numbers where you're talking about the 16% of gamers who buy two to three games a year. Like, you know, it was just like, what the fuck? Like, there's so many shocking numbers out there with people who don't buy any games. Yeah.

So, like, where you are, let alone to your point loose of like, okay, cool, GTA 6, awesome. Let's see the gigantic numbers it's going to do. And then in the next six months when they do GTA online, and it's like, is GTA online the ultimate definitive forever black hole game? Because the problems I had with GTA 5, I can't imagine they're going to have with,

GTA 6, which immediately makes me want to play GTA online this time around and be a part of that world. And if you have this, I bought the system, I've turned the system back on and I'm only playing GTA right now and you get an online version that's going to continue to evolve and change and you're playing with your friends. That is great, obviously, but it's also scary as fuck of how do you, like, everyone right now in 2026 is so scared of November and getting their games away from it, not even releasing them in October.

I was going to say, let me see the Steam DB. to drop everything into September to have and fight each other and eat each other alive rather than get even remotely close to that $80 in November. November. What do we do when everybody front loads the spring and they're like, cool, April, GtL, I may, you know. That is crazy. Right?

Like people are terrified. Empty. God, it looks like there's a wasteland out there. October, October's got a bunch and then, yeah, September is fucked. Yeah, I just. I don't know. I feel like, you know, when I think about the amount of people that tell me, I'll wait for that to hit game pass.

I'll wait for that game to hit a sale. I'll wait for, you know, well, it's not free to play, so I'm not playing it. I think there are so many amazing premium experiences that are free to play that it's very consumer-friendly to be free to play. Of course. And it also hurts everybody else because you could afford to be free to play. But that any team who made that awesome experience

is like, we got to charge 40 bucks for this. Hopefully people buy it. And, you know, it hurts everybody else because people have just been, you know, conditioned to not need to pay anything to have fun. And then they have their phone that they could scroll on TikTok and Instagram Reels for hours on end and that's another form of entertainment you're trying to fight for people's attention

for it's just like man it's i mean we're seeing the same thing happening with like you know the movie industry and the amount of posters that whenever we go to a preview and i'm walking down and i see movie i'm like what are these movies yeah i've never heard of it who's gonna watch these i didn't even know mandolorean and grugu was coming out until i went to see session i think it was and there were four different posters for mandelorian and grogut and i was like oh it's this week shit. I had no idea. It's this week, Lucy. You need to watch it.

It's great. Very one note. That's great Pedro Pascal. That's all I do. That's all he done. When we went to some screener and they had those up, I went, oh man, why are they advertising Disney Plus here? And they were like, no, it's a movie. I'm like on Disney play.

I'm like, no, it's a movie coming to a theater. It's like, what? They're making a Mandelorian movie. Dude, I saw the live action Moana thing the other day. And I thought it was like someone on TikTok had made an AI. Oh, no. Oh, no. That was a great comment on the

The Blood of Don Walker Yesterday that said Man They were like I think they were like talking about me being stoked about this video game And they were like man it's just You know kind of funny just always makes Andy watches a bunch of shitty stuff And he just wants the game

Yeah I mean that's that I mean It's true That's why I'm not on in review I'm like I don't want to want to want to have The one time that Greg thought he was on toy store story and review, Lucy. And then Greg, and then...

No, it's Mandalorian. Oh, it's Mandalorian. That's right. And Jim almost tricked me to go in to see this fucking... Greg looking and Nick being like, are we... Do I do apply for that, Nick? Or do you? And he was like, man, I don't remember. And Tim goes, oh, actually, you're not on it, Greg. Do you still want to go?

And Greg goes like, fuck, no. No. And I mean, like, I think, you know, we joke around about me and my aversion to watching things. If I'm, I want to play. If I have the chance, I'm going to play. Because I'm drowning an amazing game. Yes.

And it's that thing of, I'm the inverse. of what the canary and the coal mine argument you're making, right? As people compete for space, for so many people, games is what falls away. They want to watch, they want to,

their phone or whatever. Whereas if I, like, when I, when I, here's the darkest moment for me every night, everybody.

Oh, it's when Jen goes to take a shower. And I go, thank you. Do I have time to crank one? I don't. Then I knock on the door. No,

no, it's do I, is she going to come out and want to watch something tonight? Or is it a gaming, night. So am I, should I go downstairs and start gaming? Should I bust out? Well, if I bust out the rug ally now and start up whatever, by the time she's out of the shower, I'm not going to be deep enough to

just, uh, and when I do like, I'll look at a reel. I'm like, I'm wasting time. I'm wasting my time right now. Because I'm in this dead spot. A couple questions. How long does it take it a shower? She showers very quickly. That's why it's like I can't bust out the rock or go downstairs or whatever. Bust one out. I can't even do that. You know, it'll be like

a long, slow strokes. He's going to do it. Three strokes a minute. It is slow. I had a question. You know what? I don't want to pursue this line of questioning any further. I think it's fine. I appreciate that. Right now, why don't we take a break, everybody? I'll remind you that we couldn't be a bunch of gooners on this channel if it wasn't for

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and we're back let's piggyback off something that got set out there but then it's come back but Brad Davis over on patreon.com slash kind of when he's quip said this prediction for what will the gaming industry look like in five years. Streaming will start to be the primary delivery method. Do we think it's possible to swing back that way

or all the way? Because this again is something I've said over and over again on games cast but since this is kind of our bringing together all the thoughts on it like for the 17 perfect storms that I've shown shown up to ruin the industry at this moment, like Xbox. If Microsoft could have just not, if Sotty Nadella could have been cool, not been a piece of shit.

Everything is an Xbox. Run with it. We're really going to commit to it. We'll really back you on it. We'll let you do this. Then you get here and it's like Xbox has cost a fucking $800 right now. How great would it be if they were like, but you could play, you can play GTA6 on XCloud with you when you buy it.

You can play your library. So you can buy GTA6 and you can play XCloud for 30, you know, 30 bucks if they were still keeping that game past price, plus the $80 versus what, you know, for a new person coming in. And I know, don't get me wrong. I'm well aware as we're talking about in this episode. Getting the idea of streaming to the mainstream, but as right. Right now as we see so many people bucking and freaking out about how much everything costs. I think having that, hey, here's this X cloud here. Here's this free portal in with. an app and yada, yada, yada. It could have been something. I disagree with the primary delivery method. Yeah. I don't... I think the adoption will be much higher. Yeah. And I think my only issue with it is that internet speeds still aren't there. And gigabit is not something that you could just flip a switch and make broadband gigabit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. However, streaming and the development of streaming technology, they may find ways to, you make that a lot lighter of a load for the, you know, internet pipes to send out, you know, really good quality. Seems like it's getting better all the time. Again, I'm a total novice at it, but you know, when PlayStation Portal added in the, oh, hey, you go

to 1080p now or whatever it is. The max resolution. I was like, oh, shit, that's cool. Yeah. So I... And runs better now than it ever did in the start. Yeah, I mean, I haven't tried G-Force outside of, like, Gamescom. G-Force is super impressive. We love G-Force now here, yeah. It's fucking great. Like, it's kind of too... It's kind of skis

very good at points. You can still see artifacting and things like that, of course, but it works way better than you would think. It works great on my AYN Thor, which is awesome to have the little handheld play over Wi-Fi, your Steam games. It's a really awesome kind of idea. But is it a set number of hours per month,

or what's the deal with it? Yes, they did change the premium thing to, I think, 250 hours a month. Game and hours. Big game and hours. Yeah, I'll have to double check that, but I haven't really used it much since then because I just haven't had the need for it.

But yeah, I don't know about the, I would say no to the primary way. I think people will still be buying digital copies and we're looking at an ad right or a thing up right here for the bearer brought up. Okay, yeah, 12 months. Install in ready to play games. Okay.

A 100 hours premium monthly playtime. That doesn't seem like, well, it is a lot. It's 25 hours a week. Yeah. There will still be people that, you know, I know a lot of people still aren't happy about that, and I don't disagree with that. I think that does kind of suck.

But yeah, we'll see numbers go up there. I just don't think primary is like, I don't think it'll get anywhere close. What I think's interesting is, again, 19 perfect storms of what's going on. what will PlayStation Xbox not Steam because they do whatever the fuck they want

But Okay Ram and memory costs so much And they're not coming down How do we get around that And get the consumer as a cheaper box And so is it I think especially in the West

Like we are absolutely sleeping on games outside of things Like Candy Crush And that's what you assume When you think of mobile But you look at the success Of things like love and deep space a lot of the big shooters and MMOs over in China and Korea have mobile versions

and I wonder what the adoption rate of that is going to be over here in the West but I think like the predominantly be made over there like like a Genshin for example look at anything that Hoyover's touches and then come over here I just wonder of like if we're fucked on memory and RAM and that's not coming down anytime soon if I'm over at Xbox and PlayStation I know this sounds like the tired old

thing, but I am sitting there, like, we need to make a streaming box. We need to make a box that isn't using those chips that we can put out. And it is Vita TV. It is, I mean, I know this, technically, I'm well aware there's apps on your TV to play your Xbox shit right now. But like, clearly it's not crossing over. So how do I get into Walmart and have a $100, $99,99 Xbox PlayStation there ready to go?

Well, I think what, I think what sucks the most is whenever people get real conspiratorial about a lot of these things and go, these companies are. They're obviously talking to each other, and they want... The ultimate end goal is that... So you don't own your box anymore. You are just renting out a computer from somewhere else because hardware prices have gone up so much

that it's not even worth it for you to try to buy that thing anymore. You were just leasing out that time, and then you look at... I mean, hey, that was a model for Xbox. Yeah. And then you look at, you know, something like Adobe Cloud, and it's like, man, they you look at how profitable

they've been and how angry they've made consumers. It's like... I'm still waiting on that video. Dude. Oh, man, we are... That's why I get really, really worried. Now, with the progression of everybody

batting down the hatches, the progression of AI and the progression of the AI that I love that is... Andy Cortez loves AI. Shit.

Run it, run it. I can't believe. That's the headline. God, man, I'll tell you if I was supporting Andy Cortez on Twitch.com. I'd take that sub put it in kind of funny. We are anti-AI.

Right, Barrett? Yep. The, you know, using AI to make just games run better on lesser hardware, if that keeps on progressing, then maybe we don't necessarily need like to be buying the amount of hardware

that we're like... Yeah, you're talking frame generation, all that. I would say like more of the resolution type stuff, you know, frame generation as well. But I think the leaps that have been made there are really staggering and the level of quality you're able to get with, you know, hey, this is actually a...

This is actually a 640p image and it looks like this on my 4K TV because we are using AI to generate that shit. Yeah. Like that's, that's sort of like, what's the word I'm looking for? I'm blanking on the terminology that Nvidia uses,

but. Upscale. Yeah, I guess like, yeah, the upscaling thing. I think all that stuff, the neural network sort of upscaling is, there's such a massive opportunity there that could maybe make it so that,

hey, whatever's happening in these big AI data centers, They're buying the whatever version of hardware. Yeah. We can still buy this level of hardware because the tech within it can still run these things. And then I just, I don't know, my mind goes to another place where it's like, well, there's a reason why we don't have, you know, good public transit is because they want us to buy cars and insurance. So it's like, will that ever happen? Maybe not. You hope it does, right?

Because, of course, it's not even like they want us to buy the crazy graphics card. is you can't, right? You can't even get out to get this stuff anymore because it's getting snashed up so it would be in their benefit but then I get into the sense of especially you know $4,000? That's after more.

You see gaming, that's what you wanted. You know what I mean? Okay, wait, no, it's 2000 on NVIDIA's website. Yeah. But to swing back to it like I worry about NVIDIA looking and going like, why would we commit more resources

to making the game look better when that's not even what's making. the money. You know what I mean? Like, we know so many people that work on. I'm not worried about the trillion dollar company. There, we know so many people that are working on the Nvidia game side. Not the, uh, DLS5, right? That's right. DLSF5. BLSS 5.0. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's like, fucking AI. We don't know those people. We know the people who are like

actually trying to, so far trying to do your games and yada, yeah, yeah, blah, blah. And they're so committed to making your games run well, right? With the way I always talk about the visual triangle and all this different stuff, but it's like at what point are they getting act or like just laid off to get or or even in a better world for them I guess pulled into another thing of like no come work on the AI side of the AI bullshut that we want not the fun game side that's doing something without stealing someone's work and

pasting a new face over it yeah just make the game like you're saying run great on a potato which would be obviously the dream it has been for so long like when I go in there and even as an idiot turn on all the different things like oh man this looks way better and not the best man the world smoother and it runs better but yeah I think we're at that point where those companies are going to have to decide what to prioritize and

will the consumer get the shaft? Yeah, of course. You know? What we're there for? That's what we're there for. That's what we do. Andy? Hey, actually you've talked a lot there.

Luzi. I mean, yeah. In 2031, will Xbox exist? Ooh, yes. I think it will. I think it will be very, very different. even from what we think it's going to look like next year, I think.

Yeah. Which is a barren wasteland. Yeah. With 3,200 fewer incredible developers working for it. Yeah, I think it's going to be very different, but I think it will still exist. They will ship Helix. I know everyone said that Xbox Series X&S would be the last console they ever did. I think Helix will be.

I think they will have more in the handheld market, seeking opportunity there, more in streaming. who God knows what they're going to do with exclusives because they flip-flop on that so, so often, but I think as a brand it will still exist. Will it still exist at Microsoft? Ah. Gerardo wrote in and it said,

Amazon buys Xbox. Andrew Warner wrote it and said Nintendo buys Xbox. A lot of people think Xbox will be around, but who is in control of the brand is a different conversation. Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia. Black Rock buys Xbox. Yeah.

Or like Does an epic games Disney Conglomerate A new conglomerate rises Paramount Skydance Xbox Xbox

Hey Is Xbox still right You'll be able to play your Xbox games On Paramount Plus Exactly That kind of bullshit Um Yeah but

I kind of echo what Lucy said Like I don't We will not see A return to form We will not see Xbox backup they will

they will no point say we're so fucking back like that just won't happen yeah it's it's not only because of the decisions they made but also just the world we're living in that is not you know

a lot of stuff for a lot of reasons that are just left out of their hands right the we will see um I think we'll see them get picked up by somebody else I don't know if Microsoft will look at

what they do in the next five years and say this is worth keeping around. I wonder how much you would even bundle my Xbox up full. You know? To sell? I mean, who knows?

Do you think that they can break it up more? Yeah, sure, do Bethesda out here and sell it off piecemeal. I think you could, but I think that becomes less to try. I think Activision could sell. As everything's fucking crazy and horrible, and I know we're in the shit right now, you have to wonder if, at least for a while,

are we coming to the age where we aren't doing the big conglomerate buys another conglomerate to merge into Skydance, Paramount, Netflix, whatever. It's the corporate. I realize it is still happening. But again, as we wrestle with all this, it is the idea. I, my, is that, does Xbox still exist in five years? Yes. I think Xbox is decidedly out of the hardware market.

I don't think Helix is necessarily dead, but I do think they've been like, like we are publishing on PlayStation PC Xbox and Nintendo for the occasional thing that makes sense. We are still selling the Helix because we made it and it's here and it's expensive as fuck and it's a great PC slash console hybrid or whatever the fuck it is. But we're everywhere because again with the way Sati and Adela is talking, the way Asha is talking about what they want, they don't get that doing consoles.

They don't get that keeping themselves off PlayStation. If you want a billion users in Xbox, even though I know PlayStation, does that count, but I think it would with Xbox logins or whatever. Like, you need to be there. You need to be everywhere, and that's the only way to make any of this profitable and sustainable. Helix would only be a thing, like, not saying that it's not going to exist, but it would only really be this name that brings back, you know, the Phoenix Rising, that brings back to Xbox.

If you look at what Sony is doing as Xbox and say, let's do the opposite, we are going to win back users from Sony. from PlayStation, similar to whenever Call of Duty fucks up, you see Battlefield go, let's try to capitalize on this situation right now. And that's just not going to happen. They would need to, I mean, even more apples to apples

comparison, they would need to be PlayStation launching the PlayStation 4. PlayStation 4 was a, hey, we fucked up PS3. Sorry, everybody, here we go. Here's how you share games. We're about used it. And I'm not saying that we have a sense of humor. Exactly. Like, you would need to own that. And like, they are only... And that would require

taking losses. Xbox is only getting more corporate and more bottom-line driven. I don't understand how Xbox could message that, like, we're just your friendly, every... Right. Like, you know, we're just Xbox. We're just chill guys. Yeah. Well, I feel like that started

once they realized that they were losing badly and then started the... We're not in competition. We're doing business differently. It's like, well, yeah, you had to pivot. And you're doing what I think is the smarter move with trying to go multi-platform. But then you lose your core audience. and your core audience goes, well, why the fuck would I ever buy an Xbox?

If I can't play your PlayStation, the PlayStation games I want to play on your thing, I'll just buy the PlayStation where I can play Xbox games on. And unless they were ever willing to take losses because they cared about being number one in that market, then they will, like, unless that happens, you're never going to see them back. Yeah. And they can't compete that way. They won't.

Helix isn't going to come out and sell at, I mean, as crazy as it's, sounds 599 being a good deal for it's six then it's not going to happen and that's what you would need to do and then if you're a ahshy'd be like we are taking a tremendous loss on this because we believe in you and your commitment and you're going to get game pass and you're going to play all these things and our games are only here which they aren't yeah and until they are what what it would and even if they were your PCs there you're everybody's been running to PC all over this leads to another Xbox really question will game pass still exist in five years lucy oh oh I have not read the Bloomberg

obstacle just yet. That they wanted 70,000 and they're at 30. Yeah, I don't, I think it'll be gone. Yep. Yeah. I think it's gone. Andy? Game pass.

Man, by that point, I could see so many changes in what they're offering with it, that it does sort of just dissolve completely. Like, because I think they're still, they're still making return

on it, but I think that they start to look and get way more selective with what it is that they're offering and go, do we really want to put that there? Because I think we can make more money if we just sell the game out right. And I think they're going to start to get a lot more selective. And it may just eventually dissolve into

merging with some other service. I don't know. But yeah, I think the game pass that we know of today of like day and day, day one Xbox, day day one game pass, I don't think that exists in five years. That's my thing where it's like I think Game Pass will still exist in five years, I think it will be such a moot point.

No one's thinking about it. It'll be Xbox Live gold. You're getting free games off it, but you're not getting day and date anymore. You're not getting it. It's a library of two-year-old plus, two-plus year old games that you're getting. PlayStation Plus sort of equivalent. To Lucy's point, if you missed this Bloomberg article,

when Xbox launched his GamePass subscription service in 2017, executive set a goal of reaching 77 million subscribers by fiscal year 2026, which ended last month, according to a document published during a lawsuit, contesting Microsoft's 2023 purchase of Activision Blizzard. Today, the platform has just 30 million subscribers, according to a person familiar with the matter. 4 million fewer than it did when the company last publicly shared data in 2024,

the Wall Street Journal reported earlier on the subscriber numbers. So putting the price up didn't keep people around, huh? Yeah. Yeah. To the point we've been making on this panel in, you know, the history that so many of us have lived through in our living right now. Maybe in years when you watch this don't remember as well, right? It's like,

this was the gamble. You know what I mean? Xbox is losing badly to PlayStation. They're falling behind. They introduce Game Pass, hoping that this will be what brings people here, added value day and date, X, Y, and Z. And that did not move the numbers, let alone jacking up the price here as people did not flock to it.

It wasn't a system seller. Now, part of that problem, of course, is that you know, eye of the beholder, but I think we'd all admit most of Xbox this first party lineup hasn't been system sellers. It hasn't been. Holy shit, set your hair on fire. We need to go play that right now.

While PlayStation's been able to put 70, no, we know, he ate a lemon, come on. He's seven. I'll give you a fourth. I'll give you a fourth.

I'll give you a fourth summer or a fourths on Horizon. Indiana Jones, we all know. Indiana Jones, fine, whatever. Yeah, it'll be interesting.

See, uh, Andy. Hey, five years from now, does the PlayStation have a disc drive? No. you're 100% correct yeah

I just put it in there as people still continue to hold out hope that PlayStation's gonna see the air in their ways and come back and be like maybe I was wrong I said some things I didn't mean do they maybe sell a USB they're a peripheral 100% yeah yeah they'll send a per they'll sell a peripheral for a while and then

for a while yeah I've been five years already phased out really yeah no I think for six they would they would have it for because they're gonna want that crossover between five and six yeah I agree I just think that like they're going to do it and they're going to be like why do we make this? Nobody's buying. You all said you want a physical

games and I buy it in the damn thing. Unless you did that thing you know how Switch 2 has a virtual game card virtual PlayStation disc. Sure. Yeah. That would have been a good thing to say now to try to people not so destroyed about it. Maybe they're cooking up things

right now. Because any tweet that goes out is just a disaster. They're just sitting there. I like this one on this line. Downey says in five years, Nintendo is the only one putting out physical games. Yeah, that sounds about right. It does, does. Yeah.

It does. I do expect Nintendo to still be putting out physical games in five years. It's much as like Nintendo comes in and goes, hey guys, what are we all doing? Oh, man. You guys stop doing it. Oh, that's funny. Oh, we make these little guys. They're fine.

They don't ever like them. They taste nice. Yeah, exactly. Wilson says Project Helix will cost $1,200 plus, but they throw in game pass for free for like two years. Nah. What do you think? What do you think Helix is, this is even tougher.

Because if, what do we think Helix's launch price will be alone in five years? What will the price be selling for? 999. Oh my God. That'd be a dream, sadly, at this point.

You think so? Yeah. I think 1,500. I think 1499. Okay. So launch price. You're thinking it launches in two years, is seven,

I don't put it past them trying to do it next year. Rush it out. Yeah. I mean, like, it's bad. I'd go $12.99. $12.99? Yeah.

$13? Wow, that's cheap. Not bad. Especially what they're looking at. Especially when they were talking about estimates recently of just what hardware would be, you know. Is there going to be just one version? I haven't really been following the helix of too much.

Is there just going to be one version of it? Like, not an XS situation? From what we've heard, yeah. But I don't think there's... But unless there's... but unless there's like extra memory, which would be, like my thing would be like the lower option, like maybe a smaller memory or whatever,

that's under a grand. But if you want a terabyte or above, then you are shell. I saw a report from Jez. I forget it was on a podcast or it was just an article, but I read an article talking on a podcast, talking about seeing maybe that Xbox was toying with the idea of adding back into disc drive to Helix.

And that's where I'm at of like, I wonder how much wiggle room you see. still have because I do feel like they were I feel like that shit may have sailed there I do too and I think that's why I think it's kind of Hopium kind of thing yeah but I feel like they are Xbox 15 different perfect storms of the industry

and them painted into a corner by the fact when Sarah Bond came out in like the next Xbox and a premium PC console hybrid like that's exactly the opposite of what Xbox fucking needs right now it needs we are making a console that is console priced and if you

when you buy the game it's Xbox playing anywhere so if you want 4K 120. You can put it on your PC and get that, but this is a box that's going to, which is basically the Series X already, which is a whole blah, but it's like I don't, I think so many components would have been gone

and so much R&D would have been done that even if you're Oshin, you come in, it's like, well, unless we blow all this up and then sign even new contracts for even worse deals on memory,

it's like, what are we doing? What I'm hoping is that there are really, really, really smart analysts there. Looking at the forecast of, of AI and there are more and more hints that damn things aren't really looking the way

we were hoping them to be in terms of what our returns are and that there are already hopefully considerations of well if this if these numbers drop down to this point we would be okay with this amount we would be okay with this RAM at that cost because we're projecting numbers won't be what we thought they were going to be at this astronomical high thing where RAM is being charged like crazy and, you know, do we get the, the apparent valve treatment of, you know, crucial and all these other RAM companies going like, no, no, no, you'll accept that or else we're not going to sell you anything. Will there ever be a moment like that where they go, no, we think that things maybe will

net out around here. Obviously, can't say shit like that. but we hope that our we could sell it at this amount in hopes that we would make this back on it or take it at this small of a loss instead of that big of a loss. I really hope that's such hopeium

but yeah for sure. I do think that in five years like the numbers and projections are going to, we'll look back at this and go wow, we really thought NFTs were going to do that. People thought NFTs were going to be this. people thought that whatever was going to produce that, you know,

people were going to be buying all these like doge coin and all these whatever, like that I think that we'll look back on that in five years and go, damn, we really had some crazy projections and this was just another fad. I hope so. You know what I mean? Like I wish that this was NFTs where I think we all were like, that looks dumb as shit.

Well, no, no, no. I don't think it'll be anywhere near that. Yeah, yeah. I don't think it'll be anywhere near a. disaster like that. Live quietly with my remaining apes. I think that they, I think that if,

let's say Amazon was planning on building 20 data centers or they go, shit, maybe it's only 15 now. Yeah, maybe that number is coming down 20% because of whatever we thought that these numbers are widely.

Sure. Like I, I think that there will be a bit of a reduction in what estimates were, you know, looking like. I hope so. I hope so.

And I think so. I legitimately feel good about AI not being what every company thought it was going to be. In the next five years, people will go, we are going to make money on it. We figured out smart ways to use it and not shove it into everything and not have to destroy the environment and so on and so. Well, I don't know about that. But we're not going to make the $100 quadrillion dollars. We're just going to make this much. It's still a lot, but it's not going to be this.

world ender what we thought where RAM is... You know, you try to buy 16 gigs RAM right now and, you know... It's about $280 and it's fucking crazy. Two 16 gig sticks. I was looking at buying a 16 gig stick

to shoving the steam machine. Yeah. Because the seam machine performs better with that extra, you know, extra RAM or whatever. And it's about like 270, 280. And that's fucking nuts. dude. That's crazy.

When I was shopping for a laptop's, you know, just a year and a half or whatever, you know, the prices were less, they're about a third that. A friend of mine bought a laptop last week or the week before. It went up by $200 the next day. Insane shit. It's not a bubble, guys. Don't worry. No, it's not a bubble.

No. No. Never. Ever. The Samsung CEO, again, you know, CEOs like to say stuff to drive up. They say the darkest things. They do say the darnest things.

But the Samsung CEO said, we're going to make more money this year than we have the past four years. And I don't think he's going to be far off, though. I think that's obviously like major, you know, hopium for him to just get people stoked about. Sure, buy the stock. Buy the stock. But I think that with what prices are looking,

with how much money these RAM companies are making, they're going to be pretty high up there. I like this one that we haven't talked about. Jay writes and it says PlayStation will go back to releasing games on PC. I hope that's true. God, I hope so. I mean... I really hope that's true.

I think they're going to look at much cheaper ways to port these games over. Yeah. And maybe... Relatively speaking, it was fucking cheap. Well, sure, yeah, of course. But, like, the fact that... Like, all of the work had been done. They had an entire studio who was responsible for doing it.

And the fact that they still saw that as too much is like crazy to me still. And I think... Well, no, the real story is like the cut. They didn't want to, you know, they were like, oh, well, these are off as potty games. We don't like stupid. Yeah, yeah. 30%. And that's why I was just like so blown away by, you know, looking at something like four to five selling five million on PlayStation.

It's like, that's a lot of copies still. Even though you're losing a cut, that's still so many copies and so much possibility out there. I would love for them to go back to BC, man. Here's my thing is I don't think they do it in five years. I think the wild card is how much is the PlayStation 6 costs and how does it sell? That's the big question, right? Because they're bringing it back internal to try to make sure they're getting as much money from you, the PlayStation audience. And so if people are still buying the PlayStation 6, even though it's astronomically prized, whatever's going on with, again, I think this generation going on even longer.

I think again, PlayStation 6 being a, hey, this is basically a PlayStation 5 pro pro where it's like, yeah, eventually there's PlayStation exclusive games. Maybe it launched there's a couple, but the majority are getting, you buy it on PlayStation 6 or 5 and you get both versions and it's seamless. It's just running different qualities and frame rates and things like that. I think five years is too early for them to go, this isn't working. We got to go back to PC. I think they need to, depending where the market is,

and that's the biggest question of where we are in five years. Well, we've seen how quickly decisions can be made and how quickly a company can pivot. When we just had the fucking crazy live service disaster of all these studios, everybody make a live service game, complete fucking disaster. It almost like, it tanks everything. So many layoff studio closures, you're not going to exist anymore. You're going to work on this now. Fuck your life service game.

Why did we green light all these live service games? and then to just last week go I think we're gonna get back into life service is like there's a lot of opportunities like what the fuck did you just wake up out of a coma dude and so that's why I'm like Oh I know that I was drunk

I was drunk when I said that It's fine it's fine It's fucking crazy man Oh god damn dude That's all saying on games data It's like it's like I was telling blessing all of these studios that were making a live service game

It's like four or five different people separately greenlit all those and didn't talk to each other. I just did one. You just green one. Oh my God. I green one. Oh, no. You're making a God of war one? God.

Damn it, dude. Oh, man. We're going to be in trouble. We should have talked about this to each other. Instead, it was one to two people going, yeah, that sounds great. So does that. So does that. As if they hadn't looked at any numbers of the amount of people only playing Roblox and only playing Fortnite.

Hunter. Horizon hunters gathering though. That's the one. That's the one. Fair game. Herman, dude. Fair games. Herman, man. Come on. What are we doing here? I want to end on this one and then pivot to Lucy question. Blake writes it and says, we will be down to like 10 to 15 true AAA releases a year. Nope. No. What do you think? No. More or less? More. I do too. I'm just double check. Imagine if I was like, no,

a triple A's actually. Yeah, no. Way more. I mean, it is that thing of like trying to figure out what that looks like. Please do not ignore. the burgeoning games industry in the east. Yes. Sure. Look at shit like Phantom Blade.

Wurbanes, me, Wukong. Enormous triple A games just because they're not made by a Western developer. Yeah, it doesn't mean there's any less AAA. And of course, everything,

the behemus coming out of Japan too. What's the, blanking on the name of the one that... Final Fantasy. Looks like... Oh, that's a big one, yeah. The one that looks like

Noddy Dog making a... It's a Chinese developer. Something blood forged in blood. Oh, blood of the messenger or something. Blood message. Blood. I think so. I'm not familiar it.

Something blood for you. Blood message. Blood message. Blood message. Blood message. You look at games like that. It's like, yes, you will can. And again, why is it?

Why are we going to see that, that rise continue? Because it's cheaper to live in those places. and we're going to see a lot of outsourcing still happen. But don't you dare fucking try to work from home. We don't want you to work remotely, but we're going to fucking contract the hell out of other countries to make shit. But don't work from home because it's hard to develop a game that way.

Yeah. How many cats to distract you? Yeah. Is this one with the big cat? No. No, the one I, summer game first. Where there's the cat boss fight thing. No.

It was one of the games that I had, I can't remember. You never seen this? Was it at? What was this at? This was on the, was it a future game show? It's been several. This is a second time seeing it.

Okay. Yeah, this is the second time seeing it. Looks cool. But this has no mystical fantasy things, Lucy. I was like waiting for it to see a dragon or a monster. It's just like, it's just a kind of historical tale or whatever.

I'm into it. It looks very good. It looks very quality. I'd better be holding it. triangle to yeah turning from this though the question you know 10 to 15 triple a release is

Lucy of course you run what you think we'll finally have Judas name all of them you run of course looking for a game looking forward dot game I sure do where you go and recommend Indies and try to get people into playtesting

yeah yeah yeah yeah where do you see Indies going in this next five years obviously it's a crowded landscape very crowded landscape and everyone now is moving away from AAA publishing into becoming a boutique publisher taking hopefully the right learnings from their time in AAA remains to be seen as that all grows. I am going to remain hopeful and optimistic about the future of any games.

I think it will always be a space for innovation and creativity, and I think we will find some incredible games there. My worry, first of all, not enough funding for everyone to go around. But, you know, with smaller teams, hopefully we can make all those dollars stretch a little bit further. My other worry is like of curation on storefronts. Epic Games obviously graciously has given me a blade, but I'm like one person. Steam's curation, not it.

I'll say my biggest issue with Steam curation. Can't filter AI either. That was a real fun one through NextFest. Oh, yeah, that was tough. That was tough. One of my biggest issues, and it's a smart thing by these developers, but the amount of the same game that you see

with a different title is crazy. You go to Steam Next Fest demos and I've scrolled by the same game three times and it's just whatever developer put it through three times under three different developers. Yeah, no, because it also has,

like they have their own algorithms within there. There is a publisher. It kind of been getting picked up a little bit recently and I was in the indie dev subreddit and there's this publisher called Polden and what they do is they give you marketing budget and if you don't generate a certain threshold of wish lists, then they cancel your contract.

Oh my God. So there's also that kind of shit happening, where it's like people offering money. They're funny ways to kind of game that system. Yeah, like, because the thing is like there is a game that you, ha-ha, a game to play, but it's like within Steam itself, it's algorithmic. It is.

Wishlisting has become more of a, it's very important, but your conversions are not there anymore. Like conversions from wish lists are, tough, like... It reminds me of there was a certain YouTuber who was a Minecraft YouTuber and decided to make

a really, really kind of like this is a Minecraft video made in a lab in terms of like how sticky it's going to be with audiences, but created like six different YouTube accounts to upload it. And to see which one's caught and why because of, you know,

so it's like, it was like, we're just throwing out the same product out there, six different times from six different accounts to see how it performs. And that's kind of like what a lot of these smaller studios with their porn games are doing. Yeah. A lot of porn games. A lot of them.

So overall, in terms of Indies, I think, and I hope for stability within the indie space. I've been talking to a lot of devs, obviously, in the last month or two since starting looking for a game. And it's like, it's a scary prospects for a lot of people. But

I want to believe and need to believe that great games will still find their audience. One thing as well though is like you've got the segmentation of audience now. Everything's in like separate discords and separate social networks and yeah. Everything is so segmented. We are all segmented. I have a question for you too.

Should we have connected? Will there be another steam machine in the next five years? Yes. No. Really? Yeah. Interesting. I don't see.

I think that Valve is a company that takes its time and wants to get things right and yada yada. And I think they had best intentions with the steam machine and best hopes. And I think it was the, when they started on it, the right time to go do all this. And as this is all just upended, I think this is them. If I'm inside a valve, I'm like, this is why we shouldn't have done this. This is why we've stayed away from this. This is why we tried doing steam machines. What was it?

10 years ago or whatever, and we're like, ah, this is too much of a headache. Like, fuck it. Put Steam OS on everything, which they are.

Build your own machines, put it on whatever machine, do whatever I want, but this is too much of a headache for us. I wonder if they would have like one more revision of it. And then, I mean, controller is great.

The controller is amazing. I love that thing. I think we'll see another one. Yeah. I'll see one more. Yeah. Because you know Valve can't count to three. Ew.

Come on. I have life three. gamers. I think you'll get another steam deck. You know what? They've been vocal about chasing that

and doing that but it's the same thing of like by the time they get out there what are they doing with components and how much all this shit costs. Here's the prediction.

Here it is. Or another question for you in the next five years will I have spent upwards of $2,000 on the Lenovo Legion Go S2 that runs

Steam OS because when this first thing was coming out you know I love Steam OS right. It's so light and you give me a Windows machine and a Steam OS machine with the same hardware.

Games are going to perform better on SteamOS. And this Lenovo Legion Go S2 or whatever being rumored. And it's like, oh, man, it's going to be a Steam OS machine. That's great. Oh, my God. It has that hardware? Fantastic. And it was around, I was like, man, I want to be spending like $1,100 on this thing

when it comes out. What a waste of money, Andy. But you're going to love every minute of it. And since then it's ballooned to like $1,800 or something like that. And I'm just so... write off in your tax. I'm just so sad by what's happening, man. Like, it's unbelievable.

So will I buy it? Yep. Yeah, probably. That's a good guy. I probably will. I mean, you know, it's a write off for you. It's easy. Yeah, you guys write stuff off.

No, no, I tried one. You don't write stuff off? I don't know how. So years ago, I haven't done it yet. Years ago, I was out to lunch. I'm probably up at noon, but maybe it wasn't with Nolan North. And he mentioned, oh, man, you have a blah. And, you know, he did this.

off. Like, you write off movie subs or something. And he's like, research. He's like, yeah, research for that. And he's like, wait, you don't? And I'm like, no, he's like, Greg, you can write off your games and this and your cable. I was like, all right.

I tried it one year. My guy's like, no, you don't even come close to the threshold for what writeoffs need to be. Like, this is like not even what it needs to be. Because for a year, I had saved all my movie stub and stuff. But it was like, it was something like, I don't, let's just say it was five grand. It was like, you're not even close. That's what you need legally to be able to do this.

My uncle is five grand. No, that was what I'm saying. I'm pulling from a conversation a decade ago. No, I was going to say because I was like, I am now in the phase where I have a very detailed spreadsheet of all of my in-hummings and out-goings. And travel alone. Really adds up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, rent, because I get to square footage of my office.

We do that for a general. Portion of my internet bill. Games I buy. Look at that. Look at that. Lucy's game in the system. No, I have an accountant. Okay, sure. IRS, come out.

I was going to say, Emperor Trump, if you're listening. This foreigner is there. My taxes. Everybody, what are you things going to happen in gaming in the next five years? Let us know in the comments below. And then I think you check back. Every so often, check back. I'll never remember.

So if I'm alive during the next five years, it's something we said. That's big. Doesn't, you never know. I wrestle a lot of snakes. Bloodborn remake remaster? Nah.

I mean, yeah, right? I think they get desperate. If you are PlayStation, we are going to monetize. monetize the thing. We don't care if it pisses you off. Sony eventually goes, Miyazaki, I don't know who the fuck you are.

I'm the new CEO. I just came over here from Ford. We're going to remake this thing. I don't give a shit what you think. We're making it number two. Are you in or you out? Somebody else can do this. It's like when the celebrities never want to make the sequel

and then they see the number big enough and they make it like that. Yeah. Let us know in the comments. Share it with me on whatever social media is still alive or just yelling at me or Patreon or whatever. I remember, of course, this is the games casting.

every weekday, we're here to run you through the biggest topics in gaming, like, subscribe, share, pick up a membership on Patreon, YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. But most importantly, head over to looking for.com. Help Lucy's business as it continues to thrive and show you cool indies. For now, though, until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.