New Xbox CEO Could Make Game Pass Cheaper?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 03.25.26

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Highers, you can't afford to get wrong, like payroll manager. Hi, I was just checking my pay slip and it's all in Japanese yen. Yes, you're welcome. Sorry? Given the exchange rate between the pound and the yen, you're technically a millionaire now. Don't spend it all in one place. I can't really spend it anywhere. This is a job for sponsored jobs. This is what happens when you don't sponsor your job on Indeed. So the next time you need someone to get the job done right, get matched with quality candidates with an Indeed-sponsored job. Visit Indeed.com slash NextHire and sponsor your job today. If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash kind of funny. Today, in the nerdy news you need to know about, Asha Sharma reportedly considers making Game Pass less expensive. PlayStation shuts down another first party studio. And Tim's review of Mario Wonder's Switch 2 edition is happening. That's right. Sammy's dad is in the building. We'll have all this and more because this is kind of funny games daily. What's up, everybody? Welcome to kind of funny games daily for Wednesday, March 25th, 2026. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller alongside Samira's father at Tim Getty's. It feels so good to finally be able to get out of the shower, get ready, leave to go to work and look at my daughter in the eyes and say, Daddy's got to go to work. You know what I mean? What did you say back? Right now. And it's just like, it's a very pretty ramp. But like it's a, what's the count? We're two and a half months in right now. 10 weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Two and a half months. She's backstabbed. Backstabbed. Yep. You believe in that stuff, huh? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Can't even get you around here. Get fucked. We believe vaccines is science. But yeah, things are good. Right now, G's taking her to a mommy daughter yoga class. Okay. I like that. Which is, it's her third one, I think. She's not doing much yoga. Yeah. I'm well aware. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mommy yoga classes really aren't doing much. But it's very, she's out there, man. She's in these streets. There's all these mom groups. Oh yeah. I'm just like, oh yeah. Oh yeah. You have a new life. Well, for sure. For sure. But I'm like, are there dad groups? And I'm like, looking around, there are. Yeah. Definitely are. We can sit around. I don't like that. Kevin, we keep Kevin up. Aw. I'm kidding. We like Kevin in. I like Kevin in. How are you? Good. I mean, I'm old news. I'm more excited to be here. How are we doing sleep wise? What are we sleeping through the night? Well, that's been an interesting thing. Because no, it's been bad. What a statement. It's been so bad for your cough, dude. I've been following the saga. No, no. Now it's an allergy cough. I've gone from being the cough cough to just the allergy. Yeah. Well, but even whenever you have like the slight laugh that it turns out, it's still bad for you. I know me too. It's still bad. Well, the great news is that Ben developed a new cough. So now that I, by the time I'm done with these allergies, I'll probably pick up the new cough. I'll be all right. Yeah. That's a whole thing, man. But yeah, sleep not really been happening too much. But yesterday since she got vaxed, the doctor was like, Hey, if she's sleeping well, she sleeps really well. Yeah. To the point that we have to wake her up every time. Nice. Good job. Yeah, I guess. Power. That, for sure. But the bigger problem is they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, you can like let her sleep like you can sleep through the night and just wake up in the morning and feed her. And that'll be totally fine. There's a little TMI for the world, but I'm going to say it. Anyways, jeez, fucking boobs. Those things about to explode. Sure. Yeah. She gets woken up throughout the night. Oh, yeah. And then I'm just, I'm going to wake anyway. You just lean over. You know what I mean? No, no, no, no, no, no. But it's just like, man, it's just always something. You think you get the big win. Oh, yeah. I know. You're like, oh, man, we were so excited. We get to sleep all night. It's like, no, we don't. Yeah. No. Yeah. But besides that, everything's been great. That's just, well, not everything. This ice stuff really bummed me out. Oh, ice enough to fuck? Really fucking bummed me out. Don't like that at all. Fuck ice. Fuck this shit. Yeah. And then heart turned away from that. Good. It's not pumping me out. I was going to screamer. Oh, screamer. Yeah. Of course. Blessings review at Gamescast on Monday. Go check it out. Yeah. Blessings game of the year so far. He's saying I am almost done with it. I'm like four fifths done. I would say absolutely obsessed. I remember when they first showed it last night, we both like that looks like our type of shit. And then I got a code, but things have been going on. So I wasn't really prioritizing. And it wasn't until bless in the slack was like, I beat this game and it was a religious experience. I'm like, that's all I need to know. I need to jump in here and yeah, it's delivering so hard. This game is awesome. I highly recommend it to anybody that likes arcade racers or just likes anime bullshit like the type of bullshit that you know, I like. Okay. And a lot of fast and furious stuff. A lot of copper, Kai. Sure. It's just so, so good. The story is incredible, which is not something I expected. You expect that out of screen. From this game, but also the gameplay is just, it's so solid and it's unique. It's like it is a lot more mechanical and a lot more gameplay focused than I would have expected. I thought it would just be kind of like, hold down the accelerator and hope you make it to the end before the other people do. And there's a lot more going on in this in a way that it's like kind of rhythm game mask. Like, oh, it's just very, very cool. I love it. Not quite outpacing Resident Evil on my game of the year watch so far, but this is a solid number two. Hell yeah. That's what I like to see. And I also want to give a shout out to the shirt. If you're an audio listener, it is a white shirt. If you're a video listener, it's a white shirt, but it's got like a quilted pattern to it. Ribs for your pleasure. Let me get in there because it looks like Terry cloth. Oh yeah. That's a good vibe. Not like that. Where they come from. Guess. Guess. Walmart. Tick tock shop. Oh, I thought you always tick tock shop. I thought you were, I thought we were doing a bit where it was from guess. And I was going to keep guessing. You're like, no, guess. I thought that as well. Is guess still a thing? I don't fucking know. I'll think guess is I wear a Kirkland pants. If you didn't know everybody, this is kind of funny games daily. We run you through the biggest news you need to know about each and every weekday. Of course, if you want to be part of the show, be part of it live youtube.com slash kind of funny games with your super chats. They should be about the days news that we're jumping into talking about whatever little shenanigans you want like Aaron line. Welcome back Tim. Glad you're back. How about the rocks? We're going to that Moana trailer. L O L Jesus. Fuck. They just didn't even try. My God. I said we got them. They're like rock, record it. Go for it. What they do to my boy. Tomatoa. I knew that is. I don't watch the shiny. Oh, the shiny guy. Is he bad too? I don't like how he looks. Is it the same place? I like anything about this. I'm going to be honest. Okay. Farron a final. James James says, Tim, we missed you. I claw master super chats with the return of Daredevil born again season. Can we get an impression quote of the kingpin saying Vanessa? Vanessa. Vanessa. Vanessa. I doubt Vanessa. I didn't realize that that was out. Vanessa. Episode one. Watch the last night while I did my taxes. That's some good shit. That is some good shit. I am so happy we're back. And also this release schedule leading right into Punisher. The one last kill. Yeah. Yeah. Special in May. Oh, yeah. Good. I enjoyed myself last night. Yeah. AOL America online says, oh my God, it's Tim. I hope you've been doing well. It's so nice to see you. Thank you very much. Tim, one question that isn't in the super chats, but was in the regular chats. It was at my breakfast table today when my wife asked me, when are you coming back? Do we have a, are we honing in on a date here? Yes. That is something that I do have the answer to that I haven't actually. Let me look. Give me one. You don't have to debut it now. I'm debuting it right now. Everybody, we have breaking news. Monday the 13th of April. Monday the 13th. Like two weeks away. Tim will be back. Maybe by then the other fog machine works by then. Of course we could have do this without our producers on patreon.com slash kind of funny. So thank you Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm twining. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the Roper report. Time for some new items on the Roper report. Okay. We used it all up in that one. I figured since it was only doing the one as wouldn't do it. You know, you could have done the one and done the sound effect. It doesn't matter. See that's nice. Number one on the Roper report. New Xbox CEO could make game pass less expensive report says this is any over a game spot. Microsoft gaming has a new CEO with Asha Sharman take Sharma. Dammit. Fucking Mike put it in my head yesterday. Asha Sharma taking over for Phil Spencer and one big move she is reportedly considering is the change to Xbox game pass to make it less expensive. The information reported that one of her ambitions is to help make quote future consoles and products like game pass more enticing to a broader range of consumers. To that end, the report said Sharma might look to revamp pricing models for game pass to quote unquote offer lower priced tiers. In October 2025, Microsoft raised game pass prices with game pass ultimate going up by a whopping 50% to $30 a month. Game pass premium meanwhile costs $15 a month while game pass essential goes for $10 a month. PC game pass costs $16 and 50 cents. So used to percentages as we talk about layoffs per month. In terms of a lower priced tier for game pass, it has been reported that Microsoft could offer an ad based tier for game pass in the future. In fact, it was reported that people may be able to watch as in exchange for playing game pass titles for free. Lots of other entertainment services offer ad based tiers that are free or discounted compared to ad free versions with one prime example being Netflix. Its plan with ads starts at $8 a month, which is a hefty discount compared to the standard plan of $18 a month. GameSpot has contacted Microsoft in an attempt to get clarification on the suggestions made in the information piece. Intriguingly, in the same report, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said he and Sharma have kicked around ideas for how Netflix and Xbox could work together on subscription bundles. Nothing has been confirmed, but Peters said he, quote, wouldn't eliminate any possibilities. Quote, you would have to do it in a way that works for the consumer and works for both companies. And frankly, I think Microsoft's still trying to figure out how to make the game pass bundle work for Microsoft. You don't say, Mr. Peters. You don't say. But what I like about Asha's thinking is it's all about how do we do more and it's already been exciting to watch. As it. It's been exciting to watch from the outside, Greg. As I sit here, not at the desk, but watching episodes of Games Daily and Gamescast over the last couple of weeks with so much news going on, some good, most bad, some, hey, we'll have to wait and see. With all of this, I do think it's not misleading, but this headline being that the new CEO could make game pass less expensive. There's a lot of heavy lifting with that. Of course. And then on top of that, it's like everything that you just said, it's like, doesn't scream to me like they're making it cheaper. It's just they might offer cheaper tiers, which to me doesn't seem like it solves problems. You know what I mean? I feel like the best value in gaming. It's like we're talking about the value of the first party titles. Like when we started talking about the lesser Xbox Game Pass tiers or Xbox Live Gold, all of the things PlayStation, I'm going to bring them into it too, because there's been a lot of talk the last couple of weeks about them. PlayStation Plus. Getting rid of PlayStation Plus. Simplifying it. What does that mean? Then there was rumors that probably were the type of things that the rumors popped up because that news dropped so people can come up with a rational sounding hypothesis, which would be that they're trying to just make PlayStation Network just like a one tier that people can get and simplify it in all the different ways. Maybe you get crunchy roll. Maybe you get all these bonus things because people have found a lot of value there. Like when you look at the streaming TV side of things, it is wild how successful the cross bundles have been where it's like you get HBO and Disney Plus. Complete competitors, but they found value in bundling together to be able to maximize subscriptions and all of that stuff. There's just such a wild west that we're in right now, and it feels like we've been in the wild west of this streaming subscription service for video games and TV and music and all of it for so long that it's impossible to call what any of these people are going to do. The only thing that we know for sure is that HBO is going to rebrand again at some point. Of course they have to. That's the only constant. It has to be. But taking it back here to the Xbox stuff, it's like, yeah, this nothing bad is being said. I think that that's something to highlight. Right? It's just like, hey, okay, it's not like this is inherently bad news. I just don't think that it's necessarily good news. And I just, I don't think it's all the problem. I just think it's crazy to me. The amount of headlines we're already getting out of Asha being CEO when clearly it would be like right now if Wendy's walked in and said, Greg, you're, and this isn't me insulting. This isn't an insult to Asha. Greg, you're now the CEO of Wendy's. I'm like, oh, maybe we make biggies. Maybe we fucking, what's the fucking thing? The drink. Frosty's. Frosty's biggies. That's a good idea. Maybe we call Frosty's biggies. Maybe there's going to be a charger. What could happen? But I'm like, I don't know. We'd lower the price of the baked potato. We maybe we give free. And if you were just shouting headlines, yeah, she's had a fucking conversation probably over cocktail with this guy of Netflix. Yeah. But if we bundled together, I don't know what if in Netflix, but maybe we're, we got games. Don't we? Don't we? Mr. Peters turns around and says, we got games. Oh, we do we have games? We let a lot of those people go. Yes, but no, but kind of, but not really. But with that though, like that there is, you know, a system here that could make sense where Netflix wants to be invested in video games, Xbox, if anything has the games, sure, they just brute force the way into doing that, but they do. Yeah. Um, so yeah, coming up with some type of, I don't know, like that. That would my answer, my question is this, does making to your point, none of this is bad news. Does any of this solve the problem Xbox currently has? No. Game pass is too expensive, but, but the thing, the, the problem it could solve is people playing Xbox, right? Hey, there's a, put it to him. Well, I mean, if, if had all these other tiers and cloud gaming and Xbox anywhere here, the fortnight fucking thousand bucks every time you do, I'm specifically saying this from the, if they partnered with Netflix, Netflix, the number one subscription service that there is in terms of signups, right? Like I just feel like that is something that is way more enticing than how do I play Hades on my Netflix account? I don't really get like that. At least there, there's a lot of normies out there that I think that that could be a selling point too that would never sign up for game pass. Otherwise I'm reaching here. Okay. I understand that, but like just trying to find the conversion rate would be so small. I think yeah, but like if it's not a conversion rate, if it was just like you have it, you know, I don't know. Yeah. But then we're back to the bullshit right where they like how they're, oh, we're going, this is the thing, uh, Barrett helped me out who called this out. Iran, when they brought co-pilot into Xbox now, so that they could probably wrap up next time they say how many active co-pilot users they have, they can just include these fucking numbers and make it look like this is happening. But back to Netflix already has games. You could already be playing oxenfree and oxenfree too and all this shit. Yeah. He's actually doing that. Yeah. I mean, okay. I, I talked myself out of it. You talked me out of it, whatever you want to say. It's one of those, I mean, like in the long run, if this, and I, you know, I'm already Xbox game pass subscriber, if this get a Netflix person, if I get one bill now, and I get both cool, you know, yeah, but even then, even then I'm going to go through the books to do it again. I don't get it all the time. I know there's a million HBO Netflix Hulu's going on. Yeah. But going back to the, the game pass conversation here, it's just like, it's, it's too early for any of this to even matter. I do think that the, the biggest thing is the Xbox brand needs to figure out what it's doing. They're clearly trying to figure that out. I think that it is, um, they're not in a great position because the, I don't need to retread everything that's happened in the last 10 years, but where we're at now, it's like we now have a new CEO that's talking a lot. And that could be a good thing, but I feel like there's so much kind of hesitancy towards believing in Xbox at this point that you, every single headlines kind of taken with the eye roll and laughs, you know what I mean? Yeah. Sneers and jokes. Well, it's back to it. It was just like, I'm shocked how many headlines we've gotten from Asha talking project, Helix, et cetera. Whereas like, again, if Wendy's is still looking at me to come in and be the new CEO, the first thing I say is, cool, I'm going to go quiet for like six months. So I forgot how to make a fucking frosty. I mean, that's a biggie. I don't know. I'll get back to you. I'm right there with you where it's like, how to, how to fix Xbox. The, the, you know, God, remember when the question was how to fix Halo? Yeah. Um, that was how to fix Xbox. I, I feel like the answer would be at this point with everything we know about how things have happened with, with Phil and just with Sarah and everything. Yeah. It would be, they announced this, they announced, I'm the project, Helix thing, even that I personally wouldn't have done. Um, or you're wrapping into the messaging of, hey, we're taking some time to figure this out. We will be back with an announcement. Put, put a time on themselves. Like, Hey, we're celebrating the 25th anniversary anniversary. You know what I mean? Give us a second. We're fucked up. We're, we're made. We're fucked up. You know, maybe don't say that. Oh, you know what I mean? Kind of take it and just be like, we're all turned around here. Cause she kind of said that in, uh, in her opening statement, right? Yeah. And it's like, I think a little bit more and then just, yeah, be quiet and just come back and then have a big blowout reintroduction party that can get people excited and be like, oh, this is what Xbox is. Any questions you might have had? They're answered now. That this is an Xbox. This is no, this is Xbox. This. Yeah. But they're not doing that instead. They're talking to Netflix. And again, maybe they will eventually do that, but I would just not be talking yet. Cause I don't know how to do that. Tim, would you like breaking news? That's good news. I would love that. We have breaking news, everybody. It's about Nintendo switch to game pricing. We go to Nintendo press release beginning in May, 2026 and starting with pre orders for Yoshi and the mysterious book. New Nintendo published digital titles exclusive to Nintendo switch to will have an MSRP that is different from physical versions. Nintendo games offer the same experiences, whether packaged or digital format. And this change simply reflects the different costs associated with producing and distributing each format of game, uh, and each format and offers players more choice in how they can buy and play Nintendo games. As always, retail partners set their own prices for physical and digital games and pricing for each title may vary. We go to Wario 64 who reports Wario the mysterious book switch to physical is 69 99 digital is 59 99. So we're looking at a $10 discount from Nintendo. If you buy switch to exclusive software digitally, I mean, that's an interesting move. Right. I feel like this should have been something that existed for the last generation of yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, with pricing getting as outrageous as it is, just as a standard, you know, for Yoshi to be $70, like, I know the price of games conversation can get kind of tiresome, but like I just, I personally, like I, I do think that like having played so many of these Nintendo games, it's like there is a difference. Like all of these games are not worth $70. They're not equal. And it's like for them to be $70, like I really hope that I'm wrong. There's very few things I love more than Yoshi's Island, but other Yoshi games that hasn't necessarily been the case. And my expectation of this game is I think the $70 price tag is probably going to be too high. I hope I'm wrong. I hope this game is awesome, but it reminds, I think it's going to be closer to Princess Pete showtime than to Yoshi's Island. And, um, with that, it's like, all right, cool. This is good news. I wish that then exploring the price scale that they've been talking about a lot recently had a little bit more exploration to it. But this is at least, I don't want to say it's a step in the right direction. It's a step because I feel like this, it's not enough for me. And even then I do think that there's going to be people mad that like buy physical games instead of digital like me, but yeah, I was going to ask you from that perspective, there's a cost there. You are buying all the physical stuff. There's just, I get it. You know, I, I, I'm a realist to the point that physical games are on their way out and that physical media in general is on its way out as a, um, entry level or entry way, uh, entry points to getting products, because yes, there will always be vitals are selling more now than they ever have. Right. There is a market for physical things and like Gen Z are revolting against the digital era. There's all this fucking that you see, but it's like the reality is that's still a niche thing compared to like the main way people are buying them. It's going to be digital. Nintendo has been the, the standout opposite of that in the, in the last couple of years, because people do buy physical Nintendo games. The split between physical and digital Nintendo is vastly different than it is on other consoles. So, um, maybe they're starting to see a difference. I do think the game key cards have a lot to do with that. Because the Nintendo games specifically are game key cards. Like we, I don't think have seen a Nintendo published title that, um, is actually that, that it uses the, the, you know, the key card shit. So that makes sense to me. It's not the best news, but hey, at least these things still exist. Yeah. Uh, as a digital person, I mean, not even as a digital person, because whatever, I just like them exploring the scale to some degree. This has always been the conversation from the moment PlayStation entered the system. And I space, say for us as a real quick, I, I said that backwards to be clear. Nintendo games are on the thing. They're not key card games. Oh, I thought, I see. I was the opposite of who it is. Sorry. I, whatever. Anyways, I've always thought this should be the case that we should do. There should be a break somewhere, but I understand not pissing off suppliers, but I understand, or, you know, retailers, but we're in a different place. We were wearing a completely different place. Like that almost doesn't matter, right? Of course. Yeah. Like that, there's always differences when it comes to the stuff, but it's like, it's crazy when it's like, you look at Nintendo's history of working with retailers. Like the fact that they, for years on and off, just aren't on Amazon. What? Yeah. That's wild. They just don't give a fuck. Yeah. Good for them. We'll see you when Yoshi hits in May. Doesn't help you with your Tomodachi, but of course that was a switch one game. So I guess it would be exempt from this to begin with. Hi, guys. Story number two, technically, PlayStation reportedly shuts down another first party partner studio. This is the one, the only kind of funny games daily award winner, Rebecca Valentine at IGN.com. PlayStation has reportedly shut down dark outlaw games, a studio hired by the console maker to make an unknown first party title, as well as laid off a number of other individuals involved in mobile development. This comes from Bloomberg reporter, Drayte Jason Shrier, who posted the news on Blue Sky today. Dark Outlaw Games was founded by Jason Blundell at Sony's best and was only quietly announced by Blundell on a podcast in March of last year after having been rumored the year before. At the time, he said they had been, quote, working away in the shadows for a while and noted that it was on a first party project for Sony, but the studio never officially announced what its project was. Dark Outlaw was staffed by a number of former members of Deviation Games, Blundell's previous venture. Blundell, a venture veteran of Activision and Treyarch on Call of Duty, founded Deviation Games in June, 2021 with fellow Treyarch veteran Dave Anthony. Similarly, to work on a first party Sony project, Blundell left the studio in 2022, layoffs took place in 2023, and in 2024, Deviation similarly shut down before it could announce its project. Shrier notes that this decision seems to have come from Sony, which has also laid off a number of individuals in mobile development internally with roughly 50 jobs lost overall. Man, just more and more. It's so tough too because it's hard to not get into the doom and gloom sense when so much of this news starts to add up in a way where we're like, all right, we're waiting on the PlayStation games. This generation on PlayStation 5, there was more of a lull in the middle than we had in the PlayStation 4. Where the lulls fell is just a different place. And that's, I think, upsetting when it felt like there was so much momentum. And now there's a lot of questions and we look at all the live service stuff and it's like, cool, it feels like that's all getting in the way. Then there's also these mobile initiatives. A lot of stories we've covered on Games Daily over the last forever. And we're just like, why are they doing this? Why would they put effort here? What are they trying to do? They're chasing this thing that like, why? We don't need uncharted mobile. Like, that's not what are we doing. And then you get the Fortnite layoffs yesterday. And it's like, damn, Fortnite, the golden standard, the example of what a live service game, what all these people are striving to do. And it's like, it's not working well enough for them because the decisions they're making to continue to try to do more and more and more. Chase the fucking dollar. Even themselves, though, right? It's like Fortnite chasing the need to reinvent and add more and more and more and more and more. Which like, on paper is a good thing. But then in reality, it just creates this monster that always has to change and always needs something new to buy, something new to like play or think about or talk about. And it, I think, gets in the way of just allowing video games as a whole to be their own thing and to not put other developers in situations or publishers specifically in positions where they need to chase these random highs when Fortnite is like creating new ones. So yeah, this is like, again, just another casualty of a war that didn't need to happen. For sure. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting one because we didn't know anything about the studio, right? So they weren't ready for prime time to begin with at least according to Sony. So I'm sure I wonder behind the scenes, Blundle saying it on a podcast, if that was a calculated move of PlayStation, like, well, I keep quiet until we have something to say. No, it's not going to buy. And he's just like, I can kind of see writing on the wall. I feel like I'm being shoved in a corner here. I'd rather say something so that there's a flare out there that we're doing something than to have this inevitable closure or not inevitable closure. But in the yarn I'm spinning right now for him, the writing was on the wall, do the thing, get here and this happens. And now at least there can be an article about it to say this is happening. But it's like two interesting different tangents to go off on, right? Of number one, from reading this alone and going through not only dark outlaw games, but then bringing up deviation. I guess what, Conjury and Glenn, like, this is yet another example of the, I worked on the biggest IPs, the triplest of A's. And now I'm going off to start my own studio and make the quadruple A game. It's me and a talented, it's that no moon studios. It's the one who did the game I can never remember, but just up north ascension studios. It's like, Hey, here we are, these names that you don't necessarily know, but we've been on the biggest games of all time. And now we're going off and they go off and they discover how hard it is to make a fucking game on their own as a new team. They bit off more than they could shoot. They went for the giant thing and we get a game that just cannot, doesn't happen here. Because now we're killing things before we even let them get that point. I mean, the difference is though, this is a first party Sony project, right? Like, yes, but no. I mean, so like, let's bring that, I love that bring that thread in. I don't think being a first party Sony studio, Sony studio means what it used to mean. I think when they started adding people to the roster and especially brand new studios to the roster, then you're no longer talking about you. You've worked with Insomniac for years. They've made some of your most cherished IP and most cherished games. They're your IP and you know what? Time to put a ring on it. Like that shit isn't happening anymore because the market seems to be so competitive. When this was happening with Xbox snapping up studios and shit, we need people making stuff exclusively for us. Yes, I do think though that there's still a difference though between all the other situations you named and this because I think those be like, hey, we're going to go off and do our own thing is very different than we're going to go off and do something with PlayStation. And now it's scary that oh, even that isn't going to work. Sure. Right. I feel like that's that is the thing is like, what's going to work? You know, PlayStation, we're looking at them now and it's like, we have Soros very, very. Right. It looks awesome. I hope it's as awesome. And he went and saw it. He'll talk about it soon. And then we have Wolverine at the end of the year. So we're about to have a potentially Bangor PlayStation 5 here, like something that we've been looking forward to. And then of course we have Intergalactic at some points. Yeah. Right. And we have Corey Barlog's next project, whenever that is. So there are things that like we are expecting to see, even if they haven't been announced yet. But then what? You know, it's scary that it kind of feels like things are drying up. And in the first party, Sony side of things. And then when you look at the third party, even that, like left and right studios are closing or getting acquired by Microsoft, which may or may not affect the PlayStation. Like right now they're still putting games on PlayStation. Will that change? Probably not. But who knows? I don't know. It's just that all of this is like very disturbing and scary as a fan of playing video games on any console. It doesn't matter where. I think the other thing to take away from this ride is again, I don't think it matters as much to be first party because I think they were pushing this live service thing and chasing that initiative and bringing people to make games like that, rather than what they've done before and what has worked before of. So cool. You're making games with us or Insomniac now will buy you. We want to live with you. You're great. I think the fact that they are jettisoning projects, they are killing the live service things. I think the message has been received loud and clear and especially with them even saying, we're retreating from PC. We need to go back to being the PlayStation that was the PS3, PS4, mainly PS4. Like that's who we need to be. That's our identity. And that's what again, as they said in their financials, right? Milking money out of the established PlayStation audience, which isn't chasing a live service. Yeah. No. I mean, and that's so true. It's just like that. The question is, is it possible to make up the lost time? Games take a long time to make. Games take a lot of money to make. And I just feel like the magical shift to, oh, hey, Games of Yor are back and it's going to take three years to develop this game. And the budget is going to be a fraction of what you're expecting. And audiences are going to be okay with it. That last part is going to be a very, very big tough pill to swallow that I don't even. And everything I just said, I don't even know if it's possible. You know, like with the rapid increase in what tech is allowing, like when you look at things like pisser, it does allow games to look a lot better. And, you know, less dev headroom needed to like actually hit all of these tech specs that are kind of the expectation at this point of the expectation because that's what we've been sold and that's the product that we bought. So it's just like a double edged sword that I am really not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel on, right? And like that is very scary because I do think that the getting rid of PlayStation plus whatever that ends up looking like, it's probably not going to be that big of a deal or like that big of a rebrand or whatever, but it could be part of a refocusing PlayStation. Yeah. Which I think is, I mean, what's needed, you go back to the episode you've been gone, but I, the predictions episode where I was like, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Like all these people need to fucking be, and people is the right word. All these shareholders need to eat shit. And it means that there's going to be a lot of layoffs and it'll be a lot of closures and all the stuff that you need to eat shit. So you can get back to having realistic expectations. So PlayStation, if it can be, we're going to make single digit profits back to your Fortnite stuff. Right? I wasn't on yesterday's episode to talk about this. Like the Fortnite stuff is once again, flying too close to the sun because you're too fucking greedy. And it's almost in the same conversation. We keep having one AI of like, we're the biggest thing in the world, but we got to keep being the biggest thing in the world. So let's make it wise for it. I need to be one game. It can be seven games. We'll put out the rocket league knockoff. Even though they are the rocket league people, the rocket league thing, the music thing, the Lego thing. And then guess what? Nobody fucking wants to play those. So shit. Now we lay off a thousand people, close up some of those games, keep the ones that work, even though I would not hold your breath. They're going to be around forever. Unless there's a licensing deal with Lego that needs to happen. It's like, yeah, why didn't you just fucking be happy being the biggest fucking video game in the world? Oh, your shop shareholders aren't going to be happy seeing you just make your profit stagnant. You need to go up. You need to go up. You need to go up, which is inevitably going to lead to this. I just want, what's the scariest part about this is really thinking about the, you saying it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And the fear I have is like it getting worse and shareholders look losing the money and things not going in. It doesn't mean I, you know what, let's go back to the drying board and figure out a new way to make money with this space. It means play stations. We close the brand. And like that sounds impossible. I say that right now on March 25th, 2026, it sounds impossible that PlayStation might not make a console, might not exist, whatever. There is a reality, though, that if you keep going down that path, it's like, it's not like the console is going to get cheaper, you know, they have no choice. PlayStation can't sell a PS5 for $300. They just can't do it. That's just not the reality we are in or will ever be it again. And with that, it's all right, cool. Then why would people spend more money for less? Yeah. And people will until they don't. I know. I know. Super chats. Kase, Kasey Dilla, Jason Blundell speaking on things on JC backfires Twitch at the top of the hour. I just love we live at a time where that's a statement. Yep. Sounds like he's going to be on CNN, but he's on JC. And this isn't me talking shit about JC blackfribe. No, I don't know who that is, but it's just funny that that's the thing. Yeah. I mean, let's go. I'm married. Hopefully that results in some good games daily stuff tomorrow. Aaron Lyme says, considering how much, how the purchase slash creation of dark outlaw was under Herman Hulse and Sony's closing things now, I wonder how stable Herman's position is. Yeah. Herman, you know, obviously handed an interesting ship to drive or to pilot here. And we'll see how this all nets out for him as we continue to see the repercussions of Jim Ryan, but I for one can't wait for fair games. Any day now we'll see there from Haven studios. A dollar signs in that title is going to be big kids love dollar signs in the title. Speaking of dollar signs, I got them in my eyes because having a staff of 11 people in a studio in San Francisco is very expensive. But if you love independent media like us and a lot of our friends, but mainly us right now, go to kind of funny.com slash now Patreon.com slash kind of funny YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, Apple Spotify. You can pick up the kind of funny membership. You can get everything we do ad free. You can get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller and a podcast I do each and every weekday. And of course you'd get good karma for supporting an 11 person, 11 year old small business. But right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsors. Us $10 to get all of our shows ad free, get your daily dose of me and get good karma because Patreon is the best place that gives us the best revenue share on the kind of funny subscription. But if that's not your style, we'd love it if you came over and signed up for a free account. That's right a free Patreon.com slash kind of funny follow gets you the weekly schedule access to quips, Patreon's version of Twitter. And as an exclusive bonus this Friday, March 27th, it gets you access to a live Greg way. That's right at 9 30 a.m. Pacific 30 minutes before kind of funny games daily. I'll go live answer chats and record the days Greg way any free member can come ask me questions in the chat. What have you got to lose? Sign up for a free sub on Patreon.com slash kind of funny and I'll see you Friday, March 27th on Patreon at 9 30 a.m. Pacific. Who else are you going to talk to a shoe? And we're back for story number three. We do this now. Throw it for the deadly boys. Number three, we're staying this PlayStation. So hot. Okay. Marathon has reportedly sold just 1.2 million copies so far just with, I mean, Crimson Desert smoke that shit. Well, I know, but like, we shouldn't be saying just 1.2 million. How long was this game in fucking development from bungee at PlayStation so far with steam making up 70% of the player base. This is the one, the only WIP at IGN.com. That's Wesley in pool. Marathon has been out for a few weeks now, and we've yet to get an official sales figure. So how's it going? According to one analyst quote, Marathon hasn't exactly made the splash. Sony and bungee wanted and quote bungee's ultra hardcore extraction shooter has sold around 1.2 million copies so far. According to a report by Alenia Analytics, generating gross revenues of around $55 million across PC via steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox series. While Marathon is a first party Sony game in the sense that it's developed by Sony owned bungee, it feels very much like a bungee published game. Indeed bungee, not Sony, is listed as the publisher, not just on steam, but on the PlayStation store. Perhaps that's why an estimated 70% of sales were on PC with just 19% on PS5 and 11% on Xbox. The big question here is whether Marathon has not only done the business for bungee, but for Sony. Bungee is under pressure to deliver for Sony after recent and very public financial failings. In November, Sony said bungee had failed to meet its sales and user engagement expectations, recording a 31.5 billion yen, approximately $204.2 million, impairment charge as a result of Destiny 2's underperformance. That was significant enough to drag down profits at Sony's game and network services segment, which includes Sony interactive entertainment. Quote, Marathon hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and bungee wanted, even if the game underneath the surface is a master work of design. Rees Elliott, Alenia analytics head of marketing analysis said, quote, there's a lot to love about Marathon and the show ain't over yet. End quote. Cause we all know games, live games, multiplayer games is usually six months in where you see that big, really starts to get better. That's what I go look at any steam chart for any online. Man. Yeah. Again, we've been talking about bungee and following this story. And it's just like the fact that this game's actually out. I do think it's kind of a miracle in a lot of ways because I don't think that that was a sure bet at all. But yeah, here it is now. And the stat that I find interesting. So obviously 70% sales on PC, that is something to talk about here. Right. Then 19 on PS five, 11 on Xbox 11 to 19, not as big of a gap as I would have expected with following all the rest of the kind of Xbox sales compared to PlayStation sales for this title specifically. It's like, man, I am, I'm very shocked at how low the sales are on PlayStation specifically. Sure. But yeah, then you have the, the PC thing and say, Oh yeah, let's take our games off PC. That's what we should do. Right. What a perfect time to do that. But even then 70% of 1.2 million, they've said, I think in that, in that, to be clear, in that article, it was that multiplayer stuff will still potentially. Yeah. And again, Wild West, we're still just figuring all this shit out. So who knows how this all going to happen. But yeah, to your point, it's like, all right, cool. How much longer does this have? And I feel like that doom and gloom attitude is would have been silly to have a couple of years ago, but in a post-conquered world, I don't know, man, like that game doesn't exist anymore. No. I mean, there's so many things to talk about here. And I can only ever do it from my perspective as for so many years, the PlayStation guy, where you look at these numbers, 70% of PC and 19% of PlayStation 5. This isn't a PlayStation game. And I understand that it's bungee is owned, but not, but this, but that Sony's looking at them and it's hitting Sony's bottom line and their numbers. So it's like, no, you are. And I understand I'm not saying Wesley is misreporting. I'm just saying that like, we can hem and haunt, break it up however you want. It's affecting SIE. It's affecting PlayStation. Yeah. No. And it's like, this is not what a PlayStation gamer wants. Period. And, but here's the crazy thing too. By all accounts I've seen, and I'm sure there are the tractors of this and I'm sure that this isn't the end all be all, but like, it's a really good game. Dude, the game's great. Octavio in the Super Chat. Marathon is my game of the year. More than 80 plus hours in it. Not been this addicted to a multiplayer game since Halo two and Halo three. It's my first extraction shooter. It's a rogue like destiny if you will, but more brutal than Adam two times. Marathon two is my game of the year. And I can only see Wolverine overtaking it 10 out of 10 PVP, P V E experience. Gershman is on BS talking about it. A bunch of other people, I mean, I've seen Andy a whole bunch talking. Yeah. But there's somebody out who's normally not into this kind of thing. I'm not even going to name a name, but it was another game's journey. I follow on BS who was chronicling, becoming obsessed with this. Like marathon's got this stuff. It's just that usual thing of like, are you into extraction shooters? No. I mean, I liked our graders, but like not, so if I want to do it, I jump at our creators. Like I look at marathon. I'm like, the visual style isn't what I want. Like that's not what I'm doing. And I'm talking very succinct. It's yeah, but it's not what I want to go play. Okay. I look at it. Have you played it? Yeah, exactly. So it's like whatever, but Yeah, it is very interesting to see what the acquisitions of these companies looks like when they're the point of doing that is to say, this is a PlayStation game or this is an Xbox game. And then the reality is of it's like Call of Duty is not an Xbox game. You bought it, but it's not. Yeah. Marathons, not a PlayStation game. Yeah. It's a bungee game. And again, I think this leads to watering down what the brand is, which then leads you to do some more fucking trends and bullshit, which again, like I've said this before and you talked about it a second ago, but like, don't get me wrong, the genie's out of the bottle. You can't PlayStation can't sustainably contract and be like, we're going back to being a smaller PlayStation because everybody revolts. SIE numbers are down. Oh my God. Crank up this, put the price in that milk, the money out of them. Like the whole game's rigged and fucked, but it's like, that's what you should, you should have never tried to stretch as far as you've stretched. You should have never tried to take on being the next live service giant. Yeah. Now here's where we are. Elvis for friend has a question, Greg. What does Greg mean by this isn't what PlayStation players want? I mean, exactly what I'm talking about right now, right? Of I feel like PlayStation, PlayStation four, PlayStation three to PlayStation four was had an identity. We are PlayStation. We are making these really great single player games. Some are really big triple A things. Some are going to be smaller little experiences on PSN. We're working with second parties. We have our amazing first party lineup. We are in the focus as well. Exactly. Right. Honestly, if you want to know the PlayStation, that was the most successful in the PlayStation. Greg only knows what he wants. Lois is Wolfen. No, if you look at the fucking numbers of PlayStation floundering, I'm telling you what they shouldn't have done. Get the fucking Q tips out of your ears. Wolfen anyways, go back and watch the reveal of the PlayStation four, watch when they came out and just talked about games, games, games. We are all about the gamer. It's going to be similar to make it so developers can get their indie devs can get devs can get their games on there faster. It's going to work. It's going to be great. It's going to do this and that strategy fucking won the day. They overtook Xbox. They came out strong. Xbox never got to catch up and then PlayStation took all the wrong lessons as their hubris grew. And now you're here with the PlayStation five going, man, there's a low. Where are the first party games? They said that you got Jim Ryan, however many years ago talking about, there's going to be 12 fucking live service games by 2025. No, there's going to be a fucking cluster fuck of companies and layoffs and shareholders and everything else. Cause you all decided to fucking shoot for the sun rather than sit there and go, no, we're going to keep doing this. This is what works, but everybody gets fucking greedy in this capitalist game we're in to where we have to be bigger and we have to be the best and we have to do this. They would be sitting so pretty. The only reason we don't sit here, we and you, the gamer, don't sit here and go, what the fuck happened to PlayStation is because every time PlayStation shoots themselves in the foot, Xbox shoots themselves in the head and we're like, holy fucking shit. Yeah. What the fuck Xbox? So like you can all greg only wants what he wants. Well, well, we'll see what keeps going for PlayStation. I saw some other people in the chat being like, you just want sad, bad games that could be turned into HBO shows and it's like, well, guess what? Those games are still very, very well on PlayStation. If you put it out, but they're not putting them out right now. And I think when I think of last guy, give me more last guy. You know what I mean? Give me more shit. Like what fucking house Mark is doing. We're about to get saw us, but why aren't there more house Mark studios under PlayStation? Hey, we make smaller games that are critically acclaimed and win game of the year and are about gameplay. And now we're mixing in story and we're doing it. Like you look at house, look at house Mark and look at held over studio arrow. I can't reach for it right now. Arrowhead. Thank you. And look at people who are like, man, that is, I think the soul of PlayStation for my day when PlayStation was successful and granted they're extremely successful now, but you know exactly what I'm saying. Cause guess what? Mark it down. Tim, put the time down. Two years. It's going to be worse for PlayStation. Yeah. It's going to be worse for PlayStation. And this one team is so, we have another great call of like, these are the ones we should be fucking watering. These are the season, the plates we should be growing into the next naughty dog into the next and some heck. I mean, we're seeing now, so I could become that potentially. I mean, you know, I've been making a lot of assumptions about SARS, but like to see where house Mark wise to return to now, Soros, it's like, all right, they're, they're leveling up and they could become a prestige quote unquote PlayStation studio. But I want my infinite money number to go up right now, Greg, be the shareholder. Bo Delix super chances. I kind of disagree with that take. We see the same 10 games, sports, shooter, games, the cervix, et cetera, topping the charts on PlayStation every month for years now. A PlayStation gamer is also just a gamer. Exactly. No, you nailed it. Exactly. In that audience that wants to play Madden, that wants to play Call of Duty, that wants to play whatever games and services for tonight. They can go to Xbox and do that. They will eventually go to the PC and do that. If the memory leak loss doesn't fucking ruin PC gaming forever, right? Like, no, there's no PlayStation identity to this stuff anymore. It is. You're just playing on this box because it's there because Microsoft can't fucking do anything. Right. But eventually someone is going to figure out how to do this and get it everywhere. Maybe it is mobile, maybe it is Xbox, and maybe it is cloud or whatever. But like when that happens inevitably, when that happens, when you can go play this stuff cheaper and better and faster, wherever else, and people leave, what does PlayStation have to stay? We're going to have Intergalactic two and seven years. Nobody cares about that anymore. And then they have to do the thing where they pivot. Like we're talking about what PlayStation has done, what they've built in the success they've had. And I'm fucking just, I know I'm definitely putting on hypothesis here. You know what I mean? That'll have to be proven years and a decade from now. But like what PlayStation has built right now up until 2026. Look at right and look at what Nintendo has done. Like Nintendo bets on themselves. Nintendo makes you come here and play the game. You know what a Nintendo game is. You know what a Nintendo exclusive is. They've gone left when everybody else is gone. Right. They've done this and they've stood by their audience. I can't stand there. I can't tell you enough, you know, in general, being a pundit critic, whatever this job is for 20 years and then playing my Nintendo switch to right now, how much I marvel at what they've done where they literally were like, we're doing this reading Keza's book about the choices they've made that were pro gamer. We talk all the time here where we're talking about companies that are making pros to sharehold their decisions. You're talking about a WADA. You're talking about CEOs not taking as much money in Nintendo. You're talking about them right now. Make fun of them if you want to, but giving a break on digital to try to figure out what's going on. Like they are doing the gamer first stuff while all the other companies are doing the fucking goddamn corporate CEO bullshit, golden parachute. I'll take that. Please. In a slightly different direction. I don't think that it's gamer first, but I think it's because it is still it's a business. Of course. It's a games business. Yes. It is a game. Yes. It's a great way to put it. And they make they are in the business of making games for people to play. These words, I think are not priorities for Xbox and PlayStation. They haven't for a very long time. And a lot of what we're saying about PlayStation could never get back to doing these things. Well, that's all Nintendo does. Right. Yeah. And I again have said this many, many times. Like I've been so happy with my switch to not because it's delivering month after month of the best Nintendo games I've ever possibly played, but it is now allowing me to play pretty much every Nintendo game with these standards of tech that the industry is at to an extent on the low end. But this is the first time that's been true since the GameCube. That is so long. So much has changed. So much has happened. Xbox rose and fell during that time from 360 to Xbox one and beyond. Right. And yeah, this Nintendo's commitment to we make games for people to play and they don't always get it right. They get it wrong a lot. They make a lot of weird decisions. Sometimes they pay off. Sometimes they don't. But yeah, I mean, I'm having a great time as a Nintendo fan. I'll say it's back to you. And I'll get on the next story. I know we got other stuff to do here, but it was that, you know, throughout the years you've heard me say it a million times where I'm like, I don't mean this offensively, but Nintendo makes toys. You know what I mean? And I always thought that I was saying something fucking not profound, but I thought, Oh man, I got, I understand Nintendo and then reading these books where they're literally saying that we're gay. We make games. This should be, it should be about fun first. It should be all is like, Oh, fuck they've always, that's why it works. They know who they are. Whereas PlayStation 12 live service games. What's worked? What got us to this position? Yeah. Why don't we make a bunch of this bullshit? That's what he wants. Right? Speaking of Nintendo, Greg way, Tim, you're actually here for story number four. I am. It's your review of Mario Wonder on switch two. Yes. Super Mario Wonder switch to addition plus meetup at Belleville park that rolls right off the tongue. Just like all of the Nintendo switch two additions thus far. There has been no consistency with these switch two additions with switch two upgrades as a whole. There are some patterns, but as somebody that has played, I would say I'm definitely most, if not all of the switch two additions at this point. Yeah. It's been very interesting to see the bonus modes that they add and how substantial they are. We had Mario party, jamboree plus jamboree TV, of course, never forget. And it's like, all right, cool. That was like a interesting idea trying to use the switch choose camera that they were really pushing at the launch of this thing. But like it was a gimmick too far. Like there was just too much there. It being a kind of separate game, it kind of just felt like it should just been its own standalone product. Right? We had Kirby in the forgotten lands, which I would start across worlds, which I absolutely loved. I think that that's the best switch to addition so far. Okay. In terms of bonus content. Yeah. Like great stuff. $20 for what we got there. I thought was like, that's fine. That's fair. I think that otherwise a lot of these switch to additions have struggled to convince me that $20 is the right price point as an upgrade because you can upgrade your switch one version or it's an extra $20 from 60 to 80 to buy these games. And then you look at the Breath of the Wild tears, the Kingdom is cool. They added bonus stuff that like we really didn't need like, you know, being able to app now, the notes app, the map app and then the, the zeldin notes and all that stuff. It's like, cool. These are nice things, but it's like nobody is buying the things for those, right? Nintendo switch otherwise, especially now with their handhelds mode, begin to upgrades of switch one games running better and 10 ADP and handheld. That's great. Yeah. A lot of games got patches, not all games got patches, right? But they've surprisingly like things like animal crossing happened a lot sooner than I thought it would when it didn't happen as soon as I initially did. Right? So here we are now, Mario Wonder, an incredible video game, a standout Mario platformer, a game that I think everybody should play. Not my favorites of the 2D Mario games ever. I think that I was lower on it than the kind of general consensus. I think I gave it an eight when it first came out on switch one. But I like excuses to go back to games from a couple of years ago, specifically Nintendo games and you're telling me I get to play it with better tech. That's awesome. This game runs at 4K now instead of 1080, which is very, very nice. I think that the art style of this game is gorgeous. The animations are incredible and seeing them in incredibly crisp 4K is awesome. The frame rate is not better than it was. It was essentially locked 60 then it's locked 60. There are very, very small parts that I wouldn't even notice in the original game like chugging just a little bit, but now it's just locked, but no 120 mode, which not necessary by any means, but I do think that 120 frames per second in a bass-paced 2D platformer does kind of make a difference. That is a genre that I've felt that in. So the focus here is twofold. There is some single player content, not much, and then there is the multiplayer stuff where there's online and then there's in person, where you can either play with multiple switches connected or couch with one TV, multiple people play. And it's very inconsistent. I'm going to start this off saying I would give this a 7 out of 10 on the kind of funny scale. I don't know that it is a definite recommendation for even major fans of my own wonder. I think that the solo... Are you doing the new stuff you're giving a 7 out of 10? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Game still, if you don't play it. Yeah. You should play. If you have not played Mario Wonder and you have a Switch 2, that's insane. But yes, you should definitely play this version of the game. Okay. It makes the other game better, for sure. But just talking about the single player stuff, because that's what I was mostly interested in for this and mostly what I was able to even do, given my situation right now at home with the baby. So there's... Anyone want to play? There is seven boss fights that you get in this. It's all the Cupid kids, right? And they each get affected by the Wonder Seed and each have a Wonder Seed infected boss fight. Okay. These are the best boss fights in Mario Wonder. Okay. Mario Wonder's boss fights? Not a highlight of that game. So it's a weird thing where it's like, yeah, this is better, but it's like, it kind of isn't even necessarily solving a problem the other game had. Okay. But I do think it kind of shines a light on, oh man, I do like this. I kind of wish that as a whole package, I was able to play through this game and get these bosses integrated into the game. Okay. It being a separate thing where you're just playing these kind of back to back, doesn't hit the same. There's one new power up you're seeing here, the flower power up where you can like, you float a little bit and you can like shoot flowers up. That is a mechanic that is used a lot in the boss fights. The boss fights pretty cool. Like I really do like give them the shout out of like, there's a lot of creativity there. And then once you finish the boss fights, there's not much else solo stuff to do. There's this toad challenge mode with about 70 challenges reminds me a lot of Super Mario, Super Luigi U on the Wii U where it took new Super Mario Brothers U and just kind of remixes the levels in faster paced, higher challenge situations. And I'm a sucker for that stuff. Like that is kind of what I want from end game Mario wonder. But again, it's just not integrated well. So playing all this solo content as it's presented kind of just feels like more as opposed to like additive additive. And again, it's good stuff. It's really, really good stuff. I think that I the 70 challenges I'd probably would say that I really, really liked at least 60 of them. Okay. Maybe a handful of them I could do without, but this is a big criticism I had of wonder. Again, still love the game, but I really care about Mario. So it's like I'm a little more critical of it, but I feel like for all the spectacular things that wonder did, I constantly was finding myself being like, Oh, wow, I loved that. I wish they took it further. Oh, I love that. I wish they took it further. I want more of this. You know, we, when you ask them, what did they love about wonder? So many people bring up the like Piranha plants on parade level, right? Like these various things. It's like, I wanted more of that. And I still find myself saying the same thing here. Like with these boss fights, with some of the challenges that you have, they introduce dual badges. If you remember Mario, badges that kind of allow you to equip abilities as you're playing levels. So you have a parachute cap so you can like float a little bit more or you're on a spring as you go. So it's like, it just adds challenge and also creates the gimmicks for the levels, which is the kind of the core identity of what Mario is at this point. Dual badges mix the two. So you can have a double jump and the grappling vine. And I'm like, Oh, that's super cool. They only use it in one level. And it's like, I don't think that that stuff was pushed far enough. You see the bones of something incredible here. I don't think that they fully got there though. So yeah, it's, if you are a Mario wonder diehard, you're going to have a really good time. You're going to play for five hours and you can be like, wow, I like Mario wonder a lot. But I struggle to be like, if you're a solo player, is it worth $20? I don't think it is. Interesting. Then there's the multiplayer side. And this is a tougher conversation for me because I did not get to do much of any real local multiplayer. I tried to fake it just so I can at least get in and see what the modes are. But just playing with myself, which is not going to be that great. But the modes on my, oh my God, these are going to be some of the best party modes ever. Like, very, very, very cool. They're scheduled. They're scheduled. Oh, that, that excites me. Like, that stuff's going to hit. There's some really, really fun creative stuff on the co-op side of multiplayer. It seems a lot cooler than some of the competitive. The competitive just seems like way too basic. Then there's online. I got to do some online sessions. And I, I don't think online is really even worth thinking about in this game. Really? Yeah. There's no matchmaking so unless you have friends that you are getting in a group with to play you just can't play That seems like a major mistake for a game that is so focused on the multiplayer stuff right? For people that either don't have friends aren't don't have friends available don't have friends interested It's like if I wanted to just place the multiplayer Mario. Just let me do it Yeah, let me show you so that's weird and then yeah even just playing them the online modes I was just really not impressed by they it doesn't really feel like playing with people was adding to the experience They might as well have all just been CPU ghosts, you know, okay when people were talking and stuff That's kind of cool. But that's that's the end of it. Yeah, so yeah overall. I I don't want to say I'm disappointed I just think that this is uh one of the weaker one of the weaker offerings and this definitely could have just been one of the ones that got patched I I much would have rathered a 2d Mario multiplayer game that that it was just a game and that's what they did Yeah, I just think the integration into Mario wonder is pretty clunky and cumbersome and I think the solo content is it's very good, but I don't think that it's uh worth Going out of your way to revisit interesting. Okay. This is one of my most anticipated ones strictly because of assist mode Of course, uh, I play video games with ben all the time We love playing mario wonder and ben is very good at video games plays astro about all by himself But this struggle sometimes of me trying to go ahead him getting caught me having to get to him But him going we lose all our lives. We lose the level. We don't like it I'm going to read from patrick cleppick. Of course, uh, if you don't know cleppick come on get your shit together But of course cross plays his parenting newsletter that I said too Way back when he got to go play this in february. He put out this and this was the paragraph that caught mine I also found out about wonders assist mode a welcomed option where players don't take damage Can't die and can also be non-nabbit characters because of course in the game you could be nabbit You could still fall but you couldn't take damage It's is is not restricted to a single person You can for example have multiple players working their way through wonder together with two people taking advantage of assist mode And two people playing normally He's talking about his multi-person family and multi kid family for me being able to put ben in as louisji or mario Is he always wants and not have to worry about dying and losing a life for us awesome? Yeah, that's huge and yeah, again, this is the definitive way to play this game. Yeah But it's more of like is it worth the upgrade? I don't think so sure fair enough. Um, but yeah, it's again It's mario wonder. It's just I as we're looking at these switch two editions. It's like it really is clear They're just not all equal and they're they're charging equal. So yeah Well, if they were all equal that'd be big news, but tim right now I want the smallest news. I need to know about where should I go? You know our last story the we news channel where we cover all the small news items that you need to know about Number five the we news from ign tec in eighth development team has released a statement promising to address the strong community response arising after hundreds of fans left negative steam reviews bringing the fighting games recent reviews rating down from mostly Too mostly negative on val's platform quote season three was the final straw said one player on steam It's clear the balance philosophy is no longer about competitive integrity of player satisfaction Every major patch feels like It does the opposite of what players want. There are better fighting games out here that actually respect the player's time and feedback and quote I know that this is just what's here, but what what's the team statement? They're gonna fix it Are they I don't know they're gonna they're promising to address the strong community response You don't want to piss off the fighting game community. No, but you don't and again, this is even the problem with the live service games It's like you got to keep the people happy forever. Yeah. Yeah From GameSpot the developer of crimson desert has seen its stock price surge on the korea exchange Recovering the losses that came after reviews of the game came out Pearl abyss is trading up more than 26 percent today The stock crashed by 30 percent last week reviews came out But those losses have now been largely erased and if you listened to roger and went to korea to buy the Stock, you'd be rich right now. Yeah, man Thank you, barrett warframe is now available on switch to uh Tomodachi life living the dream which we previewed yesterday on the gamescast Has a welcome version demo available right now in the nintendo e shop progress will carry over you can make three mes love that Oh, yeah 100 percent from gamatsu co-op building simulation game salvation denied has been announced for playstation 5 xbox series and pc Salvation denied is a chaotic cooperative building simulation game for 1 to 4 players Uh team up and use heavy machinery and ridiculous tools to build wallach constructions Physics rules everything every block has weight every mistake shifts the balance and disasters will push your creation to the absolute limit Also four penny coffins has been announced in four penny coffins up to eight players hunt a hidden murderer through lies Shifting alibis and hard evidence in our online multiplayer mode This social investigation game also includes a solo load for those brave enough to face the fog alone as you watch this trailer It was edited by the one and only jared petty. Oh Text me yesterday. This was like i'm very happy with my work and i'm like a really good trailer jared great job So go support jared. Uh, it's up right now. You can wishlist it sonic frontiers definitive edition has been rated in korea uh It's really interesting just uh because there's annual sonic games. Yeah, and so it's like is this going to be 2026's sonic game Not necessarily great news I mean they could have a hidden one up their sleeve like what's the what's the one what's the fake one that torbent Revolution. Yeah sonic revolution maybe one day maybe Invincible versus has revealed titan as a playable character and then village in the shade launches this fall on ps5 switch one and Switch to and pc Like i have my brain broke reading that Of course we ask you you can cut it That's the end of the we news to super chat to be part of the show we've included so many in there Uh ignacio rojas comes in and says sub tim digimon superfane here. You should check out new digimon anime It's so your vibe also time stranger. You should play it I haven't watched the show yet and definitely haven't played the game But they did release movies four through six on blu-ray barrett For the first time in english revenge of diaboramon. Whoa, what? Yeah, so i watched that for the first time Not that good. Oh, it was really not that good. I was actually like wow guys You shouldn't have brought him back if that's what it was gonna be but still cool seeing them all it was the season one And two cast together. That's always fun. Yeah, that is always fun Also, uh a lot of cool people that i fuck with uh in the voice acting community Um are in that digimon anime, so i've been meaning to check it out. Hell yeah Let's call breakbeat something like that beat games Uh Ono miss prom says listen I know tim will be back soon His nipples are still sore from breastfeeding and it's a little late But we have to do a resneval nine spoiler cast with him and or britney altano and jake baldino Yeah, I mean, I would I just want to talk about that game more man. It's so good Uh professor white t says kfdg kind of funny dad group we can start that out Uh Not calvin prez super chats tim i'm playing super mario bros for the first time. It's kicking my ass. How do I beat it? Damn dude Amen always hold the b button. I think that's the thing, you know, don't think of it as too much Think of it as just rolling your thumb to that jump button We go to kind of funny.com slash you're wrong where you keep us honest Uh ty the pain says while no nintendo developed game have been released as game key cards Pokemon pokopia was the first nintendo published game to be released as a game key card I was literally saying during the the break to greg that like me being rusty on this I'm just like trying to piece words together in my head and it's just not Saying things the right way and so as I was saying that I was just like i'm not clear about what i'm saying right now But yes, I meant first party titles Uh lucy dream says just an fyi epic games is a privately held company good point But again, I would go back to them wanting to make more money So they keep making different things that then fucked up a bunch of lives But I hear what you're saying and I appreciate you keep me honest Uh Come on I was arguing about sad dad games kfb says yoshi was 60 dollars announced from march 10th And now the physical increased at 70 dollars. It's not digital being made cheaper That's awesome and by awesome. I mean fuck that sucks. Yeah So hold on then let me go back here to the breaking beginning prerios nintendo Okay, so Beginning in may 2026 and starting with pre-orders for yoshi Uh new nintendo published digital titles exclusive nintendo switch 2 will have an msrp that is different from physical versions So then we're saying So this is just saying physical games cost more Okay, so it's not a discount. Yeah, it's an increase for physical. Well, that is bullshit then I'm gonna like that one bit, but they had already done the discount for digital If you really want to think about that. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Let me rephrase that. That's not true. They had the game was already not a full price msrp title It was not a 70 dollar title. It was a 60 dollar title. Uh-huh. Yeah, okay And then ignacio says the new digimon anime is digimon beat break beat break And that's it for kind of funny games daily Everybody we hope you've enjoyed this episode. Of course remember like subscribe share If you want to go that extra mile on youtube.com slash kind of funny games patreon.com slash kind of funny apple spotify Toss us 10 dollars get all of our shows. That's more than 80 a month ad free Get your daily dose of me in a series we call greg way that's 15 to 20 minutes of podcasting all every day And of course get good karma for supporting an 11 person 11 year old small business Uh, of course, we're all about live talk shows. We're far from done today Up next is the games cast we played pokemon champions with myself Tim and then our two folks who went and played it blessing adio And then jake decker from lm spot a very exciting episode So don't go anywhere and if you're listening or watching later go watch that on youtube.com slash kind of funny games for podcast services around the globe Until next time, but our pleasure to serve you