transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Today, in the nerdy news you need to know about, our Diablo IV Lord of Hatred review, Splatoon Raiders hits the Switch 2 in July, and Mikey, Xbox Game Pass prices are going down! We officially won! We'll have all this and more because this is Kinda Funny Games Daily! What's up, everybody? Welcome to Kinda Funny Games Daily for Tuesday, April 21st, 2026. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside the master of hype. He bleeds green. It's Snowbike Mike.

Speaker 2:
[00:38] Good morning, Greg. We have some good news from team Xbox.

Speaker 1:
[00:41] So let's talk finally. And of course from the Diablo podcast, the one and only Xanth. Hello, Xanth.

Speaker 3:
[00:48] Excited to be here.

Speaker 1:
[00:51] You know, it was supposed to be our Diablo IV review. We're going to have a nice time. You and me talking. Of course, Xanth, Kinda Funny's a RPG expert, but then Xbox has to come in swinging with something else.

Speaker 2:
[01:04] Double block of Xbox. I was thinking about that. Right. It's a double win.

Speaker 1:
[01:09] It's a double win. But it's also like, if you're Blizzard, you know, like, come on, guys, because you announced it Monday. Could you have announced it Wednesday? Why is no one in this giant corporation of Xbox talking about what the embargoes are for our stuff? How are you, Xanth?

Speaker 3:
[01:25] I am doing great. It's been a while. I've been excited. I've wanted to get on Kinda Funny Games Daily for a long time. So here I am. And I'm ready to chat. Even if it is just about Xbox for a little bit, at least it's good Xbox.

Speaker 1:
[01:40] It is good Xbox. Xanth, if people don't know where you're from and what do you do?

Speaker 3:
[01:46] So I am Xanth. I host a little podcast about Diablo, the Diablo podcast. You can find us on Apple and Spotify and YouTube at pure DMG.

Speaker 1:
[01:58] Hell yeah. Of course, you've been here many a time. You were here when we had Rod in and we played Diablo a bunch. You were here for that. You were here for our other reviews. Of course, I listen to the Diablo podcast. Excited to talk to you about Lord of Hatred. We'll get to that in one second, Mikey, because first, I have to remind everybody that this is Kinda Funny Games Daily. Each and every weekday, we run you through the nerdy video game news. You need to know about live Twitch, YouTube podcast services around the globe. If you love that, of course, be part of the show. You can super chat on youtube.com/kindafunnygames with your questions, comments, concerns about the day's news, and of course, sound off with your thoughts and opinions about our review when we get there. We couldn't do this with our producers over on patreon.com/kindafunny. 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 news. Five items on the Roper Report. Number one, Mike, the national nightmare is over. Xbox Game Pass price drops officially. We're reading from Xbox Wire. Starting today, Game Pass Ultimate drops from $29.99 to $22.99 a month. PC Game Pass will also drop from $16.49 to $13.99 a month. Prices vary by region. Beginning this year, future Call of Duty titles won't join Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass at lunch. New Call of Duty games will be added to Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass during the following holiday season about a year later. While existing Call of Duty titles already in the library will continue to be available. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will continue to have access to hundreds of games on Xbox console and PC including Call of Duty titles, in-game benefits, online console multiplayer, and major day one releases. Our players cover a wide breadth of geographies, preferences, and tastes. So while there isn't a single model that works best for everyone, this change responds to a lot of the feedback we've gotten so far. We'll continue to listen and learn. Thank you for being part of the Xbox community. If that wasn't enough, enough over on X, Asha Sharma, of course the new head of Xbox, the Big Cheese, says, Game Pass Ultimate has become too expensive for too many players. Starting today we're dropping the price from $29.99 to $22.99 a month. Future Call of Duty Titles will keep learning and evolving Game Pass to better match what matters to players. Of course, Michael, there has been so much conversation at Kinda Funny, both on Games Daily, on the Gamescast, about what is going on at Xbox. What is Asha actually there to do? Can they change this? Will they change that? You have one, two, three, four, five, six, five. I miscounted. Pieces of paper in front of you.

Speaker 2:
[04:47] I got like six.

Speaker 1:
[04:47] No, you got doubles. I was right. It was six. All right. Mike, you hosted the XCast for a long time. You bled green for a long time. You know this beat better than anybody. What's your initial take?

Speaker 2:
[04:57] Yeah, Greg, this is the positive news, right? This is a big first step, especially in Asha's leadership. Of course, we've been asking questions of what will the new look be? What will Asha bring to the table now that Phil and Sarah Bond are gone? Right? What is the vision for Xbox? And of course, we start with Game Pass, something that got too expensive for players, and a lot of people put down as a service. And it's not the hoorah, this is the best deal in gaming anymore. It became a, oh, wow, a $30 price tag. Is this worth it? And for the past week, we've had conversations with the community on the shows as well, like, what needs to happen to Game Pass and what needs to be taken off? And a lot of the touchstones from the community seem to be, hey, I'm not a big Call of Duty player. That could go, hey, this Fortnite crew maybe I'm not taking advantage of some of these added benefits. That could go, right? You have an EA Play in there, a Ubisoft Plus. And so there's just giant beast that is Xbox Game Pass. As you could see, I could give a TED Talk of what each tier is. And so you kind of go through with the big eraser and go, what needs to be scratched off? What needs to go? And Call of Duty seems to be the simplest answer for a first decrease. Is this good? Yes. Would we like this lower, Greg? Of course. In the world of streaming services, it's tough because it's kind of where it's at right now.

Speaker 1:
[06:16] Correct me if I'm wrong. Obviously, kindoffunny.com/you'rewrong. We went from 1999 to 2999. That was the jump and that was when everybody was like, it's too much. So we're still up three bucks or whatever, but still up three bucks.

Speaker 2:
[06:29] And so if you do the math, 2299 times 12, you're at, you're hitting out about $274 and 80 cents. You divide that by $70 price tag is what we used to do in the math. And that's about 3.92 full games. So about four full games a year is what you'd be buying in to Game Pass to hopefully you save the big initial start of Game Pass was, hey, you get the Xbox first party games. All of these games that are 70 bucks like Alo and Forza and Gears, you save on those and you're like, oh, I love that. They're like, well, get this. We're going to add a bunch of games to your library instantly. And right now, Greg, there's like 900 plus games on Ultimate on PC. Game Pass says 535. There's gigantic collections of games. They jump into and have this instant like backlog catalog. And so how do you get the savings? How do you make this lower? Is this enough for gamers to jump in? As of right now, this Monday is a positive news for Xbox. It's not enough.

Speaker 1:
[07:29] Oh, I want to keep an opinion that but pivot to that. Is this enough for gamers and go to Xanth? Of course, Xanth hosts the Diablo podcast, plays a ton of games and all that stuff. But he's what I would call a normal person. When he goes to work, he goes and teaches children. He has a job. You know what I mean? He's not just talking about games all day. From your point of view, Xanth, were you subscribed to Game Pass before the price increased? Did you quit afterwards? Are you going to come back now? What is your read on Game Pass and what it values for you, especially being a Diablo player? Like you are invested in Battle. Net and Diablo and the ecosystem.

Speaker 3:
[08:04] Yeah, I think this is kind of interesting to come on to today. I canceled my PC Games Pass when the price jumped not that long ago.

Speaker 1:
[08:16] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[08:18] I think I did what everybody does when a service that you're subscribed to goes up. Like I evaluated, like, am I getting the cost effectiveness of the service anymore when the price increases? And for me, at the time, PC Game Pass just wasn't it. So I canceled seeing this kind of get back down does seem a little bit more enticing.

Speaker 1:
[08:41] Okay. Will you come back?

Speaker 3:
[08:43] I'm like, I don't know. I think I kind of go back with Mike. Like it is it enough yet? Call of Duty was not going to be the thing for me. But I also kind of worry of like from the PC Game Pass part of it. Does it just keep losing pieces that would be enticing to me down the road? On my horizon, Fable is there, right? Like Fable is a game that I would subscribe to PC Games Pass for.

Speaker 1:
[09:16] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[09:19] If they're committed to starting to pull these titles that they think they can sell maybe more successfully off of Games Pass, am I subscribing to something that's only going to lose?

Speaker 1:
[09:30] Oh, that's interesting. Do you think? Okay. And that's what you're pointing at too, Mike. Are we worried about a chilling effect here?

Speaker 2:
[09:36] That is a piece of the conversation right now from the community. On this initial reaction, let me just jump in.

Speaker 1:
[09:41] If I didn't even think about that, I thought, all right, we're taking the elephant out of the room. Call of Duty. It's weighing it down. We put too much on there. If you I'm sure back end wise, they've seen that we didn't convert the millions of Call of Duty players to Game Pass players, and we're just passing that problem on to the people that were already there. The fact that they still right now over when you click to buy it, right, they still have Fortnite crew on there. I was like, oh, do they strip that out? No, they left Fortnite crew in there, which again, doesn't matter if you don't care, but it's still there. It's still saying day one, next month still is, for it's a fucking Horizon 6. I wasn't thinking about, oh, this is a harbinger of things that's come.

Speaker 2:
[10:16] There's conversation like Xanth brought up of like, what could be next? I don't see that happening as, you know, me and Blessing had this conversation. What do you subscribe to Game Pass for? For me, it was the first party day and day games. For him, it was the instant library of Indies, Oldies, kinda third party titles. I come for the fables, the Fortes, the Gears, the days like, I'm doing this because I want to save on not having to buy Xbox first party titles. And every gamer is different. As Asher says, right? They have to look at this giant pie chart and go, what is worth it? And so as you brought up, Greg, Call of Duty was the first move. Call of Duty was the giant elephant in the room. Call of Duty was like your giant juggernaut title that can sell on its own, no problem. But the thought process was, hey, what if we take the biggest title on Earth, package it in the Game Pass? Subscribers got to go through the roof. And I think like you said, Greg, you saw two things. It didn't push Game Pass to the moon. And also, did it hurt Call of Duty sales? No and yes, right? Of course, yeah, it did hurt its sales. It was also an off year. But like, we know that that's gonna sell every year. So why even take away money from the piggy bank by putting it in the subscription service? It seems like an easy, like logical, yeah, just yank that out. $7 is what they came down to for Call of Duty alone. So it's like, all right, like if that's the move, I don't think gamers are gonna be mad. Call of Duty audience, like me, is gonna buy it every year regardless. I think they had a nice one, especially on an off year where I was able to convince my friends of like, please play Call of Duty with me. They're like, no, it's free. I don't want to buy this anymore. This is a bad year for them. And I at least got them to play a couple of days out of it, but it's still going to sell well. And the positive is we go down $7.

Speaker 1:
[11:55] Yeah. Real quick for a super chat. Derek says, see, it still seems a little too much. Does it still need to have Fortnite crew, EA play Ubisoft plus classics? Of course not. But then we get into this conversation of, okay, well, how many tiers do you want? Right? Already looking at the page right now, we're talking about ultimate. But remember, there is premium behind it. There is essential behind that where you start going into, okay, premium sounds like what you'd want Derek, right? Where it's 200 games that you could get off of Game Pass instead of the 500 on ultimate, you'd still be getting the day. No, you wouldn't be Xbox public games joins us on this is like, this is what I can't stand about this, about PlayStation Plus, about those two, I guess I was sitting here and going, wait a second. I got to read the fine print on what I'm doing and where I'm going. But to Osh's point to what you just said, Mike, there isn't going to be a one size fits all. So we can't really be sitting here like wanted the cake and eating it too.

Speaker 2:
[12:52] Correct. You have to go through what you really want out of this package. And as Xanth brought up right with like Fortnite Crew, EA Play, Ubisoft Plus. Are you taking advantage of that on PC Game Pass? Are you on console going, hey, I got to get my Fortnite Crew right? Like Fortnite Crew right now, if you were to get exactly what that is, that's $12 a month, right?

Speaker 1:
[13:12] And we've just been letting it sit there. I've signed up and I can't wait to do it.

Speaker 2:
[13:15] I know that stupid Ghostbusters, Fortnite V-Bucks as of March 10th as well has changed and gone down, has a price increase. So you're getting less Fortnite V-Bucks out of this, right? But like $12 a month is saving you $12 a month. If you and your family were into that, right? You jump over to premium and essentially you start going, well, what am I? If Xanth only wants to play one Xbox title and he goes, I don't need day one mic on, you know, Gears E-Day, then yeah, you start looking at these other ones and going, this is where I should be. It's a tough balance, right? We went from just to PC Game Pass, Console Game Pass, and then we've evolved. We've added on Cloud Gaming yourself to add on. Of course. I can give a Ted Talk about the benefits that you get. So it's like, yeah, it's a rocking service. But at $29.99, it was too much. At $22.99, it's right on the border of like, people will say this is still too much. Some people will accept it. Netflix is sending me emails every month saying the price has gone up. Mike, every service is doing this.

Speaker 1:
[14:20] Zanth, what's it going to take to get you to get back on PC? Game Pass. Like, so you talked about Fable, which God, I hope is this year still. Is you know, they're tweeting Autumn. So I can take that to the bank according to the Internet. Like between here, they're like, Forza doesn't do anything for you. Gears doesn't do anything for you. We're always me and Mike are always talking about what I'd really love to see out of Xbox Game Pass is cool. It benefits me on every Xbox title where we're talking about Diablo. Why don't I get why don't I get a price decrease on buying the expansion we're about to review?

Speaker 3:
[14:52] Yeah, I think for me and subscription services are really becoming tricky. You know, having kids, they've got subscriptions and all that kind of stuff. And it was just kind of startling to look. And I'm a high school teacher by day. How few kids actually own things now, where I've really just loved owning games. So when I had PC Games Pass, I think the only game I really committed to was Expedition 33.

Speaker 1:
[15:25] Nice.

Speaker 3:
[15:25] And all the time I had sunk in terms of cash, I could have just bought the game and owned it. So when I canceled PC Games Pass, I didn't have it. I think lacking ownership has really pushed me to kind of avoid subscriptions. Sure, fair enough. I like what you're talking about in terms of, all right, if I am subscribed, getting discounts on these expansions as we're gonna go into with Lord of Hatred, that could be a way to kind of get me in of like, all right, I know I'm already committed to this franchise, I'm going to keep going. But outside of that, it just hasn't sunk its hooks into me. If my 15-year-old is really on my case, then I will absolutely have him. You're cutting threads.

Speaker 2:
[16:14] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[16:15] Drive me crazy. He's got this one little guy out there, I had to get rid of him.

Speaker 3:
[16:20] I was like, what is going on? Okay, that's fair. But with a 15-year-old at home, he has a lot more varied interests for games, PC games pass and really does fit that niche for him. He has not been clamoring for it either. I will state, like, and again, like talking with students, that initial price increase on games pass did deter that.

Speaker 1:
[16:45] Backbreaker.

Speaker 3:
[16:47] Where I was talking with kids of like, I frequently will post up on my smart board of like, what game I'm playing and kids will ask like, oh, you know, like, where do I get that? What's that about? And I'll say, oh, yeah, I think, you know, especially when it's Diablo, like it's on Games Pass, you can just go and they're like, yeah, I canceled it or, you know, that's a little pricey. So seeing these prices go down, I think for, you know, in particular, like my students, that's an awesome thing. You know, that allows more access for them than they might have been deterred by 30 a month is pricey. And I think it's easier for them to perhaps justify it kind of going forward.

Speaker 1:
[17:23] This is a quick side in the conversation, but pulling from what you're talking about, Zanth, how, what is the percentage? However you want to quantify this, how many children are you seeing, look at something you put on the board and want to play it and not just play Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox? Because that's always a conversation we have of like, how can you actually convert this? There's so many gamers now, but they only play these things in the age out of it.

Speaker 2:
[17:48] I guess as well as for me, you would know some teachers in my life. And those kids, what age group are you teaching and what age group are we talking about here?

Speaker 3:
[17:57] So I work in high school, so it's freshmen through seniors. My son is a freshman, so I think that also gives a nice little perspective there. And Greg, like you're right, the percentage is smaller. I think like having it out in the open so that they can see like, well, there's other games than, yeah, Roblox or Fortnite. So like, you know, when Crimson Deserts up on the board, they're like, what is that? Oh, well, it's actually really good.

Speaker 1:
[18:23] Your calisthenic death.

Speaker 3:
[18:26] But what's interesting is during lunchtime, I have a lunch duty, so that's an unsupervised time. Kids can't have phones during class, so they're on their phones. And what are they doing? They are gaming. Kids are gaming all the time. But it's not what we're talking about here. It's for like all of last year, I saw kids playing some version of Tecmo Super Bowl on their phones. Or now they're playing, you know, it's like some sort of auto battler or they're playing something that they can all be connected on their phones right next to each other. Right. Yeah. So it's just it is a little different. Some of that is the barrier, right? Why aren't kids playing some of these games? Why aren't kids on Games Pass or whatever it is? Those games on the phone are cheap, are free, are loaded with ads, and they have some quick access to it.

Speaker 2:
[19:22] And that was a big thing.

Speaker 3:
[19:23] Xbox.

Speaker 2:
[19:24] That was a big thing that Sarah Bond and Phil were trying to get to is like Zan saying, it's like they're on their phones playing. They wanted to push Game Pass and Cloud Gaming as well. Like, how do we get to them during their lunch period? And Zan brought up, they're playing these free games, just littered with ads. The thought process was like, well, maybe they don't want ads. Maybe they just want like game games. And I don't think they want that. I think they just want to play their tower defense balloon defense game during lunch and be on their way. But there was something to be said of like when they made this big streaming initiative and shoved it in the game pass of like, hey, you can play it. We're going to meet you where you are. And every game pass level is littered with, hey, this has X cloud, except for PC gaming. But like the other three is like, you can stream this anywhere on any device. Are you taking advantage of that? And were people buying into that? If like, this is my second console. Hey, I don't want to buy an Xbox right now. Another part of game pass was to try to slide in to a market that wasn't there.

Speaker 1:
[20:20] Exactly. I think that's what we talk about in the industry all the time where we talk and I'm going to pull my own history here, but like to talk about the Vita and guess what? It's 3G and a touch screen and it's like, why are you doing or trying to capture that mobile market? It's like that isn't what this is. And I think as much as I loved what Phil and Sarah were trying to do of, let's be there, let's future proof. Everything is an Xbox. I think it was too soon and it didn't serve the core audience of what Xbox gamers were. And that's what we've seen, right? As you see now, Asha out here talking about the fact of like we've in so many words, lost our way. We're coming back to Xbox. That brings me over here to a question or I'm sorry, a super chat from Onimus Prime. I know everyone's cynical, but Asha changing things in the short in this short of a time, I hope leads us back to Xbox's pre Activision Blizzard King plan. Cram the genie back in the bottle, deliver exclusives, Elder Scrolls 6 only on Xbox and PC. Mike, is that where we're going?

Speaker 2:
[21:16] I mean, that's a whole nother conversation, right? That is what Asha and her team will be talking about for days, weeks, months, years, right? It's like, what is the next step for Xbox? A lot of conversation is double down on exclusives. Make people come back to where you are. And if you watched the Xbox, How to Fix the Xbox Podcast with us on Gamescast, I talked about it, right? If there was no rules and Mike could do whatever he wanted, and I really wanted to dig in to that gigantic lead that PlayStation has and Nintendo, you would have to make great games and make them exclusive. And on top of that, you'd have to start probably getting more third party partnerships with timed exclusives to say, Hey, you can't play these over here. You have to be here. And that's tough when your games are just good to sometimes great. They have to be great to amazing all the time. You have to have a reason for me to come there. They haven't proven that yet. They've gotten close on many of times, but they haven't found the frequency of that.

Speaker 1:
[22:12] We're back to, I think, what Xanth brought up, right? Of like, okay, cool. I'm looking forward to Fable. What's between then and now? Like that, you know, I've always said that, okay, well, Xbox game passed the best value of gaming when that was going around, right? It was true. And I never understood the, but it's whatever. Like, we'll just do it month to month. Do it for those two months. If you're still getting the game at the time, 40 bucks rather than 60 or 70, right? Like that's still an option and it still works for Xanth. But obviously now Osh and the team have to prove to all the Xanth and all the people out there of like, okay, cool. No, you need to be subscribed all the time.

Speaker 2:
[22:44] And here's why I'm more looking forward to the exclusive talk. We'll get to that and it'll be very fun. When we talk about adding new game past years, what more can I do with this in front of me? Right? Let's talk about cloud gaming.

Speaker 1:
[22:57] Let me, let me, I want to break. Cause I know where you're going. And I want to bring this coming in from a Pibo Pibo super chat and says, make the make fortnight crew, Ubisoft and EA play add on similar to phone bills for people that don't want those quote unquote benefits. The price can drop even more. Is that what you're thinking is going to happen? Even with X cloud? Are we going to get to, hey, build your own game pass? Here's what you get for let's say $10, 1599. And you add on the other things you really want out of this.

Speaker 2:
[23:26] I mean, they're already there, right? I think the catch is like people point to fortnight club and EA play, so it's like, well, if you read Xbox game pass premium or essential, they don't have those. So like there's already a tier for you with that. If you're not taking advantage of fortnight club, you can be on some other tier that's cheaper, right? It's like for me, it's like, what is the shared thing amongst all of these? It's not day one games because we know that some of these have 12 month windows to them. It's not it's clearly cloud is cloud gaming worth the price for you. Could I could I eliminate cloud gaming off of one of these tiers or all of these tiers and have that as an add on? How many people are taking advantage of X cloud today on their smart devices on their TVs on their phones, their tablets? Are you taking advantage of that? And could we see another one of like, hey, that could be another $7 to get you back down to less than 20 or 15. I would go as far to say, I don't think our audience that's listening right now takes advantage of X cloud as they could or should. We're talking about NVIDIA and what they've done. We've talked about Xbox and what they've done. And it doesn't seem like it's become mass appeal. Everyone's doing it. I'm taking advantage. I don't want to download the game. So I just jump in and play. I'm playing off the web browser at work or at school like my dream is. But it's like, I don't hear enough people taking advantage of that. So my move would be, hey, what's the one thing shared amongst this that maybe people don't want or need? It's X cloud. How do I rip that out of one of these or rip it out by itself and say, here's an X cloud platform over there tier and everything else got cheaper for you.

Speaker 1:
[25:02] You basically kill X cloud when you do that. Because I think it would be great.

Speaker 2:
[25:05] I'm one of the few that likes it. I believe in it. I see it.

Speaker 1:
[25:09] But you believe in the potential.

Speaker 2:
[25:11] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[25:11] And I no longer. I think it's very obvious that Microsoft doesn't believe in the potential of X cloud anymore.

Speaker 2:
[25:17] So why should I concede to be like that's that fun conversation now of like, Oh, what if Asha did pick up the phone or receive the phone call from a Netflix 325 million active subscribers?

Speaker 1:
[25:28] Right.

Speaker 2:
[25:29] How do we work with Netflix that has been not killing it on the game side has the active subscriber base. And somehow you go, hey, we got X cloud with some great games on it. You've been wanting more people to stay on your platform. How do we get a little piece of that? Because man, what is 25 million subscribers add on the game pass? Right? What is 50, 100? If they have 325 million, how do you get even just a piece of that would be a really fun conversation to have with something that you can bring to the table for them while they have something that you want as well. 100%.

Speaker 1:
[26:02] Let me get a few super chats. We could talk about this all day long. I know. Where's the one about the best? Here we go. Alex Super Chastain says, I'm a PC, PS5, Switch 2 gamer who takes advantage of Game Pass. It was the best deal in gaming before the price drop and it's even better now. The great PXM Lord says, between Microsoft and Nintendo, I'm glad major, I'm glad major, I was a typo. I'm glad major publishers are trying to adapt to the current cost of living. Yeah, no. I definitely think Xbox got dragged in the street beaten into submission on this one. But I mean, one of the reasons they got beaten was like, hey, this costs you goddamn much in a place where I came by gas.

Speaker 2:
[26:43] I mean, when I look at all four of the tiers and options for Xanth in particular, myself, who plays a lot on PC, the Xbox Game Pass PC option is their best option. It is filled to the brim with positivity, right? 1399. Now, currently, when I clicked on it as of last night, there's 535 titles on that list. So when it says 300 plus, there's a lot of them, right? Of course, you can't do xCloud. That's fine. Day one releases, including first and third party. So you get all for the big four horsemen this year, which is a huge saving. You don't get Fortnite crew, but you get EA Play, Ubisoft Plus. You get online or no online multiplayer. But a big one we don't talk about enough is that Xbox rewards, right? A lot of people you talked about a long time ago with PlayStation is like, hey, if you want to be rewarded for your time, if you want to get sweet discounts, you want to get money back that can maybe buy your DLCs, or buy your next month game pass. Are you looking into the Xbox reward programs? Because each one of these tiers has a big one of like, Hey, you can use earn $100, $25, $50. Here's what you got to do. I don't know if enough people take advantage of that and look deep enough into taking what could be some free money there.

Speaker 1:
[27:54] I like your breakdown here, Mike.

Speaker 2:
[27:56] Hey, I love drawing my Ted talk. I'll talk about it anytime.

Speaker 3:
[27:59] I think you might have sold me again on PC games pass.

Speaker 1:
[28:02] There you go.

Speaker 2:
[28:03] And Xanth on top of that, my favorite that I always bring up, EA Play is such a big win for me and my friends who play a lot of sports games. Now, mind you, EA Play has a bunch of EA catalog games. So if you like Star Wars out there, if you like maybe It Takes Two from Haze Light, there's a bunch of EA titles. But what I love is you get EA games, you get free trials on their new games, which is 10 hour free trial. How many times does your friend says, I'm not buying the next NHL, but you want to play the next NHL? Get 10 free hours out of that. That thing freaking rocks. You get discounts on it.

Speaker 1:
[28:36] I educate your boy yesterday for yesterday because we have a Trello where we put in game request codes. And Roger, I put on EA Sports, Madden NFL 26 for the 420 stream. I'm like, it's on Xbox Game Pass. You have, I know you people have a game pass.

Speaker 2:
[28:50] And then of course, the in-game benefits that I've always loved on Xanth that I think go so far that I want to see more of. The Riot partnership with League of Legends and Valorant, right? 160 plus champions, day one new champions, 20% XP boost. Valorant has all the agents. You get Call of Duty Warzone, Rainbow Six Seeds, like Overwatch. There's so many benefits that hopefully is adding up to being like, yeah, Mike, I guess $13 is worth it.

Speaker 1:
[29:18] And this is back, and this is a nice transition to our topic number two of our review of Diablo. But what you and me talk about all the time of like, I don't understand why Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, Diablo IV season passes aren't included or at least discounted.

Speaker 2:
[29:35] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[29:35] Where if I'm getting Fortnite bucks, that's awesome. Why are we not getting 500 credits or whatever it is? Five creation credits on Starfield. Like there's so many I feel easy wins that in the long run, I don't think would sink your ship, but would give people who are, I own Starfield and people are sicker than me. They're playing thousands of hours of it. Why not give them free credits every month for it? Why not have Diablo's passes be cheaper?

Speaker 2:
[29:59] It's fun. We talked about it on the games, Cast Greg, it's like there's a live service market that you have that has dedicated audience that would probably benefit from a lot of this and only make this even more of a, hey, here's more, more, more added to this. There's the one big elephant in the room, but it's very similar to Call of Duty, which is that wow subscription. How do you save me money on that? But there's already jabronies like me who are paying $15 a month. Well, it'll never happen. We don't need to do that. But yeah, you have so much positivity with a lot of games that you could just add an added benefits. But it all goes back to right now in that chat is 100% of the people going, I'd take advantage of that. Or is it like five people going, I barely take advantage of that.

Speaker 1:
[30:41] Great questions. The Asha Sharma Regime.

Speaker 2:
[30:45] Congratulations. First big move right there is a positive, a price reduction. You got to like that. Let's see what the next one is. And the one after that. But I didn't know if we'd get an Asha Sharma statement move before June. I thought it would be like, hey, I'm here. I'm taking in all the feedback. I'm learning. Got a fun social media presence. But like you won't see me until June. No, she's out there in front. We've already had our first big move here. Let's see what she does next.

Speaker 1:
[31:12] Let's see what she does next.

Speaker 3:
[31:14] It's kind of a nice change of pace because it seems like every time I'm hearing gaming news about prices, they're going up.

Speaker 1:
[31:24] It's true.

Speaker 3:
[31:25] So nice to have something come down for once.

Speaker 1:
[31:28] Because they took it up. This is something we should look into. Let's raise the price of the Kinda Funny membership just to drop back down. Speaking of the Kinda Funny membership, Greg Way, we couldn't do Kinda Funny without your support. Pick up a membership over on patreon.com/kindafunnyyoutube.com/kindafunny Games, Apple, Spotify. You give us $10 a month. We give you everything we do ad free. That's more than 80 episodes of content a month at free. Plus you get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller and a 15 to 20 minute podcast. I do all by my lonesome and you get good karma for supporting an 11 person, 11 year old small business but right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsors. Story number two on the Roper Report is our review of Diablo IV Lord of Hatred. Of course, the new expansion coming to Diablo IV next week, right now on Metacritic has gotten 82 on OpenCritic in 83. Travis Northup at IGN gave it an eight out of 10 said, Lord of Hatred gives Diablo IV an extremely satisfying conclusion, excellent changes to build crafting and end game that could potentially go the distance. Meanwhile, Will Judd at Eurogamer gave it a four out of five, a polished bewitching upgrade that sinks its claws into you, featuring perhaps the best character class in Diablo history. Then Tyler Culp over at PCGamer gave it a 90 out of 100 saying, The Lord of Hatred campaign is about accepting the past and moving forward, as its characters bring everything they've learned into new battles. The same can be said for about the ways Diablo IV has evolved over the last several years, and in this expansion alone. The changes in Lord of Hatred target Diablo IV's greatest flaws. Instead of slapping on quick fixes, Blizzard has found creative new solutions that avoid the pitfalls of the past. The result puts Diablo IV in a great position to keep growing, but it isn't necessary to focus on the potential here. It's an exceptional action RPG right now. There's never been a better time to play Diablo IV. Ladies, gentlemen, and NBs, blow all that out your ass, because we don't need to worry about what those chuckleheads said. Okay? Zanth, me, we've been playing. Of course, Zanth, you are our action RPG expert at Kinda Funny. So I want to start, of course, with you. How much Diablo in general, if people don't know you, have you played Diablo IV? And then dive in on what you think of Lord of Hatred.

Speaker 3:
[33:54] Yeah, I mean, Diablo in general, this has been a great year for Diablo. Diablo IV is really kicking off strong and we'll get into the scores and all that. But Diablo II just had a major release.

Speaker 1:
[34:08] Rahu Kohli.

Speaker 3:
[34:08] I know Micah. Yeah, Rahu Kohli, who's also just going to have a good week, right? But Diablo is having a great moment. In terms of my total time playing, Diablo IV, it's probably a thousand some hours at this point between PlayStation and PC. Maybe it will come to Switch 2 and then I'll add on ours.

Speaker 1:
[34:34] I didn't think about that. You're right. Yeah, they'd be worse.

Speaker 3:
[34:38] So a lot of hours. Let's talk about Lord of Hatred.

Speaker 1:
[34:42] Let's talk about Lord of Hatred. How much of it did you play? What's your hour count there? And then what is your score on the Kinda Funny Review Scale?

Speaker 3:
[34:50] So I put in like 45 hours.

Speaker 1:
[34:53] Good Lord. It's important for everyone to know that this was a test server. So all that's gone. You're going to have to redo everything. You're starting fresh, but you dove in that much. Goddamn, man.

Speaker 3:
[35:03] Look, you don't bring me on to a glance at a game, right? I'm coming here to give the full report. And I think 45 hours is a good amount to kind of like dig in. I probably could have done more if I had the opportunity, but it was only a week, so you do what you can. But let's get into it. Like, what does this score for the Kinda Funny scale? For me, I think there are two scores. I think for the Kinda Funny audience, right? For everybody out there that's coming back to Diablo, this is a 9 out of 10. Goddamn, right?

Speaker 1:
[35:43] Amazing. All right.

Speaker 3:
[35:45] Yeah, it's an amazing game. For somebody who's been in the game and hasn't left, I think this is a 9.5.

Speaker 1:
[35:56] Wow. Okay. I didn't see that one coming. I didn't see it going up for somebody who hasn't left. Okay. Explain the difference in opinion then.

Speaker 3:
[36:05] I think if you're coming in and it's been a while, there's all these new tools and maybe you just don't necessarily appreciate them because you've been away. Whereas if you've been in it the whole time, you're kind of finally given the things you've wanted that you've been lacking. A big, big upgrade in this version are skill trees. Skills don't feel lase. They don't feel like just, I have to choose 40 different passive points. And the general running joke was the skill tree was more of a skill twig. These skill trees are beefy and are fun and exciting to play through. That in and of itself is a major upgrade from what we had before. But then you add in the newer end game activities, war plans and the like. And it just feels so close to being almost done. There are still some nitpicky parts. That's why I just could never say for anybody, it's a 10 out of 10. Paragon boards are still kind of a thing I don't care for. There's a lot of clicking. There's a lot of points. But it doesn't, I guess like this version of Diablo IV, the bad parts got better and nothing got worse. So it really feels good. Everything just feels exciting. But I'm curious, how much did you play, Greg? And where are you at?

Speaker 1:
[37:44] So yeah, I did not put in nearly as much time as you did to it. As I think a lot of people know, if you followed my Diablo journey, I love Diablo IV. I planned Diablo IV on PlayStation 5. We reviewed it back then. We did Vessel of Hatred. I went and played hours at the preview event at Blizzard. I then did just like you did where I got obsessed with the review build, had all that wiped, then dove back into retail, yada, yada, yada. And my PlayStation clock, I think, says 160 right now. So 160 hours on that, everything I just talked about, not the new content. And so what was interesting about all of that, of course, as I've talked about in content, is that I burned myself the fuck out, where I loved Diablo IV and was playing it consistently as my everyday game, or not every day, but seasonal jump in, do this. I was there all the time like you're talking. And then I went and did Vessel of Hatred's preview, came back and I was like, I want to platinum this by the time Vessel of Hatred comes out. And so I just binge Diablo at a point where you still had to do very specific things to grind, and not the most interesting things to grind to get where you needed to be. And so by the time Vessel of Hatred came out, and then retail came out, I was so stuffed with Diablo that I put it down and haven't come back. And even when they added in the new class Paladin, right, at what, Game Awards, I wanted to jump back in and looked at it. And I was just like, I just don't have it in me out. And I was like, I hope that Lord of Hatred will be enough to bring me back. And so started up Lord of Hatred, got in, and was very much like, it's Diablo IV. I have done this world, the Druid, which is the stuff we're seeing right now, this purple stuff. And I was like, okay, I don't know about this. And then it just flipped, man. Like it did exactly what you're talking about for me, who's a very specific Diablo player. I'm not the grind, the end game, have the best build, yada, yada, yada. Like I played and continued to go long after I finished the story. But this game and this expansion feels so fresh. You know, you and me joke all the time on the Diablo podcast when I guessed of course of like, I could not tell you thing one about the Diablo story. And that's not 100% true, but it definitely is that it's never grabbed me from the opening of what they do here with the main villain. And I don't want to spoil too much, even though I know it's out there to somebody, but you know what I mean? Like the main villain, what he's doing, the hook to it. I was like, I texted you. I'm like, this dude is so fucking cool. I love everything. And that kept going and they kept giving twists and they kept doing stuff, let alone then kept putting us in. I don't want to say different environments because I feel like that takes away, maybe it was that I just didn't vibe with the jungle aesthetic of Vessel of Hatred as much. Whereas Lord of Hatred, you're fighting these monsters made of wood and brambles. And I was like, oh my God, like the visuals of it were just so good, let alone this story, let alone playing as the new character, Druid, where I was like, damn, I'm throwing, you know, conjuring this gigantic purple beast. I'm just feeding it my XP every time of like, make that stronger and make that stronger as it smashes and tears everything apart. Like I had so much fun. I only I am so hesitant to ruin the experience for me. I only put six hours in. So like, like I said, a fraction of time, but I was enjoying it so much that I was like, I honestly what I want to do is I think with not having the gun to my head of like, okay, let's review it. I can do what we did with Diablo IV in a lot of ways and wait for Jen. Jen and I played the shit out of Diablo IV together. And when Vessel of Hatred came, I did the review thing and I was like, all right, babe, it's out. She's like, but have you played it? My guy, she's like, well, I don't want to, I like experience the story with you. And so I think there's enough hooks here that she's really going to get a kick out of this as well. But I was like, you know what? I like this so much. I want to keep it. And I, you know, it was that thing of I was, did my best to hold myself off. But yesterday, I was playing on that test server at 3.45 when they shut it down. And I was like, oh, damn. You know what I mean? I was sorry. Warlock is who I was playing as, not Drew. That's the second, that's the new class.

Speaker 3:
[41:48] I was going to jump in and correct.

Speaker 1:
[41:49] I appreciate you just letting me rant and rave about it. I appreciate that. Thank you so much, Shep for keeping me honest. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yes, I was playing as the Warlock, the purple one, dropping all the new stuff here. Yeah, I was playing yesterday on the test server as they shut it down. And I was so into that. I immediately went to, of course, my ROG Ally, my Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, downloaded it there so that I could actually have it on the go with me rather than remote playing as I often do. And if you didn't know, remember everybody, this is a cross-progression game. So if you wanted it on multiple platforms, yes, you have to buy things on multiple platforms in terms of expansions, but you could have your characters all over there. So it's, I loved what I played and then seeing these reviews and then hearing you talk about it, Xanth, I'm excited to see how far they go with it.

Speaker 3:
[42:33] Yeah, I think, you know, touching on kind of what you said story-wise, one, we're not going to talk spoilers. We can't anyway. Also, that would just be crummy, you know? The game's not even out, let's spoil it. What I will say is I know a lot of people were spurned by the vessel of hatred story, because it just some of the story beats were a little bit more predictable and the closing was lacking. This doesn't have that. This is a strong story throughout the entirety of the game. It feels good to be in. There are a lot of amazing story beats that are cool to be a part of. And it just cements it being a good game, right? The story itself, I tried to get through it quickly. If anybody is curious, how long does the campaign run? Between 8 to 10 hours. Maybe a little bit more if you want to really kind of dig into every single side area that is present. But 8 to 10 hours, solid story through and through. And then you'll find yourself at about level 45 when the game kind of closes. And then the level cap is 70. So then you start jumping into all those end game activities that you were kind of talking about, Greg. War plans being the big one that gets added.

Speaker 1:
[44:06] And talk to me about what that is, because even I don't know what that is, because I've been so Diablo IV, I'm full.

Speaker 3:
[44:13] That's fair. Normally when you finish the campaign, you're kind of left here lonesome of being like, hey, what is it I should be doing? And they'll breadcrumb a little bit at the end of saying like, you could go fight in some hell tides, you could go fight some infernal hordes. But there was never like a good, seamless way to have that all presented. So war plans are kind of like the end game of it. And Kevin, I did put that in the past, if you're able to get a hold of it. It's just the one from Blizzard. In the war plans, essentially what they do is they streamline the process where you can create a little bit of an end game curve. You can say like, I'm choosing between two activities. I'm going to do a hell tide, then I'm going to do, as we see here, it's opting into them, right? So I'm going to do a hell tide, and then the next activity will be a pit, and after that will be an infernal horde. And as I'm doing that, I'm also getting experience for a tree. I know more skill trees.

Speaker 1:
[45:25] People love trees.

Speaker 3:
[45:27] I know. But we'll actually modify the activities that I'm doing. So by completing these war plans, not only am I leveling up my character, but I'm also adding experience to these activities that I enjoy. And I can start to kind of target the more enjoyable activities. There's certain parts of Diablo, like I enjoy hell tides. I like being able to roam around a giant area for about an hour and just try to kill a bunch of stuff and find loot. I could specialize in that. I could start to customize what that actually looks like. Do I get more XP for each kill? Do I get more treasure from each chest that I open by committing to these war plans and in turn getting more gear and leveling my character up? It just provides a more clear sense of direction while also just making it easier to go from thing to thing because built into the war plans, one of my favorite features, I can just hold down the trigger R2 to teleport immediately to whatever activity that I'm doing. I don't have to open up the map or anything like that. I'm just in the war plans, teleporting in between activities.

Speaker 1:
[46:36] Awesome. So then I want to bring in this question over here from Onimus Prime of Super Chats, okay? What does Diablo IV complete look like to use, and how many expansions, acts, classes do we hope to get? I wonder if we're looking at a wow type of rollout. Obviously Lord of Hatred here, the second big expansion after Vessel of Hatred. Do you see this as the bow on Diablo IV or is this going to be one of these games that we are continuing on with for years and years and years and years?

Speaker 3:
[47:03] I don't know. We are in a significant, there's Big Hexy right there. I think you got it. There is, it feels really good right now. But I can also see a lot of directions that they could continue with if they're choosing to not just let this lie. The Paragon system, I think, as I mentioned before, is a little dated, and I would love to see that get another pass. But it's also, it feels better than what it did before because power for a character is so built into the character tree that enhancing it on a Paragon board feels better. Everything just feels a little bit better with the systems as they are now. So, what does this game complete look like? I don't really know, it could be this. I would be saddened if there wasn't another expansion coming up because I think this is finally getting into where it should be. But the other side is we're hearing rumblings of what BlizzCon will be. And we've been teased that this is a big moment for Blizzard, but also for Diablo, and is another expansion that big moment? Or is there another Diablo game coming? It feels so early for a Diablo V, but also this game is getting to a good place where maybe they could start putting their site somewhere else. So I would say a complete version of this is really just fixing a little bit more on that end game. I don't think we need more classes. The classes themselves feel phenomenal. During my time, I wanted to go and go back to the old classes that I had already played a lot with. Because just like you, Greg, I started with a Warlock. Why wouldn't I? Like it's the new class.

Speaker 1:
[49:01] You have to.

Speaker 3:
[49:02] It's so cool. Yeah, it's fun to play with, to mess around with, and everything's new. But how do those old classes feel? Because that was a big problem with Vessel, too, is the Spiritborn was phenomenal. All the other classes got one new skill, and they kind of just didn't feel as good. So I went back and I played a Druid, I played a Rogue, I played a Barbarian, I tried to play a Necromancer. Each class felt significantly better and exciting to engage with except for Barbarian. I just don't like Barbarian.

Speaker 1:
[49:35] It's crazy.

Speaker 3:
[49:35] Sorry for the Barbarian slander that I will put out there.

Speaker 1:
[49:39] My Wonder Woman Barbarian is untouchable, I have you know.

Speaker 3:
[49:43] It just wasn't my type of play style.

Speaker 1:
[49:47] It was your fun, I understand.

Speaker 3:
[49:48] Yeah, I will state like going into the new tree for each class felt significantly better. I played a druid for most seasons, so going in and playing with that class that I felt like I knew really well and finding more joy in something that I had already liked has made me more anticipatory for next week because I want to get back to this version. This version of these classes is significantly better and kind of going back to that super chat feels complete. Like these classes just feel better now.

Speaker 1:
[50:26] Yeah, of course we have many friends in this industry, including the one, the only beans got games. He super chat and says same Greggy. I was on the test server until the last minute and also downloaded to my ROG ally. I'm hooked again. I think that's gotta be what they're going for. Get lapsed players like us back here on top of the people like you that never leave and are always here and are excited to jump back into these planes and tear it up. What are the other big things we haven't talked about for Lord of Hatred? I know it's an abbreviated review for you to get it all in, but what do you need to say?

Speaker 3:
[50:57] And then also what are you talking about in the Diablo podcast so people can go catch that in terms of like what else to cover items themselves feel a little different. I got to level 70 without ever getting a unique item. I got to level 70 and I was still in yellow and blue gear. That's a big change from when like legendaries were littering, right? Because all of those legendary powers are now on the skill tree, so you are less reliant on finding them to make your character work. And then you're finding items that are just enhancing what is inherently there. As you go and you fight bosses, you're not a same kind of thing, like that level of loot is kind of filtered down. And where they balance it out a little bit is crafting has kind of come back. We have a Harajur Cube, which you can go and start to customize, what you want from your particular gear. You can maybe be able to create something that will help enhance what your build is going for. And then you also have the Talisman feature. So the Talisman is introducing set abilities, as well as your ability to just kind of find these charms over your leveling journey and into the end game that can go about changing the build that you have. All of that just culminates in a much more enjoyable end game, where whether you're popping in for maybe two or three war plans or you're going to play for two or three days, you always have something to kind of chase after. Love that. To make it a little bit better, to try to go to a different difficulty or just make your build that you're already enjoying stronger as opposed to trying to make it work. That was the big danger of Vessel of Hatred and of the base game, is you needed items to make a build. Now your build is there, you're just trying to make it better and maybe find a few tweaks along the way. And that in turn is more fun. And it very much echoes Diablo II, where you just click a bunch of skills, get them going and then you're finding items to make them even better.

Speaker 1:
[53:13] I can't wait. April 28th is when this officially drops. Of course, Xanthi will be covering on the Diablo podcast. When's the new podcast episode go up?

Speaker 3:
[53:21] I think we're going to record. Maybe this Thursday will probably drop next week before release. So people are getting hyped. They can tune in and we'll be talking obviously all about this coverage. I'll share a little bit about what I had kind of played. And then yeah, then we'll just go dark for a little bit because we'll all be playing so much even with right even with 45 hours. It's not enough. I definitely am more excited for this than than what I was for Bessel.

Speaker 1:
[53:49] Goddamn. Love to hear it. I can't wait to get back to it. It's a long wait until Tuesday, but not a long wait until story number three, Splatoon Raiders hits the switch to in July. We're reading from Andrew Webster at The Verge. And we have a trailer. The Squid Kids will be back this summer. Nintendo announced this morning that Splatoon Raiders, a single player spinoff of its competitive shooter series will launch on the switch to on July 23rd. It will be the first new entry in the space since Splatoon 3 in 2022. In addition to the date, Nintendo also released a new trailer that gives a better idea of what the Raiders will actually play like. Essentially it looks like it retains the same ink focused shooter gameplay and killer soundtrack from the main series, but translate it to a new campaign. That said, while Nintendo describes the game as single player focused, Raiders does include some co-op elements as you can team up with up to three other players, both online and locally. Here's the set up according to Nintendo, play as a mechanic working with Deep Cut, a trio of swashbuckling musicians and venture out into the mysterious Cipher or light in islands. Customize your appearance, equip magical mechanical gadgets and ink splattering weapons and take on hordes of aggressive sea creatures called salmon. Noids, no salmonids. It's salmon. It's salmonids in search of treasure. Additionally, from Nintendo Life, Splatoon Raiders will set you back $49.99 digitally or $59.99 physically. Congratulations, Andy. You've won. There's more Splatoon. Zan, do you care about it? Did you ever play this?

Speaker 3:
[55:27] I, Splatoon never really appealed to me, but like my daughter is getting more into gaming. I don't think my son is necessarily intrigued by this. But for her, as a 10-year-old, like I'm watching this trailer and seeing like a little character creator, I can see where this would get its hooks in her. And then as you're talking about having that local co-op, being able to sit down and play games next door is phenomenal. And anytime I'm able to find something that really hits that little moment, I want to kind of jump at it. So this is definitely on my radar now. Like, I'm probably going to grab this for her and I to play, because it probably will just be fun. She cruised through Astrobot, so she's looking for a new game. This might be a nice little challenge for her.

Speaker 1:
[56:20] Yes, Splatoon has never done anything for me, but everything you just said in watching it, I'm like, I can see where Ben is going to want to play this all the time, let alone have me hop in and help out. I look at it and it's like, I don't mean to offend kebabs in the chat. It gives me like those, it gives me like at Lance Rashet and Clank vibes. And I'm like, that'll work really well with Ben. So I'm right there with you of like, I'm excited to try this out when it drops in July, draw July 23rd and see what it's all about. But my son getting into Splatoon would be humongous news, perhaps the biggest news in Nintendo this year. If I wanted something, say smaller news, the tiniest news I need to know about, where would I go?

Speaker 3:
[56:59] Well, you would go to our last story, the Wii News Channel, where we cover all the small news items you need to know about.

Speaker 1:
[57:06] Kebabs in the chat. It's like an ugly aquatic ration clank. Ha ha. Fair enough. I agree. I don't think that look that didn't look great, but whatever. In terms of graphics, gameplay looks like it'd be fun. I digress. We have a stacked Wii News because we had to demote so much stuff. Number four are the Wii News. Exclusive, Ubisoft cancels Altera. It's Animal Crossing inspired game. This is Mike Straw over at Insider Gaming. His lead graph goes, Another Ubisoft game has found itself on the chopping block. Insider Gaming has learned that it's in development game, Altera has officially been canceled. I didn't even know that game existed, but Godspeed, Ubisoft, figure it out. Then Japanese anime. Sad to hear. What?

Speaker 3:
[57:48] Sad to hear.

Speaker 1:
[57:49] Yeah, of course. Japanese anime and film giant Toei. And I'm gonna say Toei, right? Like Koei? Cause it looks like it's Koitecmo. So Toei enters game business with new Toei Games label. This is Amber V over at Automation. Japanese entertainment company Toei has announced the establishment of its own game brand Toei Games. Best known internationally for its anime subsidiary, Toei Animation One Piece Dragon Ball. Toei has decided to branch out beyond television, film and anime into the video game market. The new brand will initially target the PC market, specifically Steam, with plans for eventual expansion to PlayStation Switch, Xbox. Surprisingly, Toei's games' early lineup will not include titles based on existing IP. Specific information about the upcoming titles will be announced on April 24th. Fascinating that they're not doubling down on the things people know them for, but good for them. Entering the game space, more games is good.

Speaker 3:
[58:46] That's surprised me, like not leaning into your strong suit, but maybe they got maybe they got an ace in the hole. Maybe they got something out there we don't know about.

Speaker 1:
[58:58] Now over there, Kabob says, Toei, Greg got it the first time. Toei, yes. And I was saying Tecmo Ko-E. Was Tecmo Ko-E. Hey, got it. We're on to it. Adjacent Gaming News, Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down and gets replaced by John Ternes on September 1st. We'll see what that means for everything. Devil May Cry Season 2 is coming to Netflix on May 12th. From gamesindustry.biz, Sony is starting to introduce age verification for PlayStation users in the UK and Ireland to meet the requirements of the UK's Online Safety Act. Age verification is currently optional, but will be required starting June 2026, as outlined on its support page. If users do not verify their age, they may lose access to PlayStation communication features. Because as Jim Ryan always said, it was about the children. That's why there couldn't be cross-play with Fortnite, remember. Somebody think of the children. Back to automation. Hello Kitty and Kuromi Company, Sanrio, announces its own game brand Sanrio Games. Ten games are titles are planned for the release the next three years. People will be releasing game, not the game student, the publishers left and right. What a good day for news.

Speaker 3:
[60:11] At least they're also going to lean into Hello Kitty, I would assume.

Speaker 1:
[60:14] I would assume so. Yes, I would assume so. Clockwork Ambrosia launches May 12th on PC. Helldivers 2, XO Experts, Warbond, XO Experts, Warbond drops April 28th. And Roger is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 and mobile June 18th. We were all about and Roger here. Kind of funny. Get on that.

Speaker 3:
[60:34] It absolutely broke me. I was sitting at a ballet rehearsal surrounded by parents who are not on a switch and they already see me as the weird guy who's playing games while his daughter's being sure. Anyways, I just break down sobbing at the end of this game.

Speaker 1:
[60:54] Oh no.

Speaker 3:
[60:55] And everybody's looking at me like a weirdo.

Speaker 1:
[60:56] There was a choice to play in Roger in public. That was a choice.

Speaker 3:
[61:00] I didn't know it was going to do that.

Speaker 1:
[61:02] That's why Roger's great.

Speaker 3:
[61:05] Those of you who do buy it for Switch to your mobile expect to have an emotional breakdown in public.

Speaker 1:
[61:11] Fair enough. Your final piece of we news comes from Gamatsu. By King will release a Switch version of Roguelike Match 3 Puzzle Adventure Game Dia Loop on June 17th. That's it everybody. That's it for your we news. Let's check in on kindafunny.com/you'rewrong. There's a lot of arithmetic here. Arithmetic, it's a Perfulus. Kabob says we, we, we, we, we news, but I'm fairly sure shoes. Blue Sky account has been hacked. Greg, please let them know to delete that post and change the passwords. We'll check into that. Oh, oh, Kabob says miss news. We'll probably get it tomorrow then. But mine's eye is suing the staff behind mine's eye suing developer build a rocket boy according to IGN's Tom Phillips. I fought it as long as I could. I'm sure we'll have that for you tomorrow. However, before we close out today, let's check in on a few super chats. Obviously, there were so many about the Xbox. We got so many we could get in there. But there's a bunch that are just general purpose ones. And I like to get those out. Matt Grover super chats and says congratulations to Kinda Funny best friend Jack Quaid who got married. Is that official? I saw on the subreddit like apparently it happened, but it seemed like they were trying to keep it quiet. And people at the reception might have put up things. So we're going to zip our lips on that until Jack Quaid comes out and says it unless he said it during the show. But it was yeah, okay. Puny Sharma. Puny. The Sharma three three two zero platinum tax with my fifty fifth platinum for Venba. Love the South Indian representation. Unfortunately, share the same last name as our new Xbox CEO. Oh, okay. Okay. Oh, I see what's going on. Puny Sharma is your name. Thank you so much. And hell yeah. Venba is a great game. Everybody go get that up here. Zoo Ninja. Twenty two says birthday tax. Happy birthday. My birthday is tomorrow. So posting today in case I can't tune in. I'm celebrating thirty four years to thirty four more and everybody that happy birthday final super chat of the day. But believe it or not, Kinda Funny is far from done. We're a network all about live talk shows, which means from here you're going into the games cast, where Andy and Blessing are talking about a bunch of goats. That's right, game of the years they're going to be talking, or the greatest of all times, that they're reviewing for the first time ever and what they've been playing. After that, it's the Kinda Funny Podcast. After that, it is a stream where I believe Mike is playing Vampire Crawlers and I'm very excited to see that game in action. Of course, you should like, subscribe, share youtube.com/kindafunnygames, twitch.tv/kindafunnygames, Apple, Spotify, wherever you can, wherever you can get it, pick up the membership. I've already promoted that enough, but I want to promote Xanth one more time. Xanth, where should people keep up with you?

Speaker 3:
[64:03] Well, you can find the Diablo podcast on Apple and Spotify and over on YouTube at Pure DMG or Blue Sky, HD Xanth.

Speaker 1:
[64:13] Fantastic. Xanth, you killed it as always. Always happy to have you. Thank you for coming through.

Speaker 3:
[64:18] Always happy to be here. I'm going to point out, I'm free during the summers. Bring me back.

Speaker 1:
[64:24] Okay, sure. No problem. Come visit again. I like that when you came out here.

Speaker 3:
[64:28] I would love to.

Speaker 1:
[64:29] By then we'll solve this whole gas crisis. I'm sure prices will be down and everything.

Speaker 3:
[64:32] Everything's going down. Xbox, gas. It's going to be great.

Speaker 1:
[64:37] Everybody, we're all going to die. Until next time. It's been our pleasure to serve you.