Xbox's big reset | Week in Mobile Games podcast

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Hello and welcome to the Pocket Gamer.biz podcast weekend mobile games where we chat about the week's news and hopefully provide some insights. Craig Chapple, head of content at Pocket Gamer.biz with me as ever is our deputy editor Paige Cook and our data and features editor and Assel. How are you both doing? Paige, what's going on?
Currently melting. It's like 30° in my office, so that's lovely. Besides that, I finished I think I mentioned on the last week's podcast I was playing GTA Vice City. I finished it. It was fine. It was good, but oh my god, playing with the original controls like I I don't know how we did this like playing games like that. It's so difficult. I was getting so stressed at some point and I consider myself like quite good at games. So yeah, there were a couple missions where I was like I just how you aim on the game it's horrible, but I enjoyed. I made it through. So yeah, finished that. And then besides that, I'm just looking forward to Actually, I don't know if I

am looking forward to it the football at the weekend England versus Norway. I'm sure it'll be very stressful but entertaining at the same time.
Yeah, interesting that you say you've gone back to old games. I guess cuz they're off their time things change since the It's you go back and run uncharted.
Yeah.
Cool. Thanks Paige. And Aaron, what's what's going on?
I've had quite a busy week actually. I've been to two gigs since last week's recording. At the weekend I went to a Chris Isaak concert in London, which was very good. He did like Wicked Game and Blue Hotel are probably his best known songs. So that was really good. He was It was a fairly small venue, so it felt quite intimate and I can't remember what the place was called now, but like it was quite sort of compact then and it had like a couple of balcony levels. And during one of the songs he went up to the So I was on the second of three balconies. On one song he went up to the kind of lowest balcony and was singing there so that like people could get a better look at him who were on that level. And then he kind of looked up and realized like oh,

there's another one. And he said like, well, I've got to go up to that one now as well like for you guys. Obviously we were all cheering. Um and then he had disappeared. Obviously went, you know, went and found the stairs, went up. He's like 70 now, so I was quite impressed he could do all that and in the heat and with a guitar and stuff. Came up to our floor and was singing on our level for a bit. And then he realized there's another balcony above this one as well. So he ended up going up there. Eventually like on the next song at some point made his way back down to the actual like stage on the bottom floor. But yeah, like it was quite a funny like he made it quite entertaining just overall. Said that it was a, you know, he he promised at the start of semi-professional concert. So yeah, I quite enjoyed that.
deliver.
He did, indeed. And then yesterday after work I went just out in Oxford. There was like a kind of jazz fusion band playing. It was like this Shez Raja

band, I think. So it's kind of some kind of like world music, a bit of like Indian jazzy stuff. That was very good as well.
I love going to jazz bars actually. It's like
Yeah.
It's I don't do it that often, but I I I love going cuz it's just really it's nice and chill. You can chat. The music's great, especially when they just start doing random stuff. So that's why you know it's awesome wait to be honest. Thanks Sarah. That's my soul. Yeah, I've not been outside that much. Shout out to your friends. Just starting to melt again in in the in the heat.
Right. So we're just going to go straight into the news. And there's there's a a lot of big news and so we'll we'll cover it. Get on with it. At first, as always, there's a few shout outs for our events. So we have Pocket Gamer Connect Summit Shanghai coming on July 29th. We've got Pocket Gamer Connect Nordics October 20th and 21st. Later this year we'll also be in Bangkok, Jordan and Gran Canaria. And we will have the Mobile Games Awards, which voting is now open for. It's open for another a couple weeks and we'll be hosting the Mobile Games Awards in person during Gamescom in Cologne. So,

grab your tickets. It's always a great evening. All the big names in mobile in attendance. Right, so the big news obviously this week, and we kind of alluded to it last week cuz we knew it was incoming, is the Xbox layoffs, status just reset as the company calls it. So, the basic bits of news. Xbox is is set to lay off 3,200 staff as part of this. Approximately 1,600 have already been made redundant this week with a further 1,600 over the next year to make up the 3,200. I would note that that is in addition to the divestitures of studios and there have also been voluntary retirements before this and they're cutting vendors. So, the number associated with Xbox has gone down more than 3,200. There's a reason why that that number might not even change over the next year and it comes off the back of previous layoffs where I think thousands maybe have already been let go

over the past few years. So, the studios that have been cut are Compulsion Games and Double Fine who who have gone under a management buy out to once again become independent and they're taking their IP. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs are being sold to as yet unnamed acquirers and the Arkane management in France has begun consultation to review strategic options with presumably the plan to sell. Hopefully that they can find a a way forward with that. Cuts have been made across basically everything, right? Activision, Bethesda, ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, Xbox Game Studios. No specifics were discussed in the memo from Ashley Schama about how each year it was affected, but obviously things have come out this week. id Software was hit hard. The rumor was that the engine team was let go, which seems crazy if true. That is a rumor. But Xbox, well, Ashley Sharma said that none of its first-party publicly announced games or projects will be canceled. But that's not

necessarily true because because for example, Senua was announced at the Xbox Gamescom showcase. And now that studio is being sold off. And Xbox has no control over whether that game lives or dies over the next few years. You assume it will release, but nothing is for certain. Sharma said that somebody else was let go as well as the targeted layers of management and platform business. Elsewhere, Xbox said it is shaking up leadership team. So, it has brought in Helen Chiang, who was previously the corporate VP for the Microsoft franchises as the as the CEO. And notably, King and Mojang will report directly now to Ashley Sharma. So, I did a bit of an analysis. I'll go through some of the few key points. Like Ashley Sharma's comments are really just kind of an indictment on the whole Phil Spencer Xbox Game Pass era. That has gone. The Wall Street Journal reported that that Xbox Game Pass actually had 30 million subscribers. The target was 77 million by June 2026. And I think that 30 million figure was actually down from

a previously shipped. So, Game Pass has failed. Can't achieve this It couldn't achieve the scale it needs to make it worthwhile. Hence, part of the reason that a lot of this is or maybe the main reason a lot of this is happening. Sharma said after a substantial spending spree over the years, in a typical year, Xbox is set to have lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. And she said, "We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio." I think one of the saddest things about this is it or most ridiculous things about this is it comes after the months of easy PR wins that they were trying to do, which I talked we talked about. And it was all pointless because we knew that this was coming. And then you do compared it an Xbox game showcase. And then you do this. All those wins just go away because now it looks like the strategy is completely It looks like the strategy is completely different. But one of the things that Shamus said, which is basically Xbox's new North Star, kind of making its ambitions a bit clearer, is they have a goal of

entertaining more than a billion people each day, which one article called borderline delusional. So it was 24 teams all of their PC marketplace highs. That's the kind of what you're looking at at the scale. It is crazy, but if you look at some numbers, and I know these are all DAUs. Back in 2024, Satya Nadella actually said that Microsoft's games division had 500 million monthly active users. And if you think that's a lie, well, Q2 2023, Activision reported 356 million MAUs. Of these, 238 million were attributed to King, 26 million to Blizzard, 92 Activision. So, and then you've got Minecraft in 2021, it's claimed to have gone from 40 million MAUs. So there is a way to kind of get close like to work towards that. I think basically the future is going to have to be cross-platform still, which is what they were kind of going at. There's going to have to be a bigger aspect of mobile. Not sure how they would get there. I'm sure the appetite is not there to spend more money. I don't think I don't

think King will grow the user base because I know it has other games that have been successful FarmVille or Saga year 2 billion downloads, right? But effectively it's the Candy Crush company, and these Candy Crush games still somewhat very lucrative, had diminishing returns, right? So it's very much Candy Crush Saga company. They've never been able to really break out into mid-core. Publishers always sell themselves a big lie when they buy a mobile studio, that they're going to adapt their IP. Never happens. It ain't going to happen. So if they're not going to buy someone to achieve that scale, maybe they'll do some more partnerships with like Tencent or NetEase. Might has been done by Activision and Blizzard with Call of Duty Mobile and uh and Diablo Immortal. So, free-to-play is going to be, I think, a big part. Live service is going to be a big part. I think that and as is being shown and what they've been saying, Xbox exclusives will be a big part. Problem is is that I think, especially if they have a diskless future, there's a lot more in in the article.

All right, I've got to be talking forever I will. It So, the problem with the hardware diskless future is hardware is going to be too expensive as they kind of alluded to already with the price of RAM unless that changes dramatically in the next few years before the next generation of hardware. And if you have a diskless future, there's actually probably a in the end globally a smaller audience. As I pointed out there in Africa for PSN and also Xbox, there's actually like no access except for in South Africa to like Xbox Live or PSN. So, in emerging markets, you're going to struggle if you don't actually have physical. Plus, costs are going to be There's loads of things that I could go into there. Anyway, they're going to go back to exclusives, focus on core franchises, which what PlayStation does and what Activision did which made it highly successful. So, I think that's a good strategy. They've got Obsidian working on Fallout, which made me think that why was, with respect, I I get it because the old strategy was game pass probably wanted more game. It's just odd that I mean Obsidian was working on Avowed 2. But Avowed 1, I think, fell below

expectations. So, it was odd that you would put them on Avowed 2. But also, I just started getting to think, again, a whole 'nother conversation, but just like to leave it all with is that why did Microsoft Why did Xbox treat, seemingly, maybe it was a lie this, but from all I as far as I know, treat all these studios like silos? Like Bethesda focused on Starfield. It hasn't released Elder Scrolls after announcing it ages ago. I'm sure that was just a nonsensical competitive announcement to up PlayStation for some reason. But why isn't why isn't Obsidian maybe even in exile like working with Bethesda on these games on these big RPGs that they have experience in and if Bethesda probably needs that support to to make these such massive games and you could probably truncate like the development time of that with with the staff you already have. Instead, they're working on different things that probably wouldn't be as successful as one Elder Scrolls or one Fallout. So, that was interesting. I think that's like a good direction, but the console

market, I think as Matthew Ball himself is going to say, it just doesn't really it doesn't really grow at any rate. So, that is a very that is if if Microsoft's goal is to get to one to engage 1 billion players, I think console is not the way to get there or to get anywhere close to that. It will be part of it, but it's just not how you get there. So, I think ultimately Xbox is going to be very different to what they've been saying over the past few months to get to this goal. And the the last thing something rapid on, which I do always Xbox, is if you Where does the 1 billion figure come from? Um I would also say that people saying is 1 billion DAUs. That is not actually what the statement is. The statement is they want to engage they want to engage with 1 billion players. They might well mean DAU, but that is not what they say. So, it could also mean engaging people outside of the actual games, maybe on YouTube, Twitch, or transmedia, whatever. We don't know. But, if you're wondering where that comes from, I have some figures. The last figure I'll say is and I know this sounds really

this is really unreasonable, but it was I thought it was interesting that in Microsoft's Q3 2026 financials, it stated the monthly active Windows devices surpassed 1.6 billion. Bing MAUs hit 1 billion for the first time and LinkedIn has 1.3 billion members. So, it made me think is that where the 1 billion comes from? Is someone at Microsoft is asking why isn't Xbox delivering the same results? Sorry, I've been yapping on for ages. That was like some of my analysis, but Paige, Aaron, what do you what do you make of the news this week?
Yeah, obviously we knew this was coming. We knew it was going to be huge, and it is. Like that amount of layoffs is just enormous. It It's weird that it is such terrible news, and it's so huge, but I feel like, you know, outside of the business side of it, but the consumer-facing side, it's almost like people have been like, "Oh, it wasn't as bad as I thought." Because beforehand, they were saying that all these studios were going to be closed. There was all these rumors that they were like completely going to die, and then they didn't. You know, some are going independent, some are being bought. I

feel like the whole PlayStation thing with their announcement of, you know, their digital future, I feel like that's still front and center of a lot of people's minds. So, I feel like this is almost on the consumer side gone a little bit more, you know, to the side than it than it should have. Like it's It is huge, and what Xbox is going to be is going to be completely different. You know, like you said, that them saying that, "Oh, you know, these games, you know, that they'll still be coming to Xbox." Well, you know, for example, like, you know, if they're You know, they've sold Undead Labs. They've been I think they've been developing State of Decay 3 for 6 years. So, you've invested in it that whole time. Now, you've sold it, and now whoever buys them, they have no obligation to put State of Decay 3 on Game Pass. They can do what they want. Like, you know, that game doesn't necessarily have to go on that format. So, yeah, I I think, you know, just I don't really know what the strategy will be going forward. I guess if you announce something as huge as this, which is such terrible news, I get why they've been on the side of it being like, "Oh, but here's the ambition of you know, this 1 billion number to kind

of make it sound like, "Look, but this is what we're aiming towards." So, yeah, like I I I get that. I get that it is an ambitious outlook. Like you said, it's going to have to go beyond just getting those numbers on console. Mobile's going to have to play a big part in that. Interesting what you said about the actual specific wording of it. You know, does that mean them just reaching players everywhere, not just necessarily through the games themselves? So, I guess we'll see what comes of that, but yeah, just, you know, more bad news really. And I think Game Pass is going to have to it's going to have to change. I feel like in a way that probably will upset people even more, but uh we did a Mayvens on this uh this week as well. And one of the comments was from Oscar Clark, and I think he spoke about this before about, you know, the the value of your Game Pass subscription, but it has no value outside of that. And he made a point of to know, you have your Game Pass subscription, you'll play a game, but they leave them on there sort of too long. And this is definitely my experience with it. I don't think I've ever played a game on Game Pass and then bought it. Because like they're on there

so long that like I can just finish the game in the time that I need it. So, yeah, I I feel like Game Pass being front and center of that strategy, they can't really backtrack on it too much because it is such a core part, but I also feel like that's going to have to change, too. So, yeah, what Xbox looks like in, say, 5 years, who knows.
I think
Yeah, I could be misremembering this, so I might I'll probably have to correct something next week. Uh I a while back, I don't I can't remember how long ago, a couple of years probably, they discovered code, I think did some research about uh Game Pass impact on sales, and I think it could actually, if it's on Game Pass, it could actually lead to increased sales. I'm not saying that is applicable to first-party games, but for third-party, maybe. I I think for first-party games, it's been pretty devastating for profitability, to be honest. But yeah. And on your point about State of Decay 3, surely I I imagine there must be a a deal that it still comes to Xbox. But I think my point is is like there's there's no

there's no guarantee that those studios survive the next few years. You assume they would, they've just been bought, but you know, there is no control there. But there's probably a deal to bring it to Xbox. There there was actually one last thing I wanted to say on this quickly was that, uh, that 1 billion figure again. I actually I looked at other random some random stuff data, what other console what other platforms get and what massive games get. And this is why you have to look at, uh, console is kind of flat and mobile is really only way to get that scale. So, Nintendo has 129 million annual playing users as of March 2026. That number's been largely flat over 3 years, 2 3 years. PlayStation has 125 million MAUs. Steam has surpassed a peak 41 million daily active users 2026. So, those uh, except for Steam there, those are monthly. That's kind of the scale you have to think about if it's just an Xbox console, which probably wouldn't be as

big as these even in the next generation if I was to guess, cuz I think the power of their own IP is as diminished as well as an attraction to buy their expensive more expensive than ever new hardware. There's a couple of other random stats. WeChat mini games had WeChat MAUs of 571 million, but that is off the back of WeChat having, I don't know off the top of my head, 1.4 billion users. Uh, most of those in China. You no one else really is going to have access to that scale. Roblox has 132 million DAUs. There's a lot of talk about Roblox and Minecraft and how Minecraft might try and follow the Roblox format. But, uh, I think that Minecraft is isn't built the same way as Roblox. Roblox is an engine as a platform. Minecraft is a game. Like, and I I know some good commentary about it. It's just very hard to make one into the other. I don't think that will be what they do with Minecraft. It might be. Um, and then sorry, last one's. King uh, 183 million MAUs. Honor of Kings surpassed 260 million MAUs and 139 million DAUs,

one of the biggest games in the world. China, again. Superstars are at 300 million monthly players. PUBG Mobile 90 million DAUs, again, China. Korea reported 666.5 million quarterly active users. Interesting. I guess quarterly is the key word there. And Block Blast, 70 million DAUs and 300 million monthly active users. Again, my point is just, you're not going to get to a billion without free-to-play and mobile and cross-platform. So, that is the future of Xbox. I don't even think you could say it leads with exclusivity on Xbox, but I know that's that's a big plan, but that I don't think that is the main driver.
I think just to drill the point home on like you can't do it with just console, like mobile has to be a big part. I know you just said a bunch of the kind of monthly figures for like Nintendo and stuff, but even just on the pure like number of console sales, like obviously the Xbox Series X and S, I think they're

below like 30 million. And even if you if you like added together like the you know, Nintendo, Sony and um like Microsoft console sales, even if you if you had like PS4, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, that's still less than half a billion consoles. So, you need to like double the number of people playing on every console and have them playing like daily and choosing to play a Microsoft game to reach that number from consoles. So, like it has to be mobile, cuz as you said, so many of these companies are getting like hundreds of millions anyway. Surely it it just needs a bunch of those really. I don't think there's enough, particularly with the prices going up for consoles and stuff. I don't think that's the way to do it.
There's loads more I could say. I think there's on on console pricing, I I think it'll be a mistake again to do a low-end

and a high-end console. You just have to pick one because the low-end just caps what you can do on the high-end hardware cuz it still has to be playable on a low end Xbox. I think that wasn't a great decision at the start of the generation even if one sold more than the other like I mean it just restricts developers. And there was an interesting thing with Guerrilla but they said in their report actually was it in their report? I think it was in Matthew Ball's report. So my argument is largely charts since he's now at Microsoft. And it was like the importance of low end devices for them to scale. On the one I I don't think that's going to work for console. So anyway, I don't know the the point I think I'm trying to make here again is to reach that audience. You do need to go on low end devices but that is not the console market that my Xbox is going to aim for for that side. So to get a billion as we'll keep saying has to look elsewhere. And I don't really know how it gets there other than through partnerships cuz I don't think they'll buy anyone. A lot of the major players have been snapped up already and it'll be very expensive to to buy anyone

that's left. Right. So that is the Xbox news. The really big news of the week and hope we wish all the best to everybody that was impacted by the layoffs and divestitures. So a very tough time still for the industry cuz Xbox isn't the only one obviously that's been laying off but this is one of the biggest if not the biggest round of layoffs ever in the industry. So we're going to move on to other news. Paige, what have you got?
So up first from me is a little bit of a continuation from something we spoke about on the podcast last week. So if you did listen to that, you would have caught that we spoke about Lovense bases kind of big controversy that it's had about its six love interest character Valco who was canceled. There's kind of a new bit of an update on that. So a fan petition has been launched calling for Infold Games to reverse that decision. They want Valco to come back. It's got like over 200,000 signatures, probably more now actually. We mentioned on last week's podcast like what the controversy

actually was so I won't go into too much detail on it because we'll be here forever cuz it is there is a lot to this one. But, in general, the concerns were you know, genuine and you know, pretty big. So, them canceling it, yeah, did kind of feel like it's something they they had to do. But, reading through a bunch of the comments about this and like just from really dedicated players and things, they've kind of commented like obviously the game, a huge part of it is like this dating part of the game, but there is more to it than that as well. And they were saying how it's apparently been really evident for a long time that there was always supposed to be like a sixth character in the game. So, they felt like that now being taken away is going to essentially completely change what the game's experience is. I've even seen a lot of people going as far to say, you know, well, maybe there should be two versions of the game. Like, you know, a Chinese version and then a separate version that's, you know, for like the global player base. So, yeah, I think it's just a really interesting case of having a game that now feels like it has a

massively divided player base because you've got two parts of it pulling in completely different directions. The backlash in China was huge, serious enough to not only cancel the character, but for them to then make that quite bold comment of, "Okay, you know, we won't indulge in the idea of new characters at all. We'll just focus on the five that we've got." which seems to have maybe gone down, better in China, but then the global player base really now concerned about the game. And it does feel like a shame in the sense of this is kind of on Infold. They should have done more research. They should have taken their time with this character before releasing them because I do feel like this could have been avoided with a lot of the issues that they had. So, yeah, if they'd have just taken the time to do that, I wonder what position they would be in now because currently they're in one that feels like they're stuck between two very large parts of their player base that, you know, want a different outcome from this. So, I guess if they've made that commitment that the character's not coming and no

others are, that they'll maybe just stick with that since that's what they've stated so recently. It'd be odd to roll back on that so soon. Um, but it's also had wider consequences for them as well. So, they canceled a planned appearance at Bilibili World 2026. They apologized to the players for it. They've even gone as far to offer like reimbursements for travel and ticket prices and things like that. So, yeah, it is it is a huge issue. It is a huge uh just a very a very odd one and just a very difficult position for them to be in because, yeah, you're not going to be able to please everyone in the in the mess that they've made. I'm curious if they make it to Gamescom. One of the best I think I said this last time. It's one of the best booths of one I think one of the most popular at last year's show. A curious thing about the petition is I think I think it lost like 30,000 signatures overnight one night for some somehow. And then it's been creeping back up to about 210. That was odd. So, maybe some activity but not to diminish. Obviously, it's a

lot of people want that character back. I thought that was really interesting point. Surely surely they did decrease like market research and tested it with players. So, I'm curious what that reaction was and if if they didn't see it ahead of time like from those place from those play tests assuming that they took place. Very odd if they didn't do that. Yeah, I feel like a lot of the issue was more not so much around just the character things like that. The two things were obviously the the correlation with this, you know, like the sensitive historical part of it. And then there was also something I saw that was about how they advertised the character and they made a strange statement that translated into something along the lines of, you know, bringing the wolf home like letting the wolf come home with you kind of thing which triggered a lot of, you know, like concern about like women's safety and that kind of messaging just being a bit a bit dangerous. So, I think it's a case of like, you know, maybe some of the character stuff was fine, but then how they've gone about marketing this character has just just not, you know,

been okay. So, yeah, and I feel like all those kind of things are very avoidable.
Right. Thanks for that, Paige. So, Aaron, what's the next story? There's a There's a big anniversary this week.
There was. So, hopefully some kind of cheerier news after this first or half hour or so. So, it was Pokémon Go's 10th anniversary this week. So, that's a full decade. I remember and play Pokémon when it came out. Obviously, very quickly, you know, it became a global phenomenon really. And yeah, so I've I've written a few pieces about it this week kind of celebrating the occasion. So, over the decade, at Magic Estimates suggests that Pokémon Go has made more than 9 billion between Google Play and the App Store. Obviously, there's likely even more player spending if you factor in the the web shop. So, I did a kind of a a data piece on how it's done over the years and actually peaking during the pandemic, which was quite surprising,

really. Kind of they made certain changes to make it work cuz obviously, you know, it's a location-based walking game. You might not think that it would have done exceptionally well when people couldn't really go outside, but it did. And actually, overall with the 9 billion figure, so Pokémon Go was the fifth most lucrative mobile game of the decade between the the major app stores. As the only titles to make more than it since 2016 were Honor of Kings, PUBG Mobile, Candy Crush, and Roblox. So, you know, obviously, it's a massive game. I was surprised to see that it's in the top five earners of the the decade. In the according to some official light statistics that we got last year when Pokémon Go was acquired by Scopely. Go players had collectively walked more than 30 billion miles and around 10 million people were still said to be playing 7 days a week. This was

sort of as of spring 2025. As I yeah, I've written a few pieces this week. So like I interviewed Pokémon Go ambassador Jupiter Hadley, who established the first Pokémon Go community in Europe or the first official one. So she like organizes meetups for Go players and kind of distributes codes in game so people can sort of do more raids when they're together as a community and she gives out merch and things. Um and yeah, it sounds like obviously, you know, compared to 10 years ago, you don't see nearly as many people out playing Go, you know, out in the wild. But I found it quite intriguing to learn. So she'd said that the meetups that she organizes, like there's there's usually more popularity to those if there's an event with a meta-relevant Pokémon rather than it being nostalgia-based. So like a strong legendary Pokémon showing up during a raid hour, apparently that's going to draw more attention than say a a Charizard event just because it's

Charizard and he's popular with, you know, casual broader Pokémon fans. I also looked back at your talk, Craig, with two members of the Scopely team who you spoke to on stage at PGC San Francisco. Um and they had some kind of reflection on what a phenomenon Go was when it came out, uh some insights into like development challenges like those changes during the lockdown, which yeah, obviously some quite dramatic shifts were necessary. And then interestingly as well, there was some conversation around friction getting people to go out again afterwards because changes were made obviously to make it playable from home. And then I guess people got, you know, obviously got used to that over a couple of years and suddenly they're trying to roll that back and say like, well, you have to go and walk again now if you want to catch Pokémon you had people a bit reluctant to do so which I thought was quite amusing. And so there's there's quite a bit to check out on the site this week. Obviously well any regular listeners will know I'm a big Pokémon fan so I've tried to sort of eke as much out of this anniversary as

possible.
You hide it so well Aaron.
I do. Yeah.
One one thing to add to news of this week that we have the scoop on is that Niantic has now been renamed to Scopely Explore. So I believe that Scopely doesn't actually own the Niantic name so Niantic Spatial which was spun out after the Scopely acquisition to focus on the tech side of things that is still that is Niantic Spatial is owned independent company that I think Scopely did put investment in but it owns the Niantic name. So now it was going to be phased out over the coming weeks and effectively Niantic the name's not really going to be associated with Pokémon GO anymore which is kind of fun.
Like weirdly at the end of an era. If you if you're boring like me but nothing is really going to change with the game.
Right. Cool. So thank thanks thanks Aaron. So I spoke so much at the start I think we'll just go back round. So Paige what else do you got?
Yeah just a quick one from me anyway. A big story for competitive games this

week is that the eSports World Cup 2026 opens today in Paris. Obviously a big deal it's the first international edition of that tournament. Obviously the current format of that is not originally what it was going to be so they were supposed to have it in Saudi Arabia but obviously just sort of safety concerns surrounding you know the conflict in the Middle East had some impact on that. But the organizers have kind of said that they actually wanted the eSports World Cup to become this sort of traveling global event and you know I guess now with Paris that marks the first sort of chapter of that. And I actually really quite like that idea. I like the idea that each one could have you know a different kind of country playing host to e-sports World Cup. Like that makes that makes sense to me. But yeah, I just think like the main thing is is the the scale of it is just huge. So, it's So, over the next 7 weeks, there's more than 2,000 players from over 100 countries. They'll compete over 25 tournaments, which consists of 24 different games. And then this is the

the huge part. There's a massive record-breaking 75 million prize pool, which is just crazy. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how this edition of the the tournament goes. Paris is obviously no stranger to hosting big sports events. So, I'm sure it'll be a good host to it. But yeah, I I hope it's a success. And you know, I guess we'll see if it sort of sets a new format for what we expect to see this tournament look like in the future. Yeah, it's really great. The e-sports World Cup, obviously there's no Starcraft viewers here, so devastated. But I hope that all the work that is going in and all the investment into e-sports from basically Saudi Arabia is going to end up being sustainable in some way. I don't think like outside of this, it this is just kind of a bubble another bubble for e-sports, I think. But hopefully the work that's being done is long-term because it's just as someone I was going to say part of the Starcraft II community. Not only the community

knows well, but I I just enjoy that community that ecosystem. And the e-sports is a big part of that. It's why I It's actually a key part of why I'm interested in it. I know as a lot of people that watch it don't play it either. It's just fun. So, I imagine for all the other games, it's kind of the same thing. So, yeah, e-sports has had a lot of trouble in the past. This is good because it helps enable that to some degree. And I hope it's sustainable for the long term. And there won't be another Saudis pulling out its money cuz it's now focusing on AI or whatever. It's had enough of these sports, didn't grow enough, whatever. But yeah, excited for the World Cup and hope it all continues. All right, thanks a lot, Paige. Aaron, ready to go?
So, a Nintendo story for me. Again, one of my well-hidden loves, but um yeah, slightly less good news than the previous one. So, Nintendo has revealed that Mario Kart Tour is ending service on the 29th of September, which will be just over 7 years after its launch. And

I'm kind of surprised and unsurprised by this news. They clearly started winding the game down years ago. Like, they removed any like gacha elements from it, which was its kind of model when it launched, and then added final new content to it back in October 2023. So, that would nearly be 3 years ago when it shuts down. And since then, they've been like recycling old content and I don't kind of just kind of yeah, cycling back through previous events and modes and things. And like it with a quick look at at magic, it looks like it still kind of makes around or almost a million a month even as recently as this kind of spring time. So, I'm kind of surprised that if they're not developing new content, then the the cost of keeping the servers up and maybe if there are people fixing bugs and things, that apparently that isn't worth it. I would have just suspected you know, as

long as people keep playing it and spending a bit on old stuff, you know, you you just let it do its thing. Apparently, they've decided now is the well, September is the time to to end things for it. So, Nintendo sort of thanked the community for supporting the game. They they've said that in-game purchases and the subscriptions are already winding down. Sales of rubies in the game ended on the 7th of July, but players can still use, you know, what they have in kind of in-game shops and in Coin Rush until service ends. And yeah, automatic subscription renewals have been stopped, as well. So, yeah, I guess it's it's kind of sad to see a another Nintendo game go. Obviously, Animal Cro- Animal Crossing Pocket Camp did a few years ago, but then they made a kind of complete version, so you could buy the game kind of outright and transfer your save. Whether they do that with this, I think they announced it at the same time as saying the kind of free-to-play Pocket

Camp was closing, so it doesn't sound like it. I think Mario Kart, until we had the like Fire Emblem Shadows last year, like that was the last Nintendo mobile game to release. So, it's it's kind of sad. It's It's not one that I played, but obviously, it's a shame for people whenever they they lose access to a game. Let's hope that uh for my sake, that Fire Emblem Heroes is still doing well enough for them. So, that would be the end of an era for me if they ever you know, ever close down Heroes. But, obviously, that still makes more money and gets new content compared to to Mario Kart, though. But, obviously, it is a big franchise, and Nintendo, you know, for a long time had said mobile was about promoting their brands rather than making money. But, yeah, clearly at this point, they've decided Mario Kart Tour isn't isn't worth that investment.
I think it's kind of surprising that then, you know, it's on the decline for years. Doesn't really do anything. It's not really surprising. Outside of Fire Emblem Heroes, Nintendo just has no

business being on mobile at all anymore. So, many times, the only reason this happened is because of the Wii U. Like, otherwise, it would like, now that the Switch Switch 2 or Switch 2 is doing well, as well. Like, they just don't need they just don't need need it. And outside of this one game, they're not really doing it very successfully, either. I America on their tour ultimately made technically a lot of money, but then as what I think is actually Nintendo's biggest franchise, specifically Mario Kart, if in theory that game should do a lot better.
Yeah, I think Mario Kart's been like the best-selling game on every Nintendo platform since the Wii.
So, they just shouldn't be there unless unless they're going to partner with someone and I well they I know they partner with DeNA. Partner with someone that does it properly. And Nintendo lets them do it properly. Like Pikmin and Hey! Pikmin is a very daft very Nintendo thing of not really understanding something but also being very late to it. That has bombed immediately. I I just Yeah, I I can't

totally understand why they got rid of this and it Whatever I don't I think Super Mario Run still around. I'm surprised that's technically still going.
Yeah, I was about to say it's sort of it's funny Yeah, cuz like Super Mario Run was kind of one of their early attempts on mobile and obviously it was a premium game which didn't you know didn't do anything groundbreaking and then they kind of moved to the free-to-play you know like gacha model. So, it's funny they've come like full circle now and Pikmin and Hey! Pikmin is back to being like yeah, you have to buy this one.
Yeah, it's just one of the meh. Except for Fire Emblem you know it was they'll keep it going. Cuz it's kind of it's still base yeah, or I don't know 2 and 1/2 3 million a month. It's right.
Yeah, I don't think
Right, thanks to that Aaron. That is it for this week. Thank you everybody for tuning into the show and listening. Thank you Aaron Page both of you for your insights this week.
Thanks.
As we say best of luck to everybody impacted by the news this week. It's been a tough one. And for our listeners we'll see you on the show next week. Goodbye for now.