This week, Niki and John are joined by perhaps the greatest games media talent scout in the industry's history, Endless Mode's Editor-in-Chief Garrett Martin. He hung out to tell us about the new site, what to expect from its amazing writers, and, of course, theme parks! Also:

• nearly half an hour of AEW All In Texas preview discussion (sorry non-wrestling fans)
• Kotaku's sale to Keleops
• Microsoft's astonishing layoff round of 9,100 employees
• Perfect Dark reboot canceled and studio shuttered
• EA's bonkers 100,000,000 player expectation for Battlefield
• Bonk!
• Shmups!
• Half Sword
• SGDQ 2025

Also, we answer your burning HIVE QUESTIONS from our Discord.

This week, Niki and John go deep (again) on Mario Kart World and its most head-scratching design choices. Tired of us talking about that? Okay! We also talked about:

• Andrew Wilson's obscene pay bump at EA
• Microsoft's upcoming massive layoff
• Peak sells 2m copies
• Nintendo "fixes" something everyone thought was fine in Mario Kart World
• the dark corners of Cyberpunk 2077
• and much more!

Also, we answer your burning HIVE QUESTIONS from our Discord!

John returns to the podcast after spending last week in the hospital and joins Niki to talk about the second full week of Switch 2 as well as:

• the indefinite Marathon delay
• 3rd party titles apparently lagging on Switch 2
• historic sales figures for Switch 2
• Xbox's core strategy
• Mario Kart World
• Donkey Kong Bananza
• Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2
• Poxel
• FBC: Firebreak
• Deltarune

Also, we answer your burning HIVE QUESTIONS from our lovely Discord community.

This week, John was zooted in the hospital recovering from surgery (he's fine!), so Niki and Lotus took the reins and delivered a banger of an episode, featuring:

• Summer Game Fest swag
• Sonic Racing: Crossworlds
• Lumines Arise
• MindsEye
• Mario Kart World
• the rise of fascism and incompetence of our oppressors
• Nintendo Switch 2 first week sales figures
• and much, much more

Also, we answer your burning HIVE QUESTIONS straight from our lovely Discord.

John broke his ankle in a car accident so couldn't make it out to SGF this year, so instead Niki attended the planned VGBees Mixer and we decided to set up a little area for John to digitally greet guests. And then we decided to make it into an episode. Smart? Not really! Jordan Mallory, our intrepid producer, did a marvelous job making this at least listenable, but conceptually it was not smart. But we did it anyway!

The VGBees Way.

Is it a fun episode? Yes. John tackles the Sony State of Play and thoughts on Elden Ring: Nightreign while we get lots of really fun cameos from folks across games media!

Video version recommended on this one, but the audio is definitely worse there. We'll record more "normal" eps during SGF.

Thanks for your patience and support! Hive Questions will be called upon this weekend!

Niki and John are riding solo this week while we prepare for Summer Game Fest. Included in their hangout:

• Coverage expectations of Geoff's big show
• EA's cancelation of Black Panther and the closure of Cliffhanger
• Memories of E3
• Battle Aces shutting down
• Tencent's recent catalog
• Xbox moving away from proprietary handheld (for now)
• Elden Ring Nightreign's PC problems
• getting paid to hate a game

Also, we answer your burning HIVE QUESTIONS from our Discord!

This week, Niki and John are joined by one fifth of the owners of Giant Bomb, the unfathomable Dan Ryckert! Yes, wrestling comes up. Yes, fast food brands are discussed. Yes, extremely local minutia is mentioned. Also:

• Joe is Hungry
• Tommy Tallarico
• owning a business like owning a car?
• Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown
• To a T
• Deliver At All Costs
• Star Citizen

We answer your HIVE QUESTIONS from our Discord like we do every single week!

Hello Hive! This week, Niki and John are joined by extremely talented and funny video essayist, streamer, and podcast host Jenna Stoeber! In addition to a lively discussion of whether can is barrel, the group discussed:

• Jenna's PAX East
• Karaoke go-tos
• Ending our time with Blue Prince
• Nintendo Switch 2 colliding with Summer Game Fest
• The non-story of Kingdom Hearts IV's screenshot drop
• Bungie possibly lifting stolen art directly into Marathon's alpha
• and more!

Also, we answer your HIVE QUESTIONS, which you can provide for us every single week on our Discord.