"Handheld consoles are getting more popular each year, but the ROG Ally and Steam Deck have lost sight of what made them so accessible."
Hades 2 developers recently released the third major update for the game, which has massively boosted its popularity on the Steam Deck.
Shaz from Pixel Swish: "The ROG Xbox Ally is another step towards Team Xbox’s 'Play Anywhere' strategy, and perfectly embodies the company’s future and how we’re all going to be playing an 'Xbox' in the future."
The funny thing about Xbox going more PC-like is that I’ve been saying this for over a decade and finally seeing it come to fruition. People use to hate the idea, but now are embracing it, and all I want is to be put on the payroll lol.
On a serious note, I think this is the best route going forward for MS. They don’t have to get out of the hardware game altogether. They can make their home console $300 entry & $600 premium home consoles and from there partner with other hardware makers for anything beyond that. Focus on being a publisher and creating a strong OS / Cloud option for other devices like desktop, handheld PCs, streaming devices, etc…
I honestly think they should also look into NVIDIA as well, with NVIDIA starting to make their own CPUs. Their CPU is already on par with AMDs best laptop CPUs of the previous/current generation which is more than enough, and a RTX 5000 / 6000 laptop GPU hybrid (DLSS 4 / DLSS5) could do wonders for them, and bring some much needed diversity back to console hardware.
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I don't know why you'd expect them to still develop new consoles at this point. Ditching all exclusives and putting the Xbox logo on a ROG Windows device is a pretty clear message.
This isn't a good thing for Xbox. It's a long winded goodbye.
For the same reason they still have a laptop hardware lineup even though they have Windows.
Having some kind of retail presence for visibility and marketing won’t really affect them in any way.
I still expect them to have 1 or 2 SKUs that they won’t sell at a loss but will continue the trend of selling way less than the competition (though its still selling millions), just like they have their Surface laptops even though they could happily coast knowing practically every third party out there (or the end consumer) will pay them for the Windows license
I could see them building a reference gaming PC like the Surface is a reference notebook. But that's not a console. A proprietary platform optimizes to be affordable yet perform fairly well (console), that takes a lot of commitment to maintain. Assembling a PC using mostly standard parts and not controlling software distribution is a lot cheaper and easier - I could see them doing that
You realise thos indicates that their next xbox will be an xbox branded pc right? And will cost pc prices as a result. So look forwards to a 600 dollar and 1000 dollar version with vast performance differences, with the upper range having similar performance to the ps6 that will be like half its price. The 800 dollar rog ally x makes this abundantly clear.
I saw this years ago. I don't see how it took this long for people actually close to the industry.
I said this years ago, mind you I know nothing about computers, but I always thought Xbox would go more PC-like.
As I said, and always said, I know squat about PCs, so I thought Xbox would become modular. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but I thought they would build a basic frame/shell and gamers would be able to configure their Xbox how they wish, similar to PC and buy motherboards, sound cards and graphic cards. I don’t know if that’s practical or even possible though.
This was when they first entered the gaming space.
I think consoles are so cheap and punch above their weight is because everything is so tightly designed around each component. Opening up to multiple permutations with modules would probably make it more expensive to build, develop for, and manage. It's not impossible, but probably gets in that gray area where it's not much different than a garden variety PC.
Well to clear up my thought process on the matter, I figured they would every so often within a gen like a pro model system, give gamers the proprietary parts.
Let’s say the original Xbox they built it modular in mind, so certain parts they would manufacture newer slightly more powerful components. That way you can either stay with the original configuration, or swap out the parts you choose, building your own pro. Then when the next gen comes around a new even more powerful components that would put the system in the Xbox360 range. Then another half step to tweak your system to a pro of that gen.
I guess similar to how I see people here talking about new 4080 cards, I’m just making up an example, and every so often people mention nother with a number larger than the last indicating it’s more powerful.
I understand what you’re saying about how it’s much easier to just have a closed system, and much cheaper. It was just something I thought might happen when Microsoft introduced the first Xbox.
I think having something out of the box and easy is great for consumers, but, from Xbox standpoint I could see them not making a console next gen because the cost of development will probably outweigh their sales meaning they will post a loss most likely
Been saying this for years. Xbox at some point will exit the console market and become a service. This is perfect for Microsoft.
Most of their games will sell in the millions on Playstation. They will sell well on Switch 2 they will sell well on Steam. They can keep GP going for pc since they are going the PC route for their next hardware.
The only thing I'm unsure about is. Will the Xbox console players move over to pc? Plenty have said over the years. They don't want to deal with PC's. They just want to turn on the console and load up the game and play. Will players be able to do that for the next Xbox? As you certainly can't with the ROG Xbox. If these players move over to playstation or switch then that's loss of GP subscribers. But then again they then potentially make money from them with game sales.
Anyways sorry for the ramble. This is great for Microsoft.
I feel next gen they aren't even going to make a console, probably just do a stream box and handheld. Their main focus is on gamepass after all.
It's heavily rumoured they doing away with consoles and going with PC's from various system builders like dell,Asus,Lenovo. Just like the the upcoming ROG Ally Xbox.
So really Xbox will no longer be a platform and more of a service.
That's the rumour anyways.
I expect them to make at least 1 more console, but afterwards, they’re probably going to full Xbox app route.
Excited for the windows handheld friendly UI and optimazations. Absolutely what Windows needs for all these PC handhelds. I like SteamOS but it's got it's own problems and there are a lot of games incompatible or partially.
Chris Brandrick writing for overkill asks, what if GTA played by the rules? "The Precinct tries it — and well, I can’t believe I enjoyed issuing parking tickets either."
ROG Ally and steam deck are better than the switch
I like the switch but it's outdated tech that can't run games of this generation.
The argument here is at the very least muddled and shows that the author never actually used the devices that she is comparing to the Switch. To start the ROG Ally and the Steam Deck are not exactly the same nor do they have the same objective.
Valve's idea was a compromise between a full PC and a console and a lot of the "issues" mentioned by the author are "fixed" by the automatic Steam Deck profiles. That will basically make the device work as a console, with both the benefits of the plug and play nature of them as well as the limitations of being required to keep within the approved library.
Asus solution however is more or less a full-fledged PC in the shape of a handheld. That indeed makes it a more enthusiastic device. They tried to streamline the process for at least the performance profiles and to some degree they achieved that. But is still much more of a PC than it is a console.
As for the point about price. Yes, they are more expensive than the Switch, but they come with completely different baggages. With Ally in particular offers a ridiculous high value, cause not only it will carry all the library that you might have already built on PC - and EGS alone gave out hundreads of games at this point - but you have access to the best deals in the form of bundles, different stores and Game Pass. And they also have access to a ridiculous amount of other libraries, by means of emulation.
So while they are more expensive to front. They will pay themselves much faster when you actually start to play games on them.
And as a side note:
"Simply slot in your triple-A game and enjoy a refined experience"
It's really a matter of taste. But I wouldn't consider games that literally go from below 480p resolutions and run at below 30 fps as refined. But that might just be me.
What makes portable consoles great is that they're portable.
This is just a ridiculously contrarian argument for the sake of saying something negative about something popular for hits.
My take on this is as follows:
I have a switch since its release and a Steam Deck for 10 months now.
While Steam Deck is a clear winner in the graphics department, with access to Sony, PC and Xbox games as well as better joysticks, it is simply not that accessible or easy to use.
With Steam Deck I have over 10 games that while playable according to Steam, can not be played on the Deck for many reasons (control schemes not supported by community, random crashes, freezing bugs, not starting, endless booting loops etc)
Graphic settings have to be continually adjusted to reach an acceptable level of performance as default settings dont always work.
On the Deck I have 37 games installed on a 512 GD SSD whereas on switch I have over 70 on a 400GB micro SD with another 120GB free (including many storage demanding games).
If I purchase a game and begin downloading, on the Deck I have to keep the handheld on whereas on switch it continues downloading when you press the power off button.
When I resume a game on Switch after powering off, I almost never after 6 years had any issues with the game booting normally, whereas with the Deck I encountered too many freezing issues (notably on the Ascent, God of War, Serious Sam 4, Devil May Cry 5)
Lastly the battery life is very limited (1 hour play on demanding games despite lowering performance and settings) whereas on Switch you can regularly hit 2-2,5 hours of gameplay even on demanding games and it never get uncomfortably hot.
So while the Steam Deck opened new possibilities for me and access to new libraries (especially indie horror games & triple A titles), it does have some drawbacks which may inconvenience the casual gamer.
Games make Switch for me otherwise I wouldn’t own one.