With ASUS seemingly teasing an Xbox handheld last week, there's been a lot of talk about the device in the days ever since, and Xbox boss Phil Spencer has also teased something to do with handhelds happening in 2025
Lighthouse Games, the AAA Leamington Spa-based studio formed in 2022 by Playground Games co-founder and former studio head Gavin Raeburn, has revealed it's developing a "disruptive" driving game and secured additional investment from Tencent to make it happen.
I feel sorry for this guy and his newly formed studio.
He left XGS and Playground to pursue his multi platform dreams just to find out next that Xbox will be making games for every single platform. Smh.
I don't think it's any of that. Im sure hes heard of Xbox multiplat approach but wanted to do their own thing anyway. He has complete freedom and direction. This game could be a break out hit and join Larian Studios Baldurs Gate and Clair Obscure Expedition 33 a more independent studios.
"I would say we're not building Horizon. If I wanted to build Horizon 6, 7 and 8, I would have stayed at Playground"
He didn't want to keep making Horizon. Try reading any article before giving a nod to Microsoft.
I'm glad studios are breaking off from big pubs and doing their own thing.
Making games that are player lead and games that devs want to make and play themselves. This is how it was in the 90's 2000's even early 2010's. That's part of the reason why gaming was better back then. With more independency in the industry we'll have more creative games. Not this formulaic dopamine reward driven systems. But engaging, dynamic and most importantly organically fun to play. Not manufactured fake fun like how it is these days.
Rant over it'll be probably be awhile till we see their game but here's hoping it's good.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang reveals how the Nintendo Switch 2 custom processor was built for power, portability, and real-time AI enhancements.
"Most advanced graphics ever in a mobile device" well.. probably not all that true. Maybe because of DLSS.
I have a feeling Nintendo has put themselves in an awkward spot though, I think Deck 2 could well be out by the end of next year and it will likely be a big upgrade. Nintendo has released late, very late. It reminds me of the Wii U in some sense.
Nintendo have the position of having first party games, but they need to bring them.. without long droughts, I can't see it but they should have some quality games anyway. Third party stuff I think they'll be eclipsed quickly hardware wise, especially when next gen consoles release and another new gen of GPUs.
The deck and none of the other handheld PCs are a threat to Nintendo due to their abysmal market share. Combined the 3 major handheld PCs have sold less than 10 million units. From a performance standpoint the Z2 Extreme devices are more powerful than the switch offering up to 2x the performance in games, but that’s not enough to make the Switch 2 irrelevant. It’s just the difference between 30fps Switch 2 vs 60fps Z2 Extreme, but that doesn’t matter to Nintendo gamers.
Nintendo has a monopoly and more importantly Pokémon. Nintendo could not release any games the entire generation, except a mainline Pokémon and the hardware would still sell 30m units, lol.
I really believe I live in some parallel universe. I’ve been gaming since the 80’s, I’ve lived through the invention of Pokémon. I’ve got a kid of my own, I’ve got nieces and nephews, Yet I’ve never met a single person even slightly interested in Pokémon. Cartoon or game… I genuinely have no idea how it appears to be so popular or why people find it interesting.
…I mean I lived through the “POG” generation and yes I collected them and they were great… but there’s only so much interest it can peak in you surely.
Agree with @Abizzel. Somehow Nintendo transcends power via great exclusives and name recogniton. They'll do just fine again I think
Deck 1 had no noticeable impact on switch 1s sales, can’t see any reason why deck 2 would have any significant impact on switch 2.
Nintendo has enough 1st party support to outlast the toughest generations. If the situation worsens, they can just buy another 3rd party studio
Haha, why would a successor to a device that merely sold 4 million units be a threat to a successor of 150+ million units?
Nintendo consoles are all about quality & fine gaming. SW1 sold that much despite being equivalent to PS3/360 in terms of raw power.
And Switch 2 sales will immediately surpass the Steam deck lifetime sales upon its launch.
Who cares what this money-grubbing jackass has to say. He sucks harder than anyone else I can think of right now. What he's doing to the PC market is disgusting.
'If the big companies dictate what games can be created, I don't think that will advance the industry.' -Shihei Yoshida
🙄 same guy who said 80$ is a steal lol and according to him M$ shouldnt put good on a services🤣 wtf
Talks about "innovation" while all his previous company is focused on is GaaS and Remasters. Smh.
This guy is a walking contradiction.
This makes no sense at all.
What does his PREVIOUS company have to do with him and his statement??
Did he have a say on what they are doing? Could of sworn that was Jim Ryan’s fault?
Yet he was In charge and led the PlayStation to overtake xbox
Console VR was birthed because if him he pushed the whole psvr project if that isn't innovative then what is.
Doesn't matter how many alts you use to try and constuct ab alt narrative shu is highly respected in the industry and has done as much for gaming as some of the best names in the industry
@Profchaos
I don´t care what he did in the past.
Sony didn´t cared for him either as he was forced to accept a role as CEO of Indie games or get out! After everything he done for the company.
https://www.eurogamer.net/f...
I been seeing LOTS of innovative day one games on Gamepass (Including Clair Obscur) and all I´ve been seeing for Playstation first party @Full Priced is mostly (but not only) GaaS and Remasters. Deny all you want, that´s the truth.
Subscription services are absolutely awful. They have essentially destroyed the movie industry and unfortunately gaming may be next.
In the long term you will end up needing 10 different subscriptions and the prices will keep going up while the quality keeps going down.
Subscription services have f***ed the movie industry and it's work force, caused massive studio buyups by companies like Disney consolidating huge parts of the industry under one roof and have creatively sterilised the IP's they've gobbled up. The same thing is happening to gaming, MS being the main greedy piggy.
Well… if you’re talking about the US movie industry, then I couldn’t agreed with you more.
But the movie industry isn’t just the US. For some other countries, it’s been considered good. Like where i am, the movie industry here used to be terrible, now it’s a bit less terrible. Mostly this is because in the past movies only can make money mostly on it’s cinema run, but now after the cinema run they can get some funds from the subscription services. Which helps significantly.
But these movies mostly suck due to the low budgets and general lack of talent lol
I get what he's saying, but I don’t think we need subscription services to see a lot of the problems he's pointing out. All we really have to do is look at the gaming industry over the last two console generations. Even without subscriptions, the big AAA publishers have already been moving in a direction where almost every game feels like it's built from the same template. It’s all about streamlined, safe design choices that are meant to appeal to the widest possible audience. At this point, you could probably ask an AI to make a AAA game from a certain publisher and it would spit out something pretty close to what they’re actually making.
Now, about the whole “walled garden” thing... that’s not some future problem, it’s already here. Consoles have always worked like that. Their entire business model is based on controlling what gets released on their platforms. Sure, maybe they’re not as locked down as the extreme examples people bring up, but the end result is similar. If you’re not making the kind of game the platform holder wants, you’re probably not getting through the door. We’ve seen it with Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, even Valve does this in its own way with Steam. So yeah, the issue isn’t new or exclusive to subscription services.
Would a subscription-only future make that problem worse? Sure, it definitely could. But I don’t think we’re heading in that direction anytime soon. Unless physical hardware truly becomes a thing of the past and everyone switches to streaming games, I just don’t see subscriptions becoming the dominant model. They’ll stick around as an option, but I doubt they’ll take over completely.
Now, what will take over completely is digital media, and that’s a whole different issue that’s going to hit us a lot sooner. PC and mobile are already basically 100% digital, and that makes up around 70% of the gaming market. The remaining 30% is consoles, and even there we’re seeing the shift. Sony’s removing the disc drive from boxed consoles, Nintendo is releasing just one super expensive 64GB cartridge for their new system, which means almost all third-party publishers will end up going digital and Microsoft is mostly digital already. You either get a digital-only or a physical box with disc that only acts as a activation key. So yeah, that future’s already knocking on the door and the damage will be enormous.
Right, because then you can’t sell individual games at $80, which is an incredible value for the consumer!
I find this statement quite telling. Apparently a certain fan base wasn't buying games at $60 or $70 dollars either. That's why the Gamepass model exists with day and date. What was the excuse then?
We as gamers want it all but don't want to pay for anything. Well, I take that back. A good chunk of them. You don't have to buy a game at $80. Wait for to go down in price. Most gamers have a massive backlog. Play those games until the one you wants drops and n price. Simple
I never buy any games at full price, it’s up to the consumer to wait for a price cut.
Generally I don’t buy above $10, normally around $5. So don’t agree with 80 70 60? Just wait a bit
Totally fair if that approach works for you, but the flip side is that some dev studios do rely on full-price sales to stay afloat—especially smaller or AA teams. The ‘just wait for a sale’ mindset can really hurt games that aren’t backed by massive budgets or publishers.
It’s also kind of a bummer to finally see a game release you’ve been hyped for, only to feel like you have to wait another year or two just to get a decent discount.
That said, I think the deeper issue is with bloated dev budgets. It’s wild seeing games like First Berserker or Expedition 33 launching at $50 while still managing to look great and make a profit. Meanwhile, some AAA studios say $70 isn’t enough to break even. That raises real questions about where the money’s going and whether the pricing problem is actually a budgeting problem.
To me, it depends on who made it and who will profit.
I bought No Man's Sky back in 2016. They gave me all updates, PSVR,PS5, and PSVR2 versions all for free.
That makes it worth every dollar I spent. Same with Balatro, Stardew Valley, Dave the Diver etc.
Yeah weird it's like a certain fan base that doesn't buy ANY games and their sales cratered that was why prices has gone up to $80...... hmmm...... they've the same one that has tried to buy up the industry and now has to release games on competing platforms to be viable now...... but you know the studio/company slipped my mind
You have a point on the bloated development budgets.
I mean look at black myth wukong’s $80m budget vs the $150-200m (possibly more) budget of concord.
I really hope this isn't a windows based device even though coming from MS that's highly unlikely. SteamDeck is much much easier to use and offers a much better user experience than any other handheld device because it's all based on steam app. The Xbox handheld should be based on that because a Windows device with a 7-8 inch screen makes it's difficult to navigate
Every inch of this things is going to be a subservice.
So smart of you caveman Phil sphincter. Did you get the memo on what Nintendo is releasing this year?
O shut up Phil...
I dont trust Microsoft to build an OS for this looking at the Windows phone so I think this will be just Windows with a Steam like Big Picture mode locked in the UI to launch games.