It’s allllll coming together!
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If they can pull this off, it will basically be my idea of gaming utopia. A variety of devices that can play my 900+ Xbox games and my 1200 steam games and 200+ GoG games all in one place.
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Yeah, I saw a post from Tom on Mastadon that the Xbox Ally handhelds was the first look at the future of Xbox.
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I mean, to be fair, he does explicitly state that they will still have new console hardware. Just that the handheld stuff is more likely to be stuff like this, rather than a inhouse one.
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Hasn’t stopped this article from triggering a lot of fanfic about Xbox not making any more hardware, on certain forums. 
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When you think about it, PC is evolving while console is transforming.
I love that things are collapsing towards PC.
MS should have done this years ago, but better late than never.
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They probably wasn’t too certain or needed more data to aim for that approach. Today is definitely the time to do it. Look at Stellar Blade PC launch. While it’s a good chance that it’s coming from Korea, that’s the thing. They probably are more of PC gamers. Even MH Wilds. Capcom said PC was the star. Now this is Xbox chance to capitalize it to the fullest.
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Only problem I see is Nintendo and most likely Sony have/will have handhelds sold in store. Asus ROG and MSI Claw and Lenovo Legion aren’t as common in big store chains worldwide unlike the more casual consoles so leaving OEMs making the handheld for them is not a bad idea, but MS needs to make sure that distribution and visibility is there for it to be successful.
If yo ugo to Wal-Mart and You see Switch 2 and PS6 Portable but not Xbox ROG Allly X because it’s only available online or in certain computer stores, you’ll have a hard time reaching mass adoption.
But yeah, mixing Xbox and Windows into 1 coherent device and having the best of both worlds is definitely the way to go. I’d rather play everything at home on my powerful PC and have a handheld on the side for on the go gaming and having access to all of my games than needing to buy several consoles.
If MS can push the Xbox store as the central point and manage to sell people on the idea, it definitely could be huge for them.
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I definitely agree that these handhelds need to be in more mainstream stores, but the pricing is likely to be the worst of all the handhelds. As Asus can’t afford to take a hit and Microsoft won’t anymore to move the products. So, the comparisons will be plenty even if 3rd party Xbox handhelds are better all around.
They also need to get ahead of the current talk about this current iteration being anle to play all Xbox games, as that could hurt it on launch. I think the use of Play Anywhere is a good start, by making it clear this is a an Xbox for Play Anywhere titles.
A handheld with this kind of hardware is not gonna be cheap that’s for sure, so even if Sony were to release a handheld that supports PS5 games, they could subsidize it I guess but by how much? Let’s say it’d be 100-150$ to get a dedicated PS handheld vs a ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X, but the Xbox plays both Xbox and PS games as well as all PC games. When looking at it this way the small price difference to pay gives you a lot more game accessibility in my opinion and makes the price difference a no brainer, especially since no more online fee and free games galore with Epic Games Store!
We will see how consumers react I guess, it is somewhat of a risky move but could pay huge dividends over time. Also PC being very popular in Asia and Europe might help push more devices in those regions where Xbox lost their foothold during the Xbox One gen.
It’s early days. But I love that Microsoft is trying to do something different. There’ll always be console fans and there’ll always be PC fans. But for the first time we can have the best of both worlds in one device, and a handheld option on top of that.
The PS fanboys still won’t buy an Xbox. They never will. But Microsoft is going after ever other gamer on the planet. And between console, PC, cloud and mobile… I reckon they’ll do just fine. With an almost irresistible Game Pass in the centre of it all, they still get their revenue, despite Steam and Epic being available on the same device.
Yes, prices for hardware will likely be high. But what you’re getting in return is pretty damn sweet.
That said, I think the lower spec Xbox Ally could actually come in at $499, because that chip is pretty low end. (But they might make it $599, so they can put it on sale for $499 down the road? We’ll see.)
I just wish they could come out and tell us that if you buy those devices, that full Xbox BC will come out later on for them through software emulation to reassure buyers as I’m sure I’m not the only one that wants that if I’m going to spend that much money.
If they could show us a prototype of Xbox BC running on the Ally X for example with a delivery timeline of 1-2 years maybe, I’d be more inclined to spend the money right now and make do with some cloud streaming in the meantime for games that aren’t yet available.
For now though it’s still just a portable PC with better integration that could become replaced by something much better within 2 years time that is much more feature complete.
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Even a gesture of announcing waves of older titles added to Play Anywhere would probably go a long way. Essentially repeat how they rolled out BC years ago.
So, reading that the NPU in the Z2 Extreme is disabled, would it be possible for Microsoft to have them reenabled for their handheld?
They may not know yet exactly what they will be able to accomplish. It’s not a simple problem from both technology and licensing perspectives. I feel you though, that’s one of the biggest obstacles to me being willing to commit to a device like this.
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Really? I thought they’d use it for upscaling like in Surface. Kinda sucks if that’s the case.
It’s just some talk I have seen, not specifically Microsoft disabling them, just that’s how AMD was or is planning on using the chips in handhelds compared to laptops. The thing is I saw a video from ETA PRIME(never seen this channel before but it came up with because of the Xbox Ally vids) on youtube talking about the Xbox Ally X and he had an info graphic that listed 50 Tops for the NPU.
But if they’re disabled it would be bad for Microsoft to be giving out that sort of info and not correcting it quickly.