Better start saving money from here on out, unless you intent to quit console gaming and go with PC gaming. Well, probably a good idea to start saving money too then.
I see people all over the internet saying they might as well just go for PC now, but I don’t think they realize PC is a whole different animal than console gaming is. Of course it has tons of benefits and if you like tinkering with settings it’s Valhalla for you. Personally I really don’t want to do that and just want the super easy and standard ease of use of console gaming. PC really doesn’t always have that.
I certainly hope not, and I don’t see it happening. I think they will be exploring ways to build between 600 and maybe 1500 at the most.
In my opinion Xbox next console will be very different, I don’t think it will be a PC but more something that unifies all that Microsoft is with gaming. I keep thinking they are looking for something globally accepted like phones as the inspiration for their next hardware.
I feel exactly the same way. Which is why I’m a little wary of seeing exactly where the “Xbox and PC ecosystems are merging” thing is going. As long as it’s an option to just kind of ignore the PC side and play my Xbox game, that’s fine.
If that’s all your looking for, I’m curious if the Xbox Full screen experience being default or at least an easy toggle on gaming PCs would be enough for you, or if what you’ve seen of the full screen experience leaves something to be desired?
For me, I think it’s great for PC gaming overall, but a windows PC is just physically incapable of getting rid of all of the legacy support, and it will always be a bit “more”. I love gaming on my Lenovo Legion Go, but I enjoy gaming on my Xbox even more. All the games I play on the Go are even well optimized and I don’t need to do anything other than turn them on and play. I don’t mess with windows at all and everything’s great, but it’s still not just gaming or focused on gaming. So it doesn’t feel as much of a “gaming space”.
A lot of things have become so damn boring, I have no interest in handheld PC’s, PC, mobile, cloud, apps etc. and those things take up 90% of what is talked about in the community/podcasts etc. nowadays. I don’t feel like I belong much anymore.
The ROG Xbox Ally doesn’t feel like a PC though. If you only use it booting straight to the Xbox App, it will pretty much act like a console, similar to the Steam Deck.
I also think having it all ‘‘PC Based’’ is probably a smart move in the current political climate, as if it ships with Windows 11 and is sold as a PC, it means it can get tariffs exemptions which would help keep it at a lower price than a console counterpart.
If anything, acting like an console is a compliment, considering Ally/X is designed for general audience, especially the former. PC has that workaround feel that tend to push them away, until the like of Steam or even Xbox PC made it streamline with its setup and navigation.
Yup, that’s why I’m waiting for the Xbox/AMD developed processors that will support BC before I jump on any of these new initiatives. Will probably wait for my desktop PC as well until that stuff comes out.
When next gen comes around a year or two from now how much will those devices cost? no way they will be 500$ or 600$, at best they will be 700$, I assume Microsoft will be forced to have another weaker version at a lower price, probably 600$ for the low end version… Man this sucks, hoping that my Series X stays healthy lol.
But if you guys want a cheaper one just go the Facebook marketplace, there’s always someone selling their console at a great price, I was able to find a Series S for 180$ on Facebook a few months ago and I have seen plenty of PS5s and Series X for 400$ and less.
Portable gaming doesn’t interest me at all. I just want to plug it into my TV, sit on the couch and have a typical console experience. If I can do that, and it maintains at least the current level of backwards compatibility with my past Xbox console library, then I’m good to go despite whatever else is going on under the hood.
I do like how Xbox is making games available on different screens and devices. I do cloud stream Series X games to my old Xbox One and stream to the phone once in a while. The idea of paying hundreds of dollars for a portable gaming PC is not for me though.
I imagine desktop and laptops will be getting the windows gaming improvements before long. But yeah, you can plug any handheld into a TV like you would a laptop with a dock or any thing that can get you USB-C to HDMI.
Backwards compatibility is the big one ain’t it? If it’s a true windows PC, it’ll have to be some type of massive emulation undertaking. I don’t know how likely that is. Otherwise I wouldn’t expect every publisher to support XPA retroactively.
Yeah this is going to be huge for me. I’m completely spoiled with how good the library/BC experience is on Series X. I can’t take a step back from that.
I think many just want the full Xbox console experience on whatever device they’re supporting. The Xbox PC app is okay but is far from the consoles. I’m hoping this Asus Xbox partnership fixes a lot of this. It would be nice to unify the PC and console so that moving on your games are playable on any Xbox owned and affiliated devices.
That reminds me, I meant to respond to this: I feel like Xbox just keeps kinda missing the basket with this one. Like this was clearly the goal with Xbox One, and they somehow hit the backboard at the perfect angle to bounce it off and land a 3 pointer for Playstation with a swoosh. This generation the Series S really felt like that for me; I mean its a small, lightweight, $300 home console that can play all modern games, a lot of older gen games, access any video streaming services, and has game pass. But they just missed. You’d have thought COVID-19 would’ve been the perfect time for it too, and the Series X and PS5 were constantly out of stock. But they just couldn’t reach general audiences and a lot of gamers were just entrenched on their platform from last gen. Not to mention all the bias Xbox has gained. And they also pulled back HARD on entertainment features, which I think really could’ve sold the series S to casuals and non gamers. Project Keystone could’ve been it too. An Apple TV sized box that brought that Xbox ecosystem to any device with streaming and (maybe) letting gamers play some Xbox One and older games natively, now would’ve been amazing… but they couldn’t figure out pricing. Now we’re here and both PS and Xbox have given up on hosting non-gaming stuff like movies & TV. And they’ve firmly stopped subsidizing consoles and prices are worse than ever due to the economy.
It really is interesting to think about: the last console that’d have any significant success was Xbox in 2001; the iPhone didn’t release until 2007 (that’s not even 20 years ago). And which one sells 30 million in its first weekend? 70 million in a single quarter? It’s crazy. Video game consoles don’t even cost that much. And back in 2007 you didn’t really need a phone for anything other than calling and texting. But Apple managed to create a product that many people now can’t imagine their lives without. Video game consoles have failed to convince most people to buy them even for entertainment purposed. Most people would rather play games on their phone in fact.
I think Microsoft is looking what they do best and make Xbox mainstream by making it an expansive ecosystem that can be accessed through any device. And mobile is probably going to be their biggest holdout their with how much control Google and Apple exert. But it still all needs to be centered with definitive Xbox hardware. Hopefully the vision all nicely comes to fruition.
Since we are hearing that PCs are except from the current tariffs, I wonder if Microsoft will have the next Xbox classified as a PC to bring the cost down a bit?
But then again, Microsoft no longer wants to lose money on hardware so it’s more than likely it will be as expensive I think it will be.
What DOES the Trump administration classify game consoles as? Or like is their a list to the categories for tarrifs? Because to me PC (personal computer) sounds like it’d be fine as an umbrella term for desktop computers, laptop computers, smartphones, and gaming consoles.
If I can do that, and it maintains at least the current level of backwards compatibility with my past Xbox console library, then I’m good to go despite whatever else is going on under the hood.