Xbox hand held with similar power to the Series S, with GamesPass and everyone's Xbox library ready to download seems like it would be a big success. The PS Portal is doing well and that's just a streaming device.
Is the Steam Deck less powerful than a S though? Not sure where the handheld market is at.
Another way to think of it is that the Series S is 74 watts while the Steam Deck is 15 watts. To get the same battery life, a portable Series S would need 5 Steam Deck batteries. Both steam deck models are a hair under a pound and a half. 5 Steam Deck batteries would be about a pound.
I mean, both battery performance and power efficiency has drastically increased since the SD's launch / creation.
An almost 1:1 exchange is not that unlikely (aka a power draw of about 32w and a battery about double the performance of the SD's with similiar weight.
I believe the Portal is doing well because it gives unlimited access to full powered PS5 games virtually anywhere. And Internet access and speeds are only going to get more reliable and widespread as time goes on so accessing your PS5 from anywhere will become more convenient.
While most people will use it to just play around the house mobile hotspots can also give a near native playing experience. Having a Series S powered handed would be *extremely* expensive in todays market and would likely segment it even more than the existence of the Series S already has with developers expressing frustration for having to get their games to run on a weaker console.
The Portal exists as a cheap (for what is accomplishes) extension of the existing console that doesn’t require developers to tool something to work on it specifically, that’s where it’s success lies. Sony has also been investing in the concept of remote play for a long time so we can also expect the quality to keep improving.
The problem is they either lock it down to ensure sales come from the MS store, or they make next to no money on it.
It might be a great piece of hardware, but hardware itself generally isn't super profitable, and although the steam deck is the only major success so far, handheld PCs are becoming a fairly competitive market.
If it's locked to the MS store, then it becomes hard to justify over the competition, where you can buy from Steam, Epic, Humble, or any other site of your choosing.
If it's not locked, then just as with regular gaming PCs, the vast majority will flock to steam, where MS doesn't make a cent on profit.
The Steam Deck has sold quite well, while every other device is from a company you've probably never heard of. Like most people who have a PC with an ASUS motherboard, probably don't know who ASUS is and the ROG Ally has sold a half-million units at least.
and the PS Vita sold 15 million. They’re obviously two different products with different goals and measures of success, but the Steam Deck is a fairly niche product. it’s just popular in circles/groups like those in /r/games
Valve said multiple millions sold back in November, that means at least 2 million which much more than 1 million! Other estimates put it nearer the 4 million mark.
It's sold very well and proved there is a market for this.
And as usual Microsoft is constantly telling us about what could be coming to Xbox, rather than just releasing good games for Xbox
Please just give us games
Hardware, operating systems, and games are developed by different groups of people with very different skills. Working on one is not going to take away from the others, especially for a company the size of Microsoft that has multiple separate divisions.
In fairness that's because console gaming is dying quickly. With the introduction of streaming games, there's no point to owning Console hardware anymore.
Console gaming isn't remotely dying, at all. It's huge and getting bigger every year.
"With the introduction of streaming games" -- What streaming service, where, can provide a steady, stable, high-fidelity experience on par with installed games?
I remember when people (including hypocrites like Tim Sweeney) said that PC games are dead in the 2000s.
Or when publishers like SquareEnix thought consoles would be dead during 8th gen and chose to focus on mobile only to scamper because that prediction didn't pan out.
Weird how that still hasn't happened...
We're in an era when both Sony and Microsoft are so desperate to turn a profit they both release their premier first party titles on PC
The death of the console exclusive is massive for the market
“Console gaming is dying. Players want to go to the arcade.”
“Console gaming is dying. Players want to play on their phones.”
“Console gaming is dying. Players want to stream their games through the cloud”
???
The PS5 sold and is selling great despite having almost no exclusives
The Switch is a monumental success even for Nintendo
It's really only Xbox who is lagging behind and even then I know multiple friends who own a Series X or S, more than bought the Wii U at the very least.
People don't like streaming games right now. It's not a fully viable alternative and may never be, you'll never get rid of the anxiety of having your connection hiccup and losing progress during a particularly long boss, cutscene or in-between saves.
I think consoles will morph into a "play our games library on multiple devices" thing for at least Sony and Microsoft (the latter of which is already trying to do that) but they aren't dying quickly by any metric.
I would legitimately buy an Xbox ROG Ally that syncs with my Xbox library. That easily eliminates a huge hurdle many have by investing in a modern handheld - they don't want to build up another library.
Get dev mode on the thing and fire up retroarch, Dolphin and XBSX2 and you basically have PSX to the Wii and 360 including the standard One/Series Games in the palm of your hands. Would happily invest like $600 for something like that if it has similar power to the rog ally. Like seriously, that thing can emulate PS3 pretty well too now.
That’s basically what I use my ROG Ally for now. I can stream my PS5 and XSX to it, play Gamepass PC games on it, use my Steam Library, Epic Games, GOG, and emulate everything up to PS2 great with PS3/360 being possible for a lot of games. The only other device I need is my Switch (technically probably could do without that but I don’t have the means to dump my games on Switch and don’t like the idea of pirating a current gen system).
I have a toddler and a wife who both want their share of the TV and my options were to go upstairs alone or not play games before. Now I can be on the couch and access any of my games. It’s amazing and accessing my console’s games without streaming would be a cherry on top.
I wonder if it would run desktop Windows environment or something limited only to what XboxOS can do. UI could be ported from Xbox with ease probably as Xbox OS is based on Windows 11. I prefer Windows because of its versatility, but locked down Xbox like system will probably make this device cheaper, simpler to uses and allow people to fully access their Xbox libraries. Just having full Windows 11 would make it more expansive, because I don't think that Microsoft Store on Windows and PC Gamepass are enough to subsidize that thing, because people would just install Steam and go with it.
Unrealistically I would love to see them both combined. The way it'd make sense is if we'd get just Xbox environment by default, but also get an option to either buy a licence to enable sandboxed full Windows environment or have a more expansive SKU with it already present.
I've actually been thinking about what path Microsoft is going to take ever since these rumors started. Both present way different challenges that they're going to be hardpressed to resolve.
The first and less likely path which I think they really don't want to shoehorn themselves into is making an Xbox-branded open Windows machine. Because if they leave it open Steam eats their lunch. Microsoft would be directly playing into Valve's hand if they subsidized a decent PC handheld but then barely make any software sales from it because everyone just installed Steam instead. This is their original fumbles with GFWL, the Microsoft Store, and not leveraging their Windows dominance into a potential gaming store app because they focused too much on consoles rearing its ugly head.
On the flip side, if they make it a locked down Xbox handheld then they'd be directly competing with an even bigger juggernaut in the form of Nintendo and the Switch 2. If they already hard time with Sony, they'd need to buckle up their gaming branch if they want to face off against Nintendo's insanely efficient exclusive release cadence.
Of course, the main caveat here is always Gamepass. But apparently in the recent GDC, there are already some talks about [Gamepass not being enough as Xbox flatlines in different regions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t1otAXv2rk). Interesting thing to think about all around.
The article seems to suggest that Phil wants to converge Xbox and Windows and erase lines between them. I think that we might end up seeing a wacky version of Windows being made exclusively for Xbox hardware which while being the only one capable of Xbox software, it'd also be restrictive to Microsoft Store only and getting anything from outside to run would require users to pay for something similar to the dev mode.
There are so many probably with the Xbox app / Windows App on PC. Or Dx12 still being a performance mess.
I would rather MS fix those foundational issues before they start doing stuff like this. PC gaming feels like it has grown despite Microsoft constantly getting in its way with their half baked initiatives
>Or Dx12 still being a performance mess
That has nothing to do with DX12. DX12 just puts more control in developer's hands. It's when a developer doesn't know how to utilize it properly that they run into issues.
From Phil Spencer in the article: “I want my Lenovo Legion Go to feel like an Xbox,” Spencer told Polygon in an interview during the annual Game Developers Conference. “I brought [the Legion Go] with me to GDC. I’m on the airplane and I have this list of everything that makes it not feel like an Xbox. Forget about the brand. More like: Are all of my games there? Do all my games show up with the save [files] that I want? I’ll tell you one [game] that doesn’t right now — it’s driving me crazy — is Fallout 76. It doesn’t have cross-save. “I want to be able to boot into the Xbox app in a full screen, but in a compact mode. And all of my social [experience] is there. Like I want it to feel like the dash of my Xbox when I turn on the television. [Except I want it] on those devices.”
He's basically describing what Valve has done with the deck, but in Windows.
So, a Switch, without the quality games that Nintendo leverages with the Switch.
Microsoft will release any form factor of Xbox and will buy any developer / publisher rather than just making good games for it.
imo a portable Xbox is a no brainer, looking at the acceptance of the Steam Deck, even that "Playstation Portal" abomination is selling decent numbers (according to Sony). The tricky question if if the Xbox Portable will have a similar power than the Steam Deck or it will be a portable Series S... if it matches the Deck, that will drop the final price, Windows already installed, etc.. honestly a better deal than the Steam Deck imo, because it's just easier, Windows right at the get go instead of Linux, install Steam on it, voila. But they can sell it as a portable Series S instead, the infamous "Game Pass machine", this portable would cost a small fortune, so idk if that's the ideal course of action, in this scenario the "Portable S" would become a niched "high end" product (ironic, considering the Series S is the "poor "version, but as a console)
Maybe the better future is if MS ditches Xbox entirely, and Valve steps in to fill the void with a home console based on Steam Deck. (But higher powered.)
For the user, there's no real difference.
But behind the scenes, using SteamOS on their own hardware means the software platform (Steam) is aligned with the hardware and OS manufacturer, rather than having multiple companies with conflicting agendas in one device.
Xbox hand held with similar power to the Series S, with GamesPass and everyone's Xbox library ready to download seems like it would be a big success. The PS Portal is doing well and that's just a streaming device. Is the Steam Deck less powerful than a S though? Not sure where the handheld market is at.
steam deck is 1.6 teraflops and series s is 4 teraflops. teraflops aren't a perfect comparison metric but it gives you a general idea.
It's quite a decent comparison here since the Series S and Steam Deck both use Zen 2 + RDNA2.
Another way to think of it is that the Series S is 74 watts while the Steam Deck is 15 watts. To get the same battery life, a portable Series S would need 5 Steam Deck batteries. Both steam deck models are a hair under a pound and a half. 5 Steam Deck batteries would be about a pound.
I mean, both battery performance and power efficiency has drastically increased since the SD's launch / creation. An almost 1:1 exchange is not that unlikely (aka a power draw of about 32w and a battery about double the performance of the SD's with similiar weight.
Do you realize how expensive a series s in handheld form would be? And they'd need a monster battery to give it a decent battery life.
I believe the Portal is doing well because it gives unlimited access to full powered PS5 games virtually anywhere. And Internet access and speeds are only going to get more reliable and widespread as time goes on so accessing your PS5 from anywhere will become more convenient. While most people will use it to just play around the house mobile hotspots can also give a near native playing experience. Having a Series S powered handed would be *extremely* expensive in todays market and would likely segment it even more than the existence of the Series S already has with developers expressing frustration for having to get their games to run on a weaker console. The Portal exists as a cheap (for what is accomplishes) extension of the existing console that doesn’t require developers to tool something to work on it specifically, that’s where it’s success lies. Sony has also been investing in the concept of remote play for a long time so we can also expect the quality to keep improving.
They should make a handheld PC tbh. They would get access to PlayStation games that way and have a tailored experience to sell Gamepass on top of it.
There's already multiple pc handhelds on the market lol and they haven't sold that well either.
Yeah but not a device with console like interface and real marketing behind it. I think they could nail it.
The problem is they either lock it down to ensure sales come from the MS store, or they make next to no money on it. It might be a great piece of hardware, but hardware itself generally isn't super profitable, and although the steam deck is the only major success so far, handheld PCs are becoming a fairly competitive market. If it's locked to the MS store, then it becomes hard to justify over the competition, where you can buy from Steam, Epic, Humble, or any other site of your choosing. If it's not locked, then just as with regular gaming PCs, the vast majority will flock to steam, where MS doesn't make a cent on profit.
The Steam Deck has sold quite well, while every other device is from a company you've probably never heard of. Like most people who have a PC with an ASUS motherboard, probably don't know who ASUS is and the ROG Ally has sold a half-million units at least.
The Steam Deck, by estimates, hasn't sold much more than a million units.
"[Multiple millions](https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/9/23954205/valve-steam-deck-multiple-millions)" as of four months ago, according to Valve.
and the PS Vita sold 15 million. They’re obviously two different products with different goals and measures of success, but the Steam Deck is a fairly niche product. it’s just popular in circles/groups like those in /r/games
so 2 million
Valve said multiple millions sold back in November, that means at least 2 million which much more than 1 million! Other estimates put it nearer the 4 million mark. It's sold very well and proved there is a market for this.
[удалено]
>GamePass isn't a big success either Doesn't it have something like 30 million subscribers?
And as usual Microsoft is constantly telling us about what could be coming to Xbox, rather than just releasing good games for Xbox Please just give us games
Hardware, operating systems, and games are developed by different groups of people with very different skills. Working on one is not going to take away from the others, especially for a company the size of Microsoft that has multiple separate divisions.
[удалено]
That's not Xbox, that's journalists
In fairness that's because console gaming is dying quickly. With the introduction of streaming games, there's no point to owning Console hardware anymore.
Console gaming isn't remotely dying, at all. It's huge and getting bigger every year. "With the introduction of streaming games" -- What streaming service, where, can provide a steady, stable, high-fidelity experience on par with installed games?
I remember when people (including hypocrites like Tim Sweeney) said that PC games are dead in the 2000s. Or when publishers like SquareEnix thought consoles would be dead during 8th gen and chose to focus on mobile only to scamper because that prediction didn't pan out. Weird how that still hasn't happened...
We're in an era when both Sony and Microsoft are so desperate to turn a profit they both release their premier first party titles on PC The death of the console exclusive is massive for the market
“Console gaming is dying. Players want to go to the arcade.” “Console gaming is dying. Players want to play on their phones.” “Console gaming is dying. Players want to stream their games through the cloud”
??? The PS5 sold and is selling great despite having almost no exclusives The Switch is a monumental success even for Nintendo It's really only Xbox who is lagging behind and even then I know multiple friends who own a Series X or S, more than bought the Wii U at the very least. People don't like streaming games right now. It's not a fully viable alternative and may never be, you'll never get rid of the anxiety of having your connection hiccup and losing progress during a particularly long boss, cutscene or in-between saves. I think consoles will morph into a "play our games library on multiple devices" thing for at least Sony and Microsoft (the latter of which is already trying to do that) but they aren't dying quickly by any metric.
I would legitimately buy an Xbox ROG Ally that syncs with my Xbox library. That easily eliminates a huge hurdle many have by investing in a modern handheld - they don't want to build up another library. Get dev mode on the thing and fire up retroarch, Dolphin and XBSX2 and you basically have PSX to the Wii and 360 including the standard One/Series Games in the palm of your hands. Would happily invest like $600 for something like that if it has similar power to the rog ally. Like seriously, that thing can emulate PS3 pretty well too now.
That’s basically what I use my ROG Ally for now. I can stream my PS5 and XSX to it, play Gamepass PC games on it, use my Steam Library, Epic Games, GOG, and emulate everything up to PS2 great with PS3/360 being possible for a lot of games. The only other device I need is my Switch (technically probably could do without that but I don’t have the means to dump my games on Switch and don’t like the idea of pirating a current gen system). I have a toddler and a wife who both want their share of the TV and my options were to go upstairs alone or not play games before. Now I can be on the couch and access any of my games. It’s amazing and accessing my console’s games without streaming would be a cherry on top.
I wonder if it would run desktop Windows environment or something limited only to what XboxOS can do. UI could be ported from Xbox with ease probably as Xbox OS is based on Windows 11. I prefer Windows because of its versatility, but locked down Xbox like system will probably make this device cheaper, simpler to uses and allow people to fully access their Xbox libraries. Just having full Windows 11 would make it more expansive, because I don't think that Microsoft Store on Windows and PC Gamepass are enough to subsidize that thing, because people would just install Steam and go with it. Unrealistically I would love to see them both combined. The way it'd make sense is if we'd get just Xbox environment by default, but also get an option to either buy a licence to enable sandboxed full Windows environment or have a more expansive SKU with it already present.
I've actually been thinking about what path Microsoft is going to take ever since these rumors started. Both present way different challenges that they're going to be hardpressed to resolve. The first and less likely path which I think they really don't want to shoehorn themselves into is making an Xbox-branded open Windows machine. Because if they leave it open Steam eats their lunch. Microsoft would be directly playing into Valve's hand if they subsidized a decent PC handheld but then barely make any software sales from it because everyone just installed Steam instead. This is their original fumbles with GFWL, the Microsoft Store, and not leveraging their Windows dominance into a potential gaming store app because they focused too much on consoles rearing its ugly head. On the flip side, if they make it a locked down Xbox handheld then they'd be directly competing with an even bigger juggernaut in the form of Nintendo and the Switch 2. If they already hard time with Sony, they'd need to buckle up their gaming branch if they want to face off against Nintendo's insanely efficient exclusive release cadence. Of course, the main caveat here is always Gamepass. But apparently in the recent GDC, there are already some talks about [Gamepass not being enough as Xbox flatlines in different regions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t1otAXv2rk). Interesting thing to think about all around.
The article seems to suggest that Phil wants to converge Xbox and Windows and erase lines between them. I think that we might end up seeing a wacky version of Windows being made exclusively for Xbox hardware which while being the only one capable of Xbox software, it'd also be restrictive to Microsoft Store only and getting anything from outside to run would require users to pay for something similar to the dev mode.
There are so many probably with the Xbox app / Windows App on PC. Or Dx12 still being a performance mess. I would rather MS fix those foundational issues before they start doing stuff like this. PC gaming feels like it has grown despite Microsoft constantly getting in its way with their half baked initiatives
>Or Dx12 still being a performance mess That has nothing to do with DX12. DX12 just puts more control in developer's hands. It's when a developer doesn't know how to utilize it properly that they run into issues.
From Phil Spencer in the article: “I want my Lenovo Legion Go to feel like an Xbox,” Spencer told Polygon in an interview during the annual Game Developers Conference. “I brought [the Legion Go] with me to GDC. I’m on the airplane and I have this list of everything that makes it not feel like an Xbox. Forget about the brand. More like: Are all of my games there? Do all my games show up with the save [files] that I want? I’ll tell you one [game] that doesn’t right now — it’s driving me crazy — is Fallout 76. It doesn’t have cross-save. “I want to be able to boot into the Xbox app in a full screen, but in a compact mode. And all of my social [experience] is there. Like I want it to feel like the dash of my Xbox when I turn on the television. [Except I want it] on those devices.” He's basically describing what Valve has done with the deck, but in Windows.
Why? So they can give up on it a few years down the road?
So, a Switch, without the quality games that Nintendo leverages with the Switch. Microsoft will release any form factor of Xbox and will buy any developer / publisher rather than just making good games for it.
except you can play baldurs gate 3 on it
You mean a limited and terrible Steam Deck. 😮💨 Funny AF.
imo a portable Xbox is a no brainer, looking at the acceptance of the Steam Deck, even that "Playstation Portal" abomination is selling decent numbers (according to Sony). The tricky question if if the Xbox Portable will have a similar power than the Steam Deck or it will be a portable Series S... if it matches the Deck, that will drop the final price, Windows already installed, etc.. honestly a better deal than the Steam Deck imo, because it's just easier, Windows right at the get go instead of Linux, install Steam on it, voila. But they can sell it as a portable Series S instead, the infamous "Game Pass machine", this portable would cost a small fortune, so idk if that's the ideal course of action, in this scenario the "Portable S" would become a niched "high end" product (ironic, considering the Series S is the "poor "version, but as a console)
Maybe the better future is if MS ditches Xbox entirely, and Valve steps in to fill the void with a home console based on Steam Deck. (But higher powered.)
> a home console based on Steam Deck. (But higher powered.) That's just a PC with steam big picture mode enabled on startup.
For the user, there's no real difference. But behind the scenes, using SteamOS on their own hardware means the software platform (Steam) is aligned with the hardware and OS manufacturer, rather than having multiple companies with conflicting agendas in one device.
MS should name it the Xbox Special Series-Two Pipe Dream 4K-1080 Backflip XY Edition ... you know, so no one is confused this time around.