BaldB3lper78

@FraserG cheers. Really noticeable improvements.

@FraserG Slighty off topic, but has Xcloud been improved? I play on my 13 inch Xbox IPad Pro (lol) and playing COD BO7 seems to run incredibly well and looks unbelievable.

There is without doubt a shift from many gamers to hand-held systems overall. But £800 is always going to push this into a really niche market.

@GameOverScreen Or Switch 2

In fact, I could see next box being released on this day 2026. I think they are already way ahead with making it. Price is going to be a sticking point though.
Anything over £800 is going to be a tough purchase.

If they are happy to make it a loss leader at say £600, they could, if they market it right, smash it.

What would help Xbox enormously would be to get rid of Spencer and Bond , Bond in particular has been a spectacular disaster.

It will have to be the ‘Next Box’ reveal I think. Now Valve have announced their square box PC/console thingy, Xbox will push the new Maxine out for holiday 2026. I really do believe that. Other than that, maybe an Xbox made handheld to play games natively.

Sadly, all things Xbox will be very niche. Which is a polite way of saying their hardware won’t sell in vast numbers but they will make billions from 3rd party publishing.

25 years and it’s come to this. Total mismanagement.

Only reason that I’ll take a look is because it’s on Game Pass. Other than that. I’m giving this one a miss.

In the UK the X has hardly been in stock. Spoke to EE and they said they were told that they could only have the normal model. Other retailers have said Xbox don’t seem to fussed about the UK or it feels that way at least.

I thought the same. Small but perfectly formed. This will be a very niche product.

@themightyant The next box will be a PC with an Xbox sticker on it. That’s pretty certain. Both products will be niche. Very niche and I doing PlayStation will be too concerned and Nintendo sure as heck won’t be concerned at all.

It won’t change Xbox’s plans for sure. But it will give an idea of what comes next from Xbox.
This will be a very and typically Valve - niche product - that will find a a few hardcore fans and do okay. But it’s not going to be aimed at a mass gaming market , that’s for sure.

For Xbox, their next hardware is clearly going to be a PC with an Xbox sticker on it. I doubt it will come in at much less than £900 and likely will cost over 1k, so that is also going to be a very niche product for Xbox. Then again, we know that Xbox is fully focused on ‘everything being an Xbox’ rather than competing in the mass console space anymore.

I actually think that the majority of Xbox games will become PC games only and backward compatibility will be digital or streamed.

Either way, it will be interesting to see if Xbox press on and look to release their next machine in 2026 now that Valve have stolen a march on them.

I don’t see PlayStation going down this hybrid PC route anytime soon and Nintendo won’t go that way ever tbh - they will stick to their mass fanbase and look at ways to keep their IP exclusive for as long as they possibly can.

Times maybe changing slightly, but in the immediate and med 5 years, neither Valve nor Xbox are going to make many ripples with hardware sales.

Just as Xbox announce they are going full on with this ..:::: this happens. 😉

And this is where face slap emojis are needed. Surely Xbox and Steam could work together , but if this is true, it yet again muddies the waters.

@FraserG Oh it is. I kind of feel the could have waited a little longer though and got a bigger screen involved at the very least. If it dropped to say £600, then I might be in with a shout.

Some great points and I’ve been playing my mates a fair bit when he lets me. Usually when he wants to play Mario Kart World or Bananza, but hey, that’s what friends are for!
I think my overall feeling is, it really is very good that the simpler stuff and that still put me off because for £800 it needs to be better than that. I also feel the screen is way too small and after playing Switch 2 to this, my head starts racing very quickly.
I does bode well overall for Xbox direction , but the cost is going to be crazy.

@Kezelpaso Does anyone know why the Ally X Xbox is so hard to find in the UK? I would have thought that the UK was a decent place for Xbox. I speak to more people who have an Xbox than anything else. Is it a supply issue?

@GuyinPA75 It will be a mid end PC with an Xbox sticker on it

@ILuvGames I would rather keep buying the games that I want now than save for a 1k niche release.

@Fiendish-Beaver i suspect they will want to tie people to GPU tbh.
It’s what I expected - a PC with an Xbox sticker.

The issue for me is going to be price. If they are going to charge a PC price but you don’t have to use it as a PC, they are going to come unstuck again.

You can’t charge £800 plus which is likely for something that you might not use.

Sounds like more muddy messaging from Xbox.

But then again, soon enough they will be saying that Tik Tok is an Xbox , Twitter is an Xbox, Facebook is an Xbox. Everything seems to be an Xbox.

My goodness me. Xbox execs do seem to be routed out with some real rubbish these days. They look dafter and dafter by the day, they really do.

@Weebleman Xbox will make their money from being a 3rd party publisher. They will make a loss on hardware. Again.

@Weebleman which is again another issue with Xbox and messaging. It’s been so confused over the last few years and you get Bond come out and say one thing , Spencer another and then Nadella usually comes along and makes they both look like idiots.

It’s the issue of trust. And Xbox have lost that trust long ago.

Also another huge issue for me with this and it’s simple WINDOWS!

@fatpunkslim All well and good but Xbox have totally lost any trust they had. They could make the most powerful console , PC Hybrid in the world and they still won’t sell well because they’ve lost trust. They flip flop with messages and they will struggle to get back into the console market as major hardware competitor. So what they will bring is something very niche and many will love that. But it isn’t going to be a huge success because there says for Xbox and consoles is gone sadly.

I wonder if Xbox has a comedy department that thinks these things up. If it costs more, everyone will assume it must be better.

Just when you think Xbox can’t shoot itself in the foot anymore , along they come with an Uzi and bam!

Utterly chaotic.

It will be a PC with an Xbox sticker. If the Rog Ally Xbox X is how they are approaching things, then price wise they are going to fail. Again. So sad to see what they are doing TBH.

@Stonecold730 that’s 100% it! Typical of Xbox now sadly

Translation - “we could have done it on our own but couldn’t be bothered and tbh would have made a fight hash of it. “

Well if it defined success on sales it wouldn’t be doing too well.

@Banjo- fair point. The screen size for me though is a poor choice and the price just isn’t right IMHO leaning it a very niche purchase. The other model isn’t worth going with as most games will struggle.

I think for me, I don’t really want to be faffing with game settings to play my games , so this review certainly helps my decision to not buy one. Also the screen is a real issue. For £800 and in 2025, it’s not acceptable to have a 7 inch screen. No excuses for that. 8 inches was achievable and it’s really disappointing how they’ve missed that point.

If it came down in price , maybe i would think again but in a couple of years , Xbox will likely have a PC out and maybe with a handheld as well, so this device will be out of date far too soon for the cost.

I’m certain for proper PC gamers that this will be brilliant and for those with cash to splash, it will be just fine.

Just not enough there to justify the price and the review has confirmed that for me.

That is not me criticising the review either. It’s an honest review and gaming is all about opinions.

@Banjo- To do that they need to decide what they actually are first. Are they Xbox or just Microsoft gaming?

@Banjo- It could work. But they still need to rebuild the brand asap.

@Banjo- I can’t see PC/Hybrid as a future but Xbox is right to go down this path. With hardware, as with the Rog Ally and Ally X, they will focus on a niche hardware market.

Gaming wise, its cloud and being the biggest 3rd party publisher.

Xbox as we know it is already gone sadly.

A lot of leaks are quite purposeful. I've said this many times before. They attract hits and attention and sometimes these big companies will feel that there is no such thing as ‘bad publicity’.

However, where Xbox are concerned, these rumours exist because they have been utterly useful in communication for a long time. Their messages changes, Bond and Spencer don't seem to know what the company above them is really doing and anytime Bond speaks, it sounds like she is making things up just to try and appease those that are genuinely worried.

Xbox has been a great brand but the erosion of trust in the brand has been pretty spectacular. And I see no way back now. They will make their money through publishing and cloud. I wish I could see a time when Xbox would challenge PlayStation and Nintendo for consoles sales, but that is gone. And has been for some time.

It's sad to see but I don't think its time to take things with a ‘pinch of salt.’ but rather time to accept the inevitable.

@Coletrain That’s all they can hope for. Nintendo and PlayStation have the console space now and even PlayStation are heading more to PC at times.
Xbox will still make money because of putting so many games on every system but there is no point them going for another full on console because the trust and demand for it is no longer there.

@Coletrain Their marketing and PR teams are appalling. The messaging this last few years has been mixed, inconsistent and they’ve killed the trust in the brand. And they will never get it back now. Sadly.

@Coletrain it’s in stock. Not selling well. They are a cloud provider and 3rd party publisher now.
A niche PC provider in 2 years time as well.
But of course displays will diminish.

Ever heard the phrase “thou dost protest too much.”
Xbox is a third party publisher and cloud provider.
Soon enough you will see Xbox in stores but only as games for other consoles.
If anyone can’t see that, I’m sorry, but they are incredibly blind to what is obvious.

As an Xbox fan, I’m devastated, but they have lost any trust they ever had. Sarah Bond and Spencer have just become useful idiots and puppets I’m afraid.

It’s going to be a PC. With Xbox written on it. Probably about £800.
But why bother because everything is an Xbox anyway.

@Phil-Spencer-Gate but people who have a PC can already do that. Just having the words ‘Xbox’ written on it isn’t going to make a difference.
If they charge £800 for the Rog Ally X , they are not going to sell a hybrid PC for £800. Not a chance. Why pay over a grand for something with the Xbox name when you can do it yourself for less?
It makes no sense. None. At all.

@Phil-Spencer-Gate which is fine.

@Phil-Spencer-Gate All very well but the customer loyalty to PlayStation is massive. The loyalty to Xbox died a long time ago.
Xbox could sell a console for free, and people would still buy a PlayStation.
You totally underestimate brand loyalty and Xbox has destroyed that.

So basically, Xbox is targeting the PC market. But if they want to do that and actually shift hardware, the ‘everything is an Xbox’ pitch isn’t going to help here.
I’m not even sure the Xbox knows what it is, what it wants to be anymore.

It certainly isn’t going to be a console any longer.

@themightyant Totally agree with your reply.
When I do play anything Xbox nowadays which is cloud, I play via my IPad Pro. And that works just fine for me tbh but the image size and cuts offs are a pain in the butt for sure.
I have always enjoyed the Xbox user interface and it’s why I’ve never really bothered with PlayStation - I’ve had them, even a PS5 , but ended up selling them as they just don’t feel right for me. That is personal preference of course.
I keep wanting to remain in the Xbox world , but I feel Xbox is pushing further away with every passing week sadly.

@FraserG The X doesn’t seem to be available in many places in the UK tbh.
The main thing putting me off the Ally X is the screen size. I’m really surprised they went with a 7 inch screen.
It sounds a minor issue but having now played with the Switch 2 for months , going back to a 7inch screen just isn’t good enough.

A native Xbox handheld would be good, but I’m far from convinced , despite their protestations , that Xbox will go into much more hardware.

You can’t sell the numbers that Series X and S have and make profit on hardware.

I feel the issue is that because Microsoft make so much money , they have a lack of care to Xbox nowadays.

I hope the Ally and Ally X sell well but the selling out issue only means something if they are actually making significant numbers of the hardware.

I was interested in the X but seeing as though it seems Xbox aren’t really bothered about selling it in the UK and it’s woefully overpriced at £800, I’ve lost that interest.

A 7’’ screen is not cutting it. Should be 8 at least.

Am sure for some it will be fine but it’s yet another niche product.

And with Game Pass now rocketing , the interest in owning anything Xbox wise is diminishing by the day sadly.

@Dodoo They said a lot of things to get the takeover completed. Much of it was just well worded fabrications.

I see COD still isn’t on Nintendo either. And I doubt it will be. Xbox just don’t get it do they?