Weebleman

Baked a cake
Had a breakdown
Bon appetit

While you did state it was a handheld pc in the headline, you followed it with 'xbox's new handheld...', which is part of the problem. Its ASUS's new handheld.

@Matthewnh Just under £800 actually, which is still painful when you say it out loud. Still 200-250 less than a grand though.

Console 699
Drive 99.00
Or 758 for both from Very.

For reference.

Edit: Mirrors Edge was so good wasnt it.

@BaldB3lper78 They will make a fair bit from publishing 3rd party, absolutely. But when you think about all those 3rd party sales they usually get 30% off they certainly mount up. Some of the biggest selling games are 3rd party and if they are available cheaper in another storefront upfront, then they get nothing. Once you factor in dlc' and microtransactions it becomes a pretty eye watering amount of money to miss out on i imagine.

On the flip side though, they lost the casual market. Folks built a digital library on PS4 as Spencer said himself, that was the worst generation to lose out on. The mass market (casuals) will simply see they can keep that on the next playstation and go there regardless. Its going to take something momentus to get people to walk away from their digital game collections.

Appealing to the minority hardcore at a premium price is pretty much the only play MS can use at the minute as things like Gamepass havent hit the levels they hoped for.

Heck, buying call of duty didnt shift the needle to their side in terms of console sales and subs, as I imagine they thought it would. You may as well focus on the enthusiasts and faithful.

@fatpunkslim The big thing about the nextbox will be price. Everything you listed is a big selling point to you, me and others on here. None of it will matter to the crowd who purchase the majority of these things. It will come down to cost, and if it only sells to the minority, then its a further issue down the road.

Pushsquare mentioned in their take on it that while removing the walled garden can be positive, it also removes the ability to subsidise costs as you are no longer able to guarantee pulling it back from 3rd party sales.

Its a big gamble from MS but one that makes complete sense for them in the grand scheme of things. Interesting times ahead eh.

'We're seeing lots of frustration swirling around that the new handheld is just a PC with an Xbox logo'

You mean like most people repeatedly said on the articles about 'xbox's new handheld...'.

Honestly, the misleading marketing around the ROG was unbelievable. It is a very, very capable handheld and is brilliant, if you know what it is you are buying.

@GeeEssEff I'd just leave them to it buddy. The amount of articles saying 'xbox's new handheld...' and the company shouting this is an xbox have caused this issue. As Linus Tech Tips put it, just call it the ROG Ally 2 because its not an xbox in any way. As now spelt out by xbox itself.

The person you are speaking with blocked me because I criticised xbox and honestly, im the one better for it.

I like these direct answers, especially when it comes to next gen. They should definitely do it more often.

@Titntin I saw Tamoor Hussain say it comes with MS Office installed and nearly face palmed through the back of my own skull.

@Kaloudz I am interested to see what the sales numbers are. I know the headlines all say its selling out, but until we know how many were available in the first place, its meaningless.

For example, this is an xbox gaming site where many are deep in the ecosystem. At the time of writing this, only around 22 people have said they already own one or have it ordered out of 251.

Thats probably in line with expectations for an expensive, niche device.

Ive read a good few reviews and ultimately its agreed its a great bit of hardware (though not worth the upgrade if you already own the ally x) but its just a massive faff (multiple reports of 3 to 5 hours worth of updates before even starting a game) and nowhere near worth the price tag.

The main thing that they all agree on is it is not an xbox in any way, shape or form.

If this was a straight up xbox handheld I'd have snapped their hand off day one. Reading that there are windows updates, armoury crate updates, game updates and so on is just a big no for me.

The xboxera review put it best. Theres only so much lipstick you can put on a pig, and no matter how much they tell you otherwise, the full screen experience is just a wrapper for windows and all the pains that come with it.

Its not xboxs new handheld. Bit misleading that in the headline. Its ASUS's new handheld with a new version of the xbox app.

Its xbox! These type of rumours should be laughed out of the door. The fact they have to actually come out and say they are innacurate is more worrying than the rumour itself.

@TheBigK you got nothing on sexy Julian Big k.

As a parent of 3 kids who understands this maybe wasnt the minecraft movie some folks wanted, I have sat through far worse films than this one.

Far, far worse (shudders)

I hope folks who pick one up love it. For me, I think its gonna sell less than a steamdeck and cause uproar when folks outside of places like this realise it isnt an xbox at all.

@Mincey0 ahhh, i see you have resulted to insults because you cant have a conversation. Go play those 100's of games ypu keep going on about. I think paw patrol is still on there. Seems to be on your level.

I kinda feel for phil a bit. He clearly cares about games and the industry, and he likely did what he thought was best to turn box's fortunes around. I dont agree with all the buying up of companies, but I do get why he did it.

Problem is, when you spend as much as they have, you draw attention. I have no doubt that as they havent recouped funds as expected, be that sales of consoles or gamepass, control of their direction has been taken off him. Now hes merely just another face to be wheeled out.

@Mincey0 theres nothing on gamepass that I want to play or havent already. Not sure how you can tell me i feel different. I get a feeling you are well and truly on the cool aid so let's just beg to differ and see what happens 👍

This is a brilliant game. Hope all the folks that havent/couldn't play it enjoy it !

@Banjo- this is the second time we've agreed with each other 😂. I think we are friends now!

Really good points though man, and really well put across. Agree with everything you said.

MS basically put themselves in a corner where there is no way out that doesn't result in a backlash.

@Mincey0 well, youre assuming I want to play those games. I dont. I spend far less grabbing a game in a sale or on physical. For example, I just traded some games im done with to pick up death stranding 2. It cost me £6. The games I swapped cost me less than the month of gamepass you quoted when I bought/traded for them.

Not everyone wants what Gamepass offers.

@Questionable_Duck excellent point, well made if accurate.

Point still stands in terms of one month GP to buying the game outright. While less, its still a loss.

@Fiendish-Beaver thats exactly it. How many folks signed up for a £1 trial, played arguably one of the biggest releases of the year, cancelled and moved on.

This focus on sub numbers is ridiculous. The whole 'heavy surge' in subs means nothing when financials actually showed the number shrank over all (@themightyant did a good number breakdown at the time). They also dont release actual sub numbers so who knows what they increased by.

Everything just feels like smoke and mirrors at the moment, all with the bitter taste of a 50% price increase lingering.

@Ricky-Spanish it probably wont happen. I think its more just this big wall of doubt they've made for themselves that makes it a story.

@Ricky-Spanish I think what really kick started it all was that Tom Warren commented on the sneaker chap saying they have knowledge inside MS or something.

Hes a pretty well respected chap is Tom and for him to comment on the chaps validity may carry some weight.

@AverageJoseph you are very probably right. I was on the edge of delirium. It will likely just boil down to 'want more money' 😂.

@AverageJoseph you could be entirely right. I will add that instead of thinking like they were playing 4d chess, I was simply trying to kill time sat outside home bargains for an hour waiting for my mrs and daughter 😂.

I would say though that day one games could be any game. It could be 74, one man studio, 2.99 on release games for all we know.

It wont be, but dont be assuming that they are all hundreds of thousands, millions even, pounds of development cost games.

They will also make money off day one sales again.

I was thinking about the whole situation and I had a thought. Bare with me here.

• Including all releases day one isnt sustainable.
• You double the cost to access the tier that has them.
• Folks cancel in outrage.
• You make a cheaper tier that let's you access them 12 months later.
• People join that and start to buy games on release again.
• You get what you want without having to admit you were wrong about including them.

Its almost like MS have purposely caused outrage to force people into the gamepass equivalent of the PS Plus model. You get AAA games later, you get Ubisoft+, you get online play.

Its not like for like but its damn close.

@Titntin Yeah, I think 33 will win it. Which isnt a bad thing of course. I just loved the mood of South of Midnight, and that is pretty much 100% down to the audio for me. It was a steady enough game, or as some say, a good gamepass game, but I just wanted it to have a little more meat on the bones if you get me.

Boss battles are the exception as you say. Some lovely little bits in there.

@Ricky-Spanish Reading this comment in hindsight of the news that came after it, it would probably work out better for them if they gave you the case free when you buy 2 months of game pass 😂

@Gabrie you can only play games you own or the retro ones. I imagine most folks will boot it up, realise they have to pay for what they want to play and move on. I dont see it being a gateway at all.

South of Midnight would get my vote for soundtrack. The rest of the game was not for me unfortunately.

Id like to see Blue Prince do well.

Gamepass was brilliant but surely we all knew this couldn't go on. There are people in comments saying they have used rewards to pay the full cost of it FOR YEARS. Zero money for the service. That just isnt sustainable. At all.

Now, thats not the fault of the people that used rewards to cover it, or loopholes to upgrade for pocket change. Its just an absolutely atrocious business decision. I get it, bring people into the eco system, hook them and then charge them. That's business. But this is madness. These loopholes should have been closed a long time ago and folks would possibly be paying a lower price now.

Its gone on that long that they need a massive increase in cost to fill the hole they created themselves.

@somnambulance I had to triple take at the EA buyout. Its like they sat laughing about how they can make a bigger surprise mechanic and one guy said 'let's sell out to the saudis' and then someone immediately screamed 'AND THEN THROW TRUMPS SON IN LAW IN AS WELL!!!'.

Who in the hell saw that gaggle of doom popping up in a headline. We are gonna be getting Ronaldo in a MAGA hat in every EA franchise from now on.

@somnambulance Its just sad to witness it all. I wish they would just come out and lay it all as it is, whatever it may be. Ive had many good memories on xbox, but its just getting harder to feel like the ecosystem is worth the investment any more.

And im pretty sure somewhere in Sony there is someone sat rubbing their hands, just waiting for the moment to increase there prices as well.

Grim time for this hobby of ours mate.

The thing that blows my mind most about this is that they recently just made a whole song and dance about how Gamepass is profitable (which we know is debatable depending who you ask). Literally rolling top level folks out saying 5 billion revenue, etc...

So if thats the case, the only reason for this price bump is just pure and simple greed. To milk folks for everything they can.

I just dont get how someone in MS didnt look at it and see how this comes across. Its pretty abysmal.

Its currently on plus. Wouldn't be surprised if it pops up here also.

MS sure seem to be on damage control at the moment. They are wheeling someone out every five minutes to justify this hike.

This massive new perk has already been included in PS Plus for years now and it costs far less than GPU.

@yeaman a quick Google also shows multiple people reporting issues with things like the global illumination that requires files to be replaced to fix.

Im not saying you didnt have a good run but to write off the multitude of issues it has on a handheld is pointless.

@yeaman im specifically on about the new xbox rog ally x with AI learning being the issue.

@yeaman Clair Obscura is a prime example of the issues folks will face with this thing. There are lots of headlines about Doom the Dark Ages playing well with AI upscaling, but one of the years biggest releases is struggling to hold 30fps on it.

My biggest concern with this is Yes, its clearly a very good handheld PC device, but there are folks paying huge amounts of cash for something they think is gonna be something its not.

The xbox overlay is nice but its still ASUS Armour running through windows that powers it. They better get ready for the faffing that comes with that.

Plus, its coming to most other devices next year and will essentially do the same thing for less. Even power wise it isnt a massive jump. The lower spec one essentially has the same chips set as one of the older Steam Decks.

I just feel like folks who dont read sites like this, and maybe some who do think they are buying an xbox. Heck, even this site at one point had headlines about it being an xbox handheld (which they changed) because thats what folks were being led to believe. It absolutely is not, so it will be interesting to see how many come to realise that next month.

@JumpingJackson its a handheld pc with an xbox logo on the case.

In a nutshell - Yes you can play settlers on your couch.
-Its not an xbox at all.
-You can stream your xbox console games or play any that are on the PC gamepass app natively.
-You can use other store fronts.

Theres a few folks in here (not all) defending the price of this that were absolutely slamming the PS5 Pro price when that was announced. Yet, here we are. Its a fickle, fickle world isnt it.

I hope all who do plunge enjoy it.

Its seems to be still available everywhere in the UK (except the xbox store that is).

Curious on numbers available. That's gonna be the real gauge for interest and, as its not up to Microsoft, we should actually get some with this.

I do hope all of those folks picking one up enjoy it though, happy gaming to you.

@yeaman yeah, ive seen some folks acting like they are watching the wheel be invented before their eyes when, as you say, its literally there to go pick up today if you want it.

If anything, im more tempted to pick up the 'old' model once this launches as it will likely be discounted and, even without the xbox app update, theres plenty others that do the same. The only thing that puts me off are the issues you hear about windows gaming on a handheld. I much prefer to just plug and play if that makes sense and there seems to be a lot of faff with updates, settings, etc... same reasons I havent got a steamdeck.

@GeeEssEff yeah the marketing at first was very misleading. The amount of 'Xbox handheld' headlines across a lot of sites was quite shocking when you actually know what it is.

@yeaman we will just have to wait and see how it goes. Steamdeck is the biggest seller (not including Switch 1/2) and thats hardly selling gangbusters. I just dont see this suddenly putting nu.bers through the roof. Especially as I have a feeling that the price will instantly turn folks off. Well, whenever they actually tell us anyway.

@WildConcept6 you make some good points my man; However, I am not certain 'a lot of people' want to jump into this market. We live in a bit of a bubble on sites like these, so it will be interesting to see how it sells.