To be fair, the Legion S uses the Z2 Go chip, which is basically same benchmarks as a Z1 Extreme. If this uses the Z2, that's gonna be faster.

I appreciate the info and analysis!

The reason I have no idea what the pricing will be... is that well, GPU prices are nonsense that stick nowhere near MSRP, we got tariffs, we got all game prices getting jacked up, we got massive layoffs at MSFT, they are hurting for money...

And unless this handheld significantly outperforms other existing handhelds... I just don't think many would buy it at basically any price...

But I also think MSFT is delusional about that, and I don't think they have the depth of coin in their pockets to try to do a loss leader approach, and I think they're more likely to just price it the same way cars and houses and rent are ludicrously overpriced, a price based more on 'we need to pay our debts' than on 'how do we have a sensible long term strategy in this market'.

Today was the xbox showcase

Don't worry it's going to launch with silksong. Don't really know what's the point of releasing a game along a cross-platform console but I guess the publicity is good.

I genuinely have no idea what either a cost-to-produce estimate would be, or what the fuck MSFT thinks their strategy is here.

I am flummoxed.

It basically uses the next version of the same kind of chips that are in the ROG Ally and ROG Ally X... no one has any idea what the actual performance of this thing will be, I'm seeing barely educated guess at ... roughly 25% more powerful, basically?

All the other specs seem identical or near identical.

Then you've also got the insane tariff situation and MSFT being both based in the US, and I think they still have their largest share of Xbox users in the US, but I'm not sure.

I guess I also wonder if they will pretend this thing is a console when it comes to software mods, and just lock down the bootloader and brick itself if you try to install linux on it.

Because... if you can just flash like Bazzite or SteamOS onto it... you get a roughly 15% game performance boost.

And then at that point MSFT will just have basically developed a product that non morons will use effectively as a competitor's platform, mainly in the Steam gaming ecosystem... not MSFTs.

I have a lot of questions about all of this.

I would love for that to be the case as well... but it wouldn't make any sense for MSFT to do the first part, and I strongly suspect they do not have the finances to do the second part.