Steam Deck

SteamOS is probably the biggest risk to the Windows monopoly right now, so that tracks.

I would never buy an Xbox handheld. Why would you want a handheld that is locked into Microsoft’s ecosystem even more than a Windows handheld? You’ll get maybe ten to fifteen years out of it, then it will become a brick that Microsoft has abandoned. You will never have fond memories of playing on the Xbox handheld that you can recreate with physical hardware. You’ll never get to show your kids what gaming was like on the thing, because the authentication servers were shut off years ago, and now it is a worthless paperweight.

“Hey boss we have the tech from Surface Division to form factor the new Xbox and portable the same. People could just buy one device.”

*Out the Windows boardroom guy meme*

I'm assuming it's gonna be a lame attempt to capitalize on the steam deck's success with hope that popular DRM game exclusives will drive sales.

Although I'm pretty sure the MSI Claw already proved that won't work. Even if it had been good in hardware, the addition of only a few select games didn't justify the cost or performance of windows on a handheld.

Unless they put some actual development and research behind it, which they won't, it'll probably last only a few years before they have to cancel due to sunk cost and lack of game sales.

They'd need to properly place DirectX with a clean NT kernel on some good hardware, and make a completely new (and usable) UI like Xbox without sacrificing battery power, which even the deck struggled to accomplish.

Considering how cruddy windows 11 has been, Xbox nuking teams left & right, and MSFT throwing all their budget at AI, I just don't see it happening.

I could only see this working if it came with 6 free months of GamePass, or if it was some kind of loss leader to sell games on their store.

Unless it's as easy to install games from the other stores, why would you otherwise pay to live in a tiny, walled garden?

"Quick, fresh bubble, flood the market!"

Can we also have a Windows Phone next? You can call it an Xbox Phone if you like.

Yeah. Not interested with anything that made by microsoft.

Do these other handhelds sell enough to justify all these different devices?

If they can't pull this off as an ARM device and recompile all the games to run on it, then don't bother.

There's nothing they can really bring to this that the Steam Deck hasn't already done better.

If Microsoft stuck with what it already does, it would be better. They already have cloud streaming technology which makes playing games on their ecosystem possible on any screen. Having a separate handheld console would complicate things. I just don't see the appeal.

If they make a device that doesn't suck, will people not just install Steam on it?

Why would anyone buy this? You can already do this streaming through the Deck or any of the other handhelds, if Game Pass is your thing.

"if only we had a way to like, take a desktop pc and make it, like, not tethered to a power outlet. and made the mouse and keyboard a part of the case. and added a screen and speakers too. too bad we have no idea how to do that." -Microsoft, as they shove the 10,000 laptops off of the desk. "guess we will have to do it ourselves."

(yeah yeah a laptop "isn't a handheld" but you get the stupidity all the same, surely. MS abandoned their platform just to make a different, more constrained platform, and charge people for multi-player. and they want to act like they couldn't do that 25 years ago for free. fuck off MS.)

Called it months ago, they'll develop a handheld version of Windows and have their own handheld!

If the controller feels as good as my Elite 2 then I'm sold