The biggest news to me is support for our existing Xbox library. It doesn't matter what format the new games are so long as they are fun and I can play them on the console.I hate Jez articles because they read SO much like PR from Microsoft.
But the good going forward of the "Everything is an Xbox" campaign is Play Anywhere. Having your games AND more importantly saves, go anywhere xbox is supported is a monumental win and should be standard from here on out. Again every Xbox generation usually has really really forward thinking ideas, they just don't execute as well as they should.
It’s not even their product, even Sarah said Asus made the product when asked to comment on the price. Granted it probably would’ve been the same price as it’s the replacement to the original ally and everywhere else in the world started the same price, but here we include tariffs, cos merica’
Might not sell gangbusters, but will without a doubt be the best Xbox to date.
It’s an odd time for sure. At first I didn’t see the point of an Xbox even existing in the future after all the recent announcements.
But IF they pull this off I could see it being successful. One ‘console’ plays Xbox, Steam, and any PS games on Steam. That *could* be tempting for a lot of people, especially since Sony probably won’t follow suit, and is really only dropping a big exclusive every 1.5 years or so.
And besides that, continuing to fight the console war is a losing battle for them. The OG X1 destroyed most of the momentum of the 360, and they never fully recovered.
I initially thought 1k would be too expensive, but the ROG Ally sold out quickly at that price, so apparently not….?
I could not agree with this more, my feelings exactly
ROG Ally likely had a very small number of units available to begin with so you can't really go by that.
According to Kepler and Heisenberg on neogaf the "console" will be more expensive than Xbox branded PC's for the most part because it has full BC etc but the xbox PC's won't include that, those will also be made by 3rd parties. It sounds like this thing could be over $1500 but we'll see. Also sounds like Jiz has mixed up a few things.
He's dancing around it but the next xbox might be the last traditional console we see from Microsoft. After that I think hey absolutely stay in the gaming business but defined in a way that makes sense for their margins and ecosystems.
I don’t even know about that, I feel the next Xbox is definitely going to involve making gamers update windows and drivers, and optimizing our own games through settings
It very well could BUT I think they're to far into R & D and fab deal with AMD on the next xbox to do a complete redesign this late in the game.
Hope so! I guess the question would be how does it run PC games without all that stuff?
That I have no idea. I think us getting PC games is a pipedream quite honestly IF the next console is a traditional console.
Now if they go the route of the rumors and Microsoft makes a next gen xbox console, then give various vendors OEM license to make their own... who know what will happen.
I can’t see “OEM” going to make their own “Xbox” out of
What’s in in for them? They aren’t puting their own store on them. They’ll make the most money with the tech inside them tho.
Now they can license the new OS that Xbox will use, but will Xbox allow them to use that? I could see that happen for their portable, the FSE (sounds like a Toyota trim), and evolve that. Oh or they could just license out the emulation software that’ll allow them to run any games digital version of an Xbox console, that’s currently compatible…but all new games are only pc or whatever hybrid variant it is now.
One thing that could change things up with this new console is the price of every “gaming pc” either you match tech and or specs with a similar price or hope your name and cache can carry the reason to spend more for a third party pc/console.
Another thing, maybe the reason behind the speculation/rumors that the portable Xbox has been delayed is that they need more time to refine the software to make it make sense and run with ease like a current console.
Again who knows what got handed down from Natella and Hood, so your guess is as good as mine for what a next gen xbox will look and play like. The waters are definitely murky going into next gen.
Microsoft says it’s not getting out of consoles, but 'very high-end' sounds like it
The next Xbox sounds like an expensive niche product and not mass market at all
ery premium, very high-end.” This is how Xbox president Sarah Bond described the next-generation Xbox console currently in development in a recent interview. There is only one way to interpret this statement, and only one reason a senior Microsoft executive might be making it at this early stage. Bond is making a promise, but also quite intentionally setting expectations — or, you might say, issuing a warning. The next Xbox, we can infer, is going to be expensive. Very expensive. It will cost more, possibly a lot more, than we are used to paying for our game consoles.
How much? It’s impossible to say, but Bond made the statement sitting next to a ROG Xbox Ally X handheld, a “premium” gaming device Microsoft is currently promoting. “You’re starting to see some of the thinking that we have in this handheld,” she said. The Xbox Ally X costs $999.99. This seems a reasonable ballpark for the next console too, considering Bond’s comments, and that the cost of an Xbox Series X currently sits at $649.99 (after two recent price hikes).
Something else is notable about Bond’s language: She referred to “the next-gen console,” singular. This is a shift from the announcement of Microsoft’s partnership with AMD on the silicon for its next-gen hardware, when Bond used the plural “consoles.” It suggests that, for now, the plan is to make a premium device only, without a lower-powered partner; an Xbox Ally X without a complementary Xbox Ally, or an Xbox Series X without the Series S.
The $1,000 Xbox Ally X offers a preview of how Microsoft envisions a "premium" console
This would be a marked shift in strategy. In launching the Series X and S, Microsoft’s prediction — which turned out to be correct — was that the kind of cost savings and manufacturing efficiencies that reduced the price of consoles over the course of a hardware generation would no longer be achievable in this generation. (In fact, prices have gone up.) To counter this trend, Microsoft said it was offering a lower-powered device this time, in order to maintain an affordable entry point to Xbox gaming. (I have a Series S and I love it; it’s such an elegant little console.)
The current language certainly suggests Microsoft no longer has any interest in this strategy. The existence of Series S has caused some issues — developers are required to support it, but have sometimes struggled to downsize their games to fit, resulting in embarrassments like the late arrival of Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox. It’s understandable that Microsoft might want to avoid another instance of splitting specs between two machines. But if the new console is as “high-end” as Bond suggests, it seems like Microsoft is turning its back on the idea of game consoles as mass-market devices altogether.
Instead, the proposal seems to be for a niche, enthusiast device that bridges the gap between consoles and PC gaming. According to a Windows Central report — which is broadly supported by what Bond and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer have said on the record — the next Xbox will be just like the Xbox Ally: a Windows-based gaming PC with a console-like interface, but the ability to play almost any PC game through other stores like Steam.
The Xbox Ally's full screen experience is a compromised attempt at a console-style PC front end.
Unlike the Xbox Ally, it will purportedly play four previous generations of Xbox console games natively, as well as next-gen Xbox versions of new games, optimized for its spec. But it’s hard to imagine many third-party developers making bespoke versions of their games for a console that, on price grounds alone, will have limited sales potential — especially when it can just run their PC code instead.
Nevertheless, it’s a tempting pitch. PC gaming is bigger than ever, and Steam has a colossal audience of invested players with libraries they would like to play on the living room TV. Presumably, Microsoft’s scale as a manufacturer and the fixed spec of the device will make it cheaper to buy than a high-end gaming PC.
But, if Bond’s indication of its price and the experience of using an Xbox Ally X are anything to go by, this next Xbox will not be a mass-market device in the way we currently understand consoles to be. It will be an enthusiast product situated somewhere between a console and a gaming PC, offering some of the advantages of both — but perhaps lacking the full seamlessness and reliability of a console, and certainly lacking the customizability and upgrade potential of a PC
Microsoft created Xbox Series S as well as Series X because it saw the collapse of affordable consoles coming.Image: Microsoft via Polygon
Since its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has simultaneously become the world’s biggest third-party publisher and its least successful console manufacturer by far, choosing to make most of its games available on rival platforms. Rumors that it would leave the console market altogether forced the company to issue a denial, saying that it was “actively investing” in new Xbox hardware.
But the device sketched out by Bond’s comments and described in the Windows Central report doesn’t sound like the current conception of a console at all. It could be that Microsoft believes cloud gaming is on the verge of making mass-market consoles obsolete, and so is aiming its next hardware at a narrower enthusiast market. Or it could be that it’s simply happy to let PlayStation and Nintendo do the heavy lifting, sell its games everywhere, and offer a luxury Xbox device as a kind of face-saving branding initiative.
Either way, Xbox hardware may continue to be a thing, but it seems that Microsoft’s retreat from the console mass market will soon be, too.
The next Xbox sounds like an expensive niche product and not mass market at all
ery premium, very high-end.” This is how Xbox president Sarah Bond described the next-generation Xbox console currently in development in a recent interview. There is only one way to interpret this statement, and only one reason a senior Microsoft executive might be making it at this early stage. Bond is making a promise, but also quite intentionally setting expectations — or, you might say, issuing a warning. The next Xbox, we can infer, is going to be expensive. Very expensive. It will cost more, possibly a lot more, than we are used to paying for our game consoles.
How much? It’s impossible to say, but Bond made the statement sitting next to a ROG Xbox Ally X handheld, a “premium” gaming device Microsoft is currently promoting. “You’re starting to see some of the thinking that we have in this handheld,” she said. The Xbox Ally X costs $999.99. This seems a reasonable ballpark for the next console too, considering Bond’s comments, and that the cost of an Xbox Series X currently sits at $649.99 (after two recent price hikes).
Something else is notable about Bond’s language: She referred to “the next-gen console,” singular. This is a shift from the announcement of Microsoft’s partnership with AMD on the silicon for its next-gen hardware, when Bond used the plural “consoles.” It suggests that, for now, the plan is to make a premium device only, without a lower-powered partner; an Xbox Ally X without a complementary Xbox Ally, or an Xbox Series X without the Series S.
This would be a marked shift in strategy. In launching the Series X and S, Microsoft’s prediction — which turned out to be correct — was that the kind of cost savings and manufacturing efficiencies that reduced the price of consoles over the course of a hardware generation would no longer be achievable in this generation. (In fact, prices have gone up.) To counter this trend, Microsoft said it was offering a lower-powered device this time, in order to maintain an affordable entry point to Xbox gaming. (I have a Series S and I love it; it’s such an elegant little console.)
The current language certainly suggests Microsoft no longer has any interest in this strategy. The existence of Series S has caused some issues — developers are required to support it, but have sometimes struggled to downsize their games to fit, resulting in embarrassments like the late arrival of Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox. It’s understandable that Microsoft might want to avoid another instance of splitting specs between two machines. But if the new console is as “high-end” as Bond suggests, it seems like Microsoft is turning its back on the idea of game consoles as mass-market devices altogether.
Instead, the proposal seems to be for a niche, enthusiast device that bridges the gap between consoles and PC gaming. According to a Windows Central report — which is broadly supported by what Bond and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer have said on the record — the next Xbox will be just like the Xbox Ally: a Windows-based gaming PC with a console-like interface, but the ability to play almost any PC game through other stores like Steam.
Unlike the Xbox Ally, it will purportedly play four previous generations of Xbox console games natively, as well as next-gen Xbox versions of new games, optimized for its spec. But it’s hard to imagine many third-party developers making bespoke versions of their games for a console that, on price grounds alone, will have limited sales potential — especially when it can just run their PC code instead.
Nevertheless, it’s a tempting pitch. PC gaming is bigger than ever, and Steam has a colossal audience of invested players with libraries they would like to play on the living room TV. Presumably, Microsoft’s scale as a manufacturer and the fixed spec of the device will make it cheaper to buy than a high-end gaming PC.
But, if Bond’s indication of its price and the experience of using an Xbox Ally X are anything to go by, this next Xbox will not be a mass-market device in the way we currently understand consoles to be. It will be an enthusiast product situated somewhere between a console and a gaming PC, offering some of the advantages of both — but perhaps lacking the full seamlessness and reliability of a console, and certainly lacking the customizability and upgrade potential of a PC
Since its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has simultaneously become the world’s biggest third-party publisher and its least successful console manufacturer by far, choosing to make most of its games available on rival platforms. Rumors that it would leave the console market altogether forced the company to issue a denial, saying that it was “actively investing” in new Xbox hardware.
But the device sketched out by Bond’s comments and described in the Windows Central report doesn’t sound like the current conception of a console at all. It could be that Microsoft believes cloud gaming is on the verge of making mass-market consoles obsolete, and so is aiming its next hardware at a narrower enthusiast market. Or it could be that it’s simply happy to let PlayStation and Nintendo do the heavy lifting, sell its games everywhere, and offer a luxury Xbox device as a kind of face-saving branding initiative.
Either way, Xbox hardware may continue to be a thing, but it seems that Microsoft’s retreat from the console mass market will soon be, too.
Honest q….who here would be interested in this, if it ends up being exactly what these leaks are saying? Let’s assume $1k +/- $200.
Seems pricey but the Rog Ally sold out at $1k, and people pay that for phones. Yes, I know the functionality of these products are different, but I’m just saying it seems like people are willing to pay premium if it’s something they really want.
I’d create a pole on here, but I’ve never done it before so I don’t know how
Seems pricey but the Rog Ally sold out at $1k, and people pay that for phones. Yes, I know the functionality of these products are different, but I’m just saying it seems like people are willing to pay premium if it’s something they really want.
I’d create a pole on here, but I’ve never done it before so I don’t know how
If people are looking for that system that crosses PC and a console and delivers it to a living room, then maybe. That's why I got the Rog Xbox Ally X. I wanted to play games on the go sometimes, but primarily wanted to play some PC titles on the TV.Honest q….who here would be interested in this, if it ends up being exactly what these leaks are saying? Let’s assume $1k +/- $200.
Seems pricey but the Rog Ally sold out at $1k, and people pay that for phones. Yes, I know the functionality of these products are different, but I’m just saying it seems like people are willing to pay premium if it’s something they really want.
I’d create a pole on here, but I’ve never done it before so I don’t know how
I'm not sure what their answer is to those that just want the same console experience. They were fine with the Xbox ecosystem and don't have a vast library expanding across different launchers.
I’m good with a Series X doubt I buy the next XB/PC whatever it is. I want to get a PS and Switch 2 sometime soon so we can have all 3 in our house. I have no desire to go PC gaming I did that in the late 90’s/2000’s I’ve just enjoyed console gaming ever since. Now I would probably buy an official XBox handheld if they ever make one.
I have a feeling there’ll be a staggered release for regular PCs, maybe after portable pc updates.