News Microsoft announces three new Xbox console options and hints at its Xbox handheld plans

[Admin]

Microsoft has prepared three new Xbox console configurations for launch ahead of the holiday season. And, in a post-showcase interview, Xbox chief Phil Spencer dropped the biggest hints yet about an Xbox Handheld.

Microsoft announces three new Xbox console options and hints at its Xbox handheld plans : Read more

 

[Deleted member 2731765]

And, in a post-showcase interview, Xbox chief Phil Spencer dropped the biggest hints yet about an Xbox Handheld.

Microsoft hints at its Xbox handheld plans...

Later in the interview, it was interesting to hear Spencer say that he thinks handhelds should play games locally, like the Asus ROG Ally, or Valve's Steam Deck.

This is Old news, well, kind of.

Phil Spencer, has been dropping hints about a potential Xbox handheld for months now. Earlier this year, Feb 2024, he said he was “a big fan of handhelds,” after liking posts on X that mention the possibility of this new hardware.

There have been persistent rumors of an Xbox handheld, and Spencer has been liking posts on X that mention the possibility of this hardware. “I’m a big fan of handhelds,” says Spencer. “I’m a big fan, but nothing to announce.”

He does admit that there’s still a lot of work to do on the Windows side for handheld gaming PCs. “One of the weak points in the experience on a ROG or the Lenovo [Legion Go] is Windows,” says Spencer.

“How Windows works on controller input only on that kind of DPI, on a smaller eight- or seven-inch screen. That’s a real design point that our platform team is working with Windows to make sure that the experience is even better.”

Microsoft teases next-gen Xbox with “largest technical leap” and new “unique” hardware

Microsoft might be teasing an Xbox handheld.

www.theverge.com

Also, earlier this year Spencer has already talked about wanting a compact Xbox mode on a handheld gaming PC.

“I want to be able to boot into the Xbox app in a full screen, but in a compact mode,” said Spencer in a Polygon interview. “Like I want it to feel like the dash of my Xbox when I turn on the television. [Except I want it] on those devices.”

https://www.polygon.com/24108660/xbox-handheld-console-phil-spencer-interview

 

[cknobman]

I'm going to go out on a limb and make a prediction that the Xbox handheld could very will be mostly useless without a Game Pass Ultimate subscription.

With the rise of so many PC handhelds now I would never go back to the subscription model.
But as usual Microsoft misses the boat because they lack any vision.

 

[ET3D]

I think that hardware is already at a point where an Xbox handheld could run games as well as a Series S, so people could buy one and use it docked to replace a console and play on the go without losing performance.

The main question is whether Microsoft will have a custom CPU for this, like Valve uses. Coupled with the price benefit of consoles, due to making money off games, this could make an Xbox handled seriously good value.

 

[ET3D]

With the rise of so many PC handhelds now I would never go back to the subscription model.

What subscription did you have? What made you feel that it's bad value compared to buying games?

 

[edzieba]

What made you feel that it's bad value compared to buying games?

Same reasons every other subscription is bad value: If you pause shelling out cash for even a moment, you lose everything. If the company you've been shelling out cash to goes under, you lose everything. If the company you've been shelling out cash to just up and decides "nah, we don't want to do that anymore", you lose everything.

 

[DS426]

...

The main question is whether Microsoft will have a custom CPU for this, like Valve uses. Coupled with the price benefit of consoles, due to making money off games, this could make an Xbox handled seriously good value.

It seems like a natural fit to me that they continue using AMD semi-custom APU's; if they essentially use a slightly lower-clocked / efficiency-optimized version of the chips they are using now, MS can easily ensure that existing Xbox games will work fine with the new handheld with basically no workload for game devs. Another possibility is refactoring existing APU's to be produced in a smaller, more advanced litho node to get the efficiency and lower heat output needed in a handheld while maintaining the same levels of performance of at least the Series S.

On another note, Phil Spencer is kind of a tool, but I'm happy to hear that he sees the value in having a handheld. I think Microsoft's research would find that the data is stronger in supporting it now than even just six months ago.

 

[thisisaname]

Given how old the Xbox is now surprised no price drop and as always the increase in storage too costly.

 

[cknobman]

What subscription did you have? What made you feel that it's bad value compared to buying games?

Hard to believe someone would ask this question and no understanding of why.

I had game pass ultimate for my series X.
Like @edzieba indicated I dont own any of the games I play.
If I am in the middle of a game (I play infrequently) and they remove it from game pass I lose everything I was working on.
If I stop paying every month I cant play games.

On my steam deck I own everything.
And I can buy my games for pennies on the dollar.
They are mine online and offline.
I can play them at any pace I want without fear of losing access to them or my progress on them.

Subscription model is fine for obsessive gamers that consume games quickly and often then move on to the next "shiny" thing.
For gamers who play less often, want to own their games so they can be played forever, and only pay once; subscriptions are a rip off.

Most younger people dont understand.
A subscription is the "carrot on a string".
The hook to keep you paying.

Just like renting your home.
"You will own nothing and be happy".

 

[artk2219]

Honestly the one thing that i want to see, and that we probably wont see, is an external disk drive for the digital edition and Series S. Yes it voids the main reason for buying a digital only console, but it would be nice to be able to play those older XBOX One games that you already own, or that aren't available as a digital download. We're likely to see Halo infinite actually get a finished split screen co-op mode before we would see an external disk drive.

 

[Giroro]

I would say Microsoft should give up on this generation, but apparently they already have.

When the Gamecube was flopping as badly as the XseX/S , Nintendo slashed the price to $99 and bundled some of the best games of all time.
But what does Microsoft do? Another laughably redundant all digital version, which strips out the most used Xbox feature this generation (UHD movies) and they raise the price of the top end console by $100.... just for an extra $30 worth of storage that is only useful for downloading the exact same number of games that don't exist.
The people on Xbox this gen are just playing the same 2 or 3 annual-franchise shovelware games over and over until the next edition comes out. They don't need the extra storage.

Their target should have been an all-digital 1TB XSeX in a significantly more compact case, for $250 - with the XseS discontinued and their current unsellable stock on fire-sale at $150 or below.
Since they apparently don't want to do that, these new revisions are a simply a waste of good development time and marketing money. Their next best choice would have been to cut off the current gen off at 5 years, and go all-in on their next-next gen console to rush it out the door by end of 2025.

 

[thestryker]

Hard to believe someone would ask this question and no understanding of why.

I had game pass ultimate for my series X.
Like @edzieba indicated I dont own any of the games I play.
If I am in the middle of a game (I play infrequently) and they remove it from game pass I lose everything I was working on.
If I stop paying every month I cant play games.

On my steam deck I own everything.
And I can buy my games for pennies on the dollar.
They are mine online and offline.
I can play them at any pace I want without fear of losing access to them or my progress on them.

Subscription model is fine for obsessive gamers that consume games quickly and often then move on to the next "shiny" thing.
For gamers who play less often, want to own their games so they can be played forever, and only pay once; subscriptions are a rip off.

Most younger people dont understand.
A subscription is the "carrot on a string".
The hook to keep you paying.

Just like renting your home.
"You will own nothing and be happy".

My favorite strawman right there: it doesn't fit my specific use case so say it's bad while insulting people who it works for.

Out of curiosity can you name a single subscription service that works for an infrequent consumer? I can't think of any whether it's stuff you end up owning or not. Perhaps then subscriptions aren't for everyone.

In the case of Game Pass it's the permanent home for Microsoft games so if someone's interested in those it's a pretty good deal to start with. They also have the EA subscription included so that can provide access/discounts over with EA. Game streaming is included which can be extremely convenient if you have decent internet (and wifi for handheld devices). Then there's of course the random third party titles and whatnot that make appearances.

All of this isn't to say it's right for you, because it's clearly not, but that doesn't mean it's only for "obsessive gamers" as you put it.

Also you don't own anything bought digitally you have a license that may or may not continue to exist unless you're buying from GoG exclusively.

Given how old the Xbox is now surprised no price drop and as always the increase in storage too costly.

The last couple of generations the consoles haven't dropped in MSRP often if at all. This is likely due to the diminishing returns on improved manufacturing process. By the end of the 360 generation I think the SoC was costing around half the price of launch. The time to buy consoles now is always during sale periods as my Series X cost between $300-350 when I got it.

 

[thestryker]

It wouldn't particularly surprise me if Microsoft's strategy for the next generation was a high power console and a handheld instead of two consoles. It ought to be possible to provide close to Xbox Series S levels of performance on a handheld by the time those release and I think that's a perfectly reasonable level to be at.

 

[linovi]

Hard to believe someone would ask this question and no understanding of why.

I had game pass ultimate for my series X.
Like @edzieba indicated I dont own any of the games I play.
If I am in the middle of a game (I play infrequently) and they remove it from game pass I lose everything I was working on.
If I stop paying every month I cant play games.

On my steam deck I own everything.
And I can buy my games for pennies on the dollar.
They are mine online and offline.
I can play them at any pace I want without fear of losing access to them or my progress on them.

Subscription model is fine for obsessive gamers that consume games quickly and often then move on to the next "shiny" thing.
For gamers who play less often, want to own their games so they can be played forever, and only pay once; subscriptions are a rip off.

Most younger people dont understand.
A subscription is the "carrot on a string".
The hook to keep you paying.

Just like renting your home.
"You will own nothing and be happy".

@edzieba and you know that you can buy the games on PC Gamepass right?

I've had PC Gamepass on and off over the last few years and the games I purchased have been mine forever even if they were retired from Gamepass.

I have a feeling you both have never used gamepass and don't know what it is.

 

[edzieba]

@edzieba and you know that you can buy the games on PC Gamepass right?

I've had PC Gamepass on and off over the last few years and the games I purchased have been mine forever even if they were retired from Gamepass.

I have a feeling you both have never used gamepass and don't know what it is.

...That's called "buying the game". It's what we do anyway, without paying a subscription to anyone in the first place.

 

[ET3D]

I had game pass ultimate for my series X.
Like @edzieba indicated I dont own any of the games I play.
If I am in the middle of a game (I play infrequently) and they remove it from game pass I lose everything I was working on.
If I stop paying every month I cant play games.

On my steam deck I own everything.
And I can buy my games for pennies on the dollar.
They are mine online and offline.
I can play them at any pace I want without fear of losing access to them or my progress on them.

Okay. I can see why if you ever lost a game while playing that would be annoying.

I just think you should realise that on Steam you also own nothing. So if you think you do, it'd be good to adjust your thinking. Steam calls it a subscription too. Sure, it doesn't stop if you stop paying, but a publisher can decide to remove a game, or something could happen to your account. For example, if Valve suspects you're not the original owner of the account, they can close the account.

In short, while Steam is safer than a subscription, you still don't own the games, and they can go away. Doesn't happen often, but still worth remembering.

As for value, I think it highly depends on what you play and how. Game Pass offers access to quite a few games that don't cost pennies. If you're fine with games that cost pennies, or alternately you're find with playing what the Epic Games Store gives for free, then naturally a subscription won't be useful. If you play games over a long period of time, then as you say a service that can retire games could be an issue. I can still see Game Pass being a decent deal if you like the games there and play games for a shorter period of try a lot and not necessarily finish them.

 

[cknobman]

Okay. I can see why if you ever lost a game while playing that would be annoying.

I just think you should realise that on Steam you also own nothing. So if you think you do, it'd be good to adjust your thinking. Steam calls it a subscription too. Sure, it doesn't stop if you stop paying, but a publisher can decide to remove a game, or something could happen to your account. For example, if Valve suspects you're not the original owner of the account, they can close the account.

In short, while Steam is safer than a subscription, you still don't own the games, and they can go away. Doesn't happen often, but still worth remembering.

As for value, I think it highly depends on what you play and how. Game Pass offers access to quite a few games that don't cost pennies. If you're fine with games that cost pennies, or alternately you're find with playing what the Epic Games Store gives for free, then naturally a subscription won't be useful. If you play games over a long period of time, then as you say a service that can retire games could be an issue. I can still see Game Pass being a decent deal if you like the games there and play games for a shorter period of try a lot and not necessarily finish them.

Oh I agree with you to a point.
Any software nowadays, especially digitally distributed, you dont actually own.

But context of "ownership" in regards to these digital games is I pay once buying them on Steam and never pay again.
Vs I pay $20/month for eternity on XBox and only get to play as long as I keep paying and they decide to keep it "available" on Xbox Game Pass.