After wasting an obscene amount of money on Activision Blizzard, their approach is now:

Fire most developers and have the remaining ones use AI tools to compensate.

Release all games for PlayStation and Switch (2) as well.

End Xbox hardware development and license the brand to 3rd parties who need to make money on the hardware because it's not subsidized by Microsoft.

Make the competition, Steam Deck and even Switch 2 of all things, look like a steal by comparison.

I'm confident 80% of the people here would make better business decisions.

Lmao no way.

I bought the original Ally. No way I’d ever upgrade to this.

doa

also they need to stop putting 'X' in their naming scheme, it's already in 'Xbox'. i haven't been able to identify which xbox is which generation since the 360 because of how absurd it is

And here I am still very happy with my $350 steam deck purchase and 2tb ssd upgrade. 🤷‍♂️

These companies are out of their minds.

I don't think Ars is paying attention to the other handhelds on the market.

And after it comes out, a lot of people will say they never blinked at the price.

Switch 2 had a similar reaction. After it came out, people still bought it. This will be similar — though, it'll be more in line with Xbox's numbers vis a vis Nintendo. I'm not saying they will have a Switch 2 launch. I am saying everyone who wanted a handheld Xbox will probably still buy one. A couple won't. A couple people new to Xbox will buy it though.

I know a guy who already preordered it.

I think people need to realise it's not an Xbox, it's a handheld PC and it can only run Xbox games that are on PC. It's gonna run the PC version. The rest it will do via cloud gaming and its specs will not be a factor. It may even do that for newer, more powerful games that would run better remotely on a Series S or X. And it won't run 360/OG games, at least not natively.

I feel like Microsoft needs to push for emulation of older systems natively much like Nintendo has. While the Switch can run Game Boy, NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, and Genesis (more?), Switch 2 can also run GameCube. Xbox needs to be modified to run OG and 360 games, and that includes the handheld. Honestly it should include Windows PCs, too. I mean, if you're using Windows, you should be able to run Xbox games you legally own on your computer, especially if you pay for GamePass, but even if you just prop Windows up in 2025 when you could be running Linux or using a Mac. For all the telemetry they collect and ads they serve, letting you play games you legally own on hardware running software they sold you just... makes sense. I mean they already got your money and you can play games you bought from others (e.g. Steam, GOG), so, why not them?