New Xbox & AI CEO announced via Twitter ( not calling it x) the new “hybrid” console that will play Xbox and PC games.
In other words you know just a PC. Thus far it seems the system will use the exact same Xbox desktop experience as the “rog ally”.
While we all saw it coming and there isn’t much surprise. This to me says Xbox is dead as a platform.
It’s going to be expensive, it’s going to have Windows. It’s going to have co-pilot it’s going to have the same pop ups.
At least we get an Ally ROG desktop at most a Surface Gaming Desktop. Either honestly is a terrible idea. There will be most affordable options not tied to windows there will be mode powerful options at the same price. Even if you like the idea of going all in PC gaming this won’t be your best option.
If you want to stay a console gamer you’re going to have to switch teams …
I’m confused by the pessimistic reactions, though.
Companies converging towards the semi-open platform is a good thing. The locked down hardware and exclusives are not something we as customers asked for. It was something the cartel just shoved down our throats.
What bothers me is the backwards compatibility that microsoft has always just hand-waved in regards to the sunsetting of the xbox HW. A clear yes or no would be nice.
With Steam Machine being announced and price about to be released, new xbox is dead even before arrival. I will be totally bemused if gamers will chose new xbox/pc over Steam Machines.
With the inability to obtain hardware for new PCs and other computing devices (for reference see how hard it is to get a hold of a steam deck these days). I’m not sure if the steam machine is ever going to come to fruition while the AI boom continues to fuck up the market.
Yep, and I wager the steam machine is probably going to be, at minimum, 50% more expensive than valve planned it to be, which more than likely will kill it on arrival as far as price/performance goes.
Will there be die hards who buy it no matter the price? yeah… but i wager it’ll see a fraction of sales that the deck did, due to ram and storage price bullshit thanks to AI fucking everything up.
Oh we do have a lot of Microsuckers in this world who will choose this over the Steam Machine because “It is well integrated into the system” bullshit.
Probably not so much as “better” as it would be “almost as good for cheaper”.
The bespoke AMD part is an exercise in cost management. iGPU is more affordable but usually pretty low end. The bespoke AMD solution is an iGPU bumped up to a nearly on par with a mid tier discrete GPU.
If released with same generation of tech, I would expect the steam machine to have higher performance but at a disproportional higher price.
Have they said they are ready to commit to a price somewhere? The timing of the steam machine and the ballooning price of disk space and RAM is comically tragic.
Not that I know of. They supposed to announce prices in the first quarter of 2026 but due to memory shortage they have postponed it. As for shipping, they have claimed that they are still planning to launch shipping by the end of first half of 2026. Price is estimated at $800-$1000. Shortage might increase it.
Like honestly though, in what way will it be significantly different than currently? All the games they put out are just also on PC so what, things stay essentially the same?
I doubt they’ll allow me to play my steam games, will it allow side loading of other random games? Do I have to just buy the Xbox version of this PC game to play it? Gamepass Ultimate already includes playing the PC versions of the games which again are identical to the versions on the Xbox. So what really will be the actual difference to the current Xbox?
Is anything in the tech world interesting or good any more? I remember being excited 20 years ago for new inventions. Now its slop, slop, slop, authoritarian surveillance fascism, slop slop slop
Foss projects and indie games are about the only interesting thing now.
I’ll go back to 2005 soon as someone invents a Foss time machine !
I’ve been enjoying the advances in escape room games. mc2games makes some good ones.
The HL2 VR mods are pretty good if you have a headset. Reloading a gun with your physical hands is pretty immersive.
There’s been a silent rise in mystery-themed (Ace Attorney adjacent) games in the East recently. The mysteries get better and better.
Russian games have been innovating a bit to attract Western customers. “No I’m not Human” is one of those. There are also some Russian visual novels that are good thrillers.
Of the games China makes that aren’t gachaslop, some have tried to innovate. This one syncs what the character doing with real world time. So if it would take 10 minutes for a character to do something, it would take 10 actual minutes. The game doesn’t even have to be on during those 10 minutes, so it can be something where you check in every now and then.
I still tune into TechQuickie every once in awhile and I noted how start the difference is between shows like that today and five years ago. All news is bad news anymore.
Once we created standards to create everything we see today it became to expensive to invest in alternative home grown solutions. Sadly with the focus of maximizing profit over innovation most ideas just revolve around the existing infrastructure in place to do what they want. I hate it as well and everything feels very stagnant.
Ironically, there are a couple of things in the tech world right now that I’m extremely interested in. But you would likely downvote me if I mentioned them.
You got downvoted for mentioning you’d get downvoted! OK, I’ll bite. Based on OP’s comments, As long as it isn’t in AI, surveillance or Microslop WIndows, maybe you have found something for us all?
It’s really quite ironic, this is the sort of tech that science fiction has been dreaming of for decades. And now it can’t even be mentioned in tech-oriented forums, can’t even be hinted at, without mobs of negative-nellies dumping on it.
Ah well. I continue to have fun with it, downvotes can’t stop that.
I’m anxious about being on the layoff list because I submitted my self-appraisal without reading the step that says: use ai to summarize your assessment and copy-paste to the summary field. Dammit, I wrote it myself
Well, I guess the most games-oriented thing is that at the moment I’m generating some cover art for some music I generated earlier to use as part of a tabletop roleplaying campaign I’m in. Custom art, custom music, stuff that a few years ago would have cost me thousands of dollars to commission (and therefore that I would never have dreamed of commissioning - it’s just for me and a couple of friends). That’s pretty awesome, IMO.
If your going Pc pre built route to me Valve built is the answer.
But to me this more lies with concerns with a true blue console experience.
Most people believe Microsoft will have little no success with this strategy either. Outside of hopes to “disrupt” steam machines market share I can’t see this going anywhere.
I had to read it several times to understand what you meant, but I suspect that you’re right.
Buying a full pc that will end up being potentially limited to gaming doesn’t really make sense. Valve has a solution that’s more integrated and probably better suited for most consumers.
Good, I’m sick of playing lowest common denominator console ports. Develop for PC and let the consoles have the degraded experience, not the other way around!
Saying this is the death of the platform is stupid. Worst case, it’s at least better than current Xbox, which doesn’t have the option to play PC games. Yeah, it’s going to have all of M$'s spywhere and AI slop, but so would any MS device. I’m not buying this crap, but if you already wanted an Xbox then this is an improvement. Yeah, you’re better off with a PC, especially one running Linux. This has been the case for decades, yet the consoles still sell.
Isn’t the whole point, since the Xbox One, that they didn’t want it to just play games? We don’t consider it dead just because it does more stuff. I guess you can have whatever definition you want for your personal view, but I don’t really think anyone else would agree with it. It’s still going to be a Microsoft controlled platform that’s typically in the living room on a TV. Most people would say it’s dead when they stop having a device in the living room, not when that device gets extra features.
I do not trust that Microsoft will be doing anything other than pushing subscription-based streaming. Call me when they have a robust storefront selling games on par with Steam and hardware that allows you to play these games on or offline. Until then, imma press X to doubt.
Yeah it can be , and Steam already did it and better. But it’s still not a console experience. It’s closer but it’s not equivalent. And for what Xbox has represented this isn’t it …
I think it’s “console enough” that it could still work. Current consoles are really just locked-down PCs anyways.
It’d be no different than the OtherOS functionality on first-run PS3 consoles that allowed them to boot into Linux. Perhaps simpler than that even, given that current consoles already use standard PC hardware and not the Cell architecture the PS3 ran on.
Nah, it’s been pretty clear for some time now that the next Xbox would just be a PC. I don’t think they got this idea from Valve. I’m sure that Valve helped shape their plans, though.
You know, I’m okay with this. If it makes PC gaming more accessible, and if it offers meaningful competition for the Steam Machine, it’s good to have options. Sure it’s Windows, but if it’s just a PC running an Xbox UX, I’m sure you could change the OS to whatever else if you want.
If anything, it does make the PS6 a less appealing choice, because why pick a dedicated console when you can get an (assuming) comparably strong, comparably priced gaming PC?
The issue is most games nowadays don’t work on day one, and you’ll probably have to download patches for it. The main selling point of plug and play for consoles is almost irrelevant with current publisher (and possible development) practices in the industry.
Thats why i just bought a dreamcast again after I had one 20 years ago. Awesome community and so many games, many of which never got popular but are so good. Consoles have few issues and are super easy to repair.
Consoles died when they ushered in “avatars” and constant internet connectivity bullshit. Xbox 360 was the start of the trash.
Dreamcast even has a nice little online gaming community now!
There is a huge difference between waiting for an update and installing a game that may not work. It’s a huge difference then fiddling with settings and configs to get it to run smoothly or not crash
PC gaming has come a long way that most games nowadays just work, even on Linux. I’m surprised at how many games work without even forcing Proton and no bugs at all, except those that also exist for Windows. That and my controller is seamless. Even VR is working better now.
On the other side, it seems console gaming is more complex than it needed to be and we’ve seen how consoles actually hold back gaming, as a whole, like the situation with the Xbox Series S that has forced developers to either cut content or remove features to make it compatible as that is Microsoft’s requirement when developing a game to be released for their consoles. I don’t remember hearing it, but I’m sure the same is true for the PlayStation side too with the lower end model. Whereas that doesn’t happen for PC exclusive releases. If your PC won’t run it, it’s probably because it’s outdated and that’s a you problem, not something everyone else needs to suffer for because a company like Microsoft is forcing devs to make it compatible with outdated/lower end hardware.
I can’t remember trying a game on my Steam Deck and it didn’t work. Unless you mean setting up a Proton version, then I’ve had that, but the game eventually runs in 9 out of 10 cases. That is exclusive to non-Windows OSes and it could be solved by automating based on the db and make the setting easier to find and change for users, maybe even prompt the user to try another Proton version kind of like Windows’ troubleshooter when it detects a program didn’t install or run correctly. Or when devs make their games natively work with Linux/macOS like they do for Windows which is why games just work there. And if the game doesn’t run well, you just lower the settings which I’ve done for many games with no trouble. Even console games now have the same settings to lower quality to get better performance.
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I’m confused by the pessimistic reactions, though.
Companies converging towards the semi-open platform is a good thing. The locked down hardware and exclusives are not something we as customers asked for. It was something the cartel just shoved down our throats.
What bothers me is the backwards compatibility that microsoft has always just hand-waved in regards to the sunsetting of the xbox HW. A clear yes or no would be nice.
So, will I be able to play Halo 5 on PC?
With Steam Machine being announced and price about to be released, new xbox is dead even before arrival. I will be totally bemused if gamers will chose new xbox/pc over Steam Machines.
You think the average person will buy a more expensive box that doesn’t play COD, FIFA, etc?
With the inability to obtain hardware for new PCs and other computing devices (for reference see how hard it is to get a hold of a steam deck these days). I’m not sure if the steam machine is ever going to come to fruition while the AI boom continues to fuck up the market.
Yep, and I wager the steam machine is probably going to be, at minimum, 50% more expensive than valve planned it to be, which more than likely will kill it on arrival as far as price/performance goes.
Will there be die hards who buy it no matter the price? yeah… but i wager it’ll see a fraction of sales that the deck did, due to ram and storage price bullshit thanks to AI fucking everything up.
Oh we do have a lot of Microsuckers in this world who will choose this over the Steam Machine because “It is well integrated into the system” bullshit.
Better integrated than Steam? I’d be curious to hear how.
“XBOX game pass is heaps better than Steam” - said no one ever
If it’s allowed to run Linux, it’ll be better than the Steam Machine.
Microslop, for their faults, actually does get custom hardware from AMD - Valve uses repurposed parts which is much cheaper for their smaller runs.
I think it’ll be fully locked down though, but if it’s not - i’d wager it’ll make a better Steam Machine than Steam Machine.
Probably not so much as “better” as it would be “almost as good for cheaper”.
The bespoke AMD part is an exercise in cost management. iGPU is more affordable but usually pretty low end. The bespoke AMD solution is an iGPU bumped up to a nearly on par with a mid tier discrete GPU.
If released with same generation of tech, I would expect the steam machine to have higher performance but at a disproportional higher price.
Have they said they are ready to commit to a price somewhere? The timing of the steam machine and the ballooning price of disk space and RAM is comically tragic.
Not that I know of. They supposed to announce prices in the first quarter of 2026 but due to memory shortage they have postponed it. As for shipping, they have claimed that they are still planning to launch shipping by the end of first half of 2026. Price is estimated at $800-$1000. Shortage might increase it.
Finally.
It’s something I’ve wanted since the Xbox One X was announced 8 years ago.
There’s no reason for these powerful machines to be single purpose devices anymore.
My only concern is that this might be coming in too late. I don’t know if this is enough to save the Xbox brand.
Yeah, if the Series S could have run my Steam library, I’d have got one years ago when it was cheap.
Like honestly though, in what way will it be significantly different than currently? All the games they put out are just also on PC so what, things stay essentially the same?
I doubt they’ll allow me to play my steam games, will it allow side loading of other random games? Do I have to just buy the Xbox version of this PC game to play it? Gamepass Ultimate already includes playing the PC versions of the games which again are identical to the versions on the Xbox. So what really will be the actual difference to the current Xbox?
Is anything in the tech world interesting or good any more? I remember being excited 20 years ago for new inventions. Now its slop, slop, slop, authoritarian surveillance fascism, slop slop slop
Foss projects and indie games are about the only interesting thing now.
I’ll go back to 2005 soon as someone invents a Foss time machine !
This knowledge does me no good if I can’t go to one of these exoplanets and meet a nice Orion lady.
Steam Machine?
Handheld emulation devices
Yes! Super interesting devices, a friendly community, lots of development and you’ll be playing games made before gaming went full enshitification.
Imagine a non-FOSS time machine
We have transferred your clone to 2005, please step into the incinerator.
Non-FOSS time machine? It’s 2005 as a service. Monthly subscription.
I’ve been enjoying the advances in escape room games. mc2games makes some good ones.
The HL2 VR mods are pretty good if you have a headset. Reloading a gun with your physical hands is pretty immersive.
There’s been a silent rise in mystery-themed (Ace Attorney adjacent) games in the East recently. The mysteries get better and better.
Russian games have been innovating a bit to attract Western customers. “No I’m not Human” is one of those. There are also some Russian visual novels that are good thrillers.
Of the games China makes that aren’t gachaslop, some have tried to innovate. This one syncs what the character doing with real world time. So if it would take 10 minutes for a character to do something, it would take 10 actual minutes. The game doesn’t even have to be on during those 10 minutes, so it can be something where you check in every now and then.
Oh man I miss old flash-based escape the room games. Remember the Crimson Room?
I still tune into TechQuickie every once in awhile and I noted how start the difference is between shows like that today and five years ago. All news is bad news anymore.
Is that the show with the liars and thieves?
It’s a show about tech news?
No, you’re not allowed to like anything created by someone who’s ever done something wrong on the internet!
I think you mean TechLinked
I meant TechQuickie.
But Techlinked also
Once we created standards to create everything we see today it became to expensive to invest in alternative home grown solutions. Sadly with the focus of maximizing profit over innovation most ideas just revolve around the existing infrastructure in place to do what they want. I hate it as well and everything feels very stagnant.
That and large shitty patent laws
Ironically, there are a couple of things in the tech world right now that I’m extremely interested in. But you would likely downvote me if I mentioned them.
You got downvoted for mentioning you’d get downvoted! OK, I’ll bite. Based on OP’s comments, As long as it isn’t in AI, surveillance or Microslop WIndows, maybe you have found something for us all?
Afraid I can’t help you, then.
It’s really quite ironic, this is the sort of tech that science fiction has been dreaming of for decades. And now it can’t even be mentioned in tech-oriented forums, can’t even be hinted at, without mobs of negative-nellies dumping on it.
Ah well. I continue to have fun with it, downvotes can’t stop that.
No it isn’t. LLM’s are a fucking technological dead end and will never reach AGI’s.
Quit sucking off Sam Altman and go look into actual AI research, douchebag
Dreaming of, or warning about?
This is going to be one of those “Torment Nexus” things, I take it?
I’m anxious about being on the layoff list because I submitted my self-appraisal without reading the step that says: use ai to summarize your assessment and copy-paste to the summary field. Dammit, I wrote it myself
You just can’t quit bringing up your ai girlfriend, can you ?
You’ll note that I was asked.
So what, who cares about downvotes on Lemmy? Even one more person finding out about some awesome tech is worth it!
Unfortunately they’re just a fucking AI-bro. Not worth your time
Quite true.
Well, I guess the most games-oriented thing is that at the moment I’m generating some cover art for some music I generated earlier to use as part of a tabletop roleplaying campaign I’m in. Custom art, custom music, stuff that a few years ago would have cost me thousands of dollars to commission (and therefore that I would never have dreamed of commissioning - it’s just for me and a couple of friends). That’s pretty awesome, IMO.
Steam Machine, Steam Deck, Steam Frame. Pick your level of console.
Steam EVA Unit is my pick.
Only if it’s Gabe shaped
If you pilot from the stomach area you would have extra padding
Worth the weight
… Thanks, I’ve discovered an entirely new form of hatred, thanks to that comment.
I need the gaben Eva to vore me
List of things I buy the instant they will take my money. Also, grapheneos phone.
If your going Pc pre built route to me Valve built is the answer.
But to me this more lies with concerns with a true blue console experience.
Most people believe Microsoft will have little no success with this strategy either. Outside of hopes to “disrupt” steam machines market share I can’t see this going anywhere.
No matter how you slice it , I think it’s over.
I had to read it several times to understand what you meant, but I suspect that you’re right.
Buying a full pc that will end up being potentially limited to gaming doesn’t really make sense. Valve has a solution that’s more integrated and probably better suited for most consumers.
Steam desktop + moonlight is sick as fk and doesn’t need new hardware.
Good, I’m sick of playing lowest common denominator console ports. Develop for PC and let the consoles have the degraded experience, not the other way around!
Saying this is the death of the platform is stupid. Worst case, it’s at least better than current Xbox, which doesn’t have the option to play PC games. Yeah, it’s going to have all of M$'s spywhere and AI slop, but so would any MS device. I’m not buying this crap, but if you already wanted an Xbox then this is an improvement. Yeah, you’re better off with a PC, especially one running Linux. This has been the case for decades, yet the consoles still sell.
Death of the “platform” as in dedicated hardware designed purely to play games.
Going forward “Xbox” games will just be Windows games.
So yes by my definition, it’s dead as dead as Elvis …
Isn’t the whole point, since the Xbox One, that they didn’t want it to just play games? We don’t consider it dead just because it does more stuff. I guess you can have whatever definition you want for your personal view, but I don’t really think anyone else would agree with it. It’s still going to be a Microsoft controlled platform that’s typically in the living room on a TV. Most people would say it’s dead when they stop having a device in the living room, not when that device gets extra features.
I do not trust that Microsoft will be doing anything other than pushing subscription-based streaming. Call me when they have a robust storefront selling games on par with Steam and hardware that allows you to play these games on or offline. Until then, imma press X to doubt.
I actually think it’s a great idea. The problem is that Microslop is behind it.
Yeah it can be , and Steam already did it and better. But it’s still not a console experience. It’s closer but it’s not equivalent. And for what Xbox has represented this isn’t it …
I think it’s “console enough” that it could still work. Current consoles are really just locked-down PCs anyways.
It’d be no different than the OtherOS functionality on first-run PS3 consoles that allowed them to boot into Linux. Perhaps simpler than that even, given that current consoles already use standard PC hardware and not the Cell architecture the PS3 ran on.
The idea is great because it didn’t come from Microslop. It’s going to be a Steam Machine competitor.
Nah, it’s been pretty clear for some time now that the next Xbox would just be a PC. I don’t think they got this idea from Valve. I’m sure that Valve helped shape their plans, though.
This is the logical progression—the console wars were bad for consimers. I don’t mourn Xbox.
You know, I’m okay with this. If it makes PC gaming more accessible, and if it offers meaningful competition for the Steam Machine, it’s good to have options. Sure it’s Windows, but if it’s just a PC running an Xbox UX, I’m sure you could change the OS to whatever else if you want.
If anything, it does make the PS6 a less appealing choice, because why pick a dedicated console when you can get an (assuming) comparably strong, comparably priced gaming PC?
To me there is some value in having a true console experience. Put a disc in you know it works. Download a game and it plays as good as you can.
Even with Steam Deck you can download games that won’t work or won’t work well.
A lot of people don’t have the patience for that. And so long as consoles can stay under the PC equivalent price I think there will be value.
The issue is most games nowadays don’t work on day one, and you’ll probably have to download patches for it. The main selling point of plug and play for consoles is almost irrelevant with current publisher (and possible development) practices in the industry.
Thats why i just bought a dreamcast again after I had one 20 years ago. Awesome community and so many games, many of which never got popular but are so good. Consoles have few issues and are super easy to repair.
Consoles died when they ushered in “avatars” and constant internet connectivity bullshit. Xbox 360 was the start of the trash.
Dreamcast even has a nice little online gaming community now!
That doesn’t exist anymore. Can’t even play Nintendo without it asking for updates to the system and MarioKart.
There is a huge difference between waiting for an update and installing a game that may not work. It’s a huge difference then fiddling with settings and configs to get it to run smoothly or not crash
Here’s hoping it still has that functionality, I don’t see a reason why it couldn’t.
PC gaming has come a long way that most games nowadays just work, even on Linux. I’m surprised at how many games work without even forcing Proton and no bugs at all, except those that also exist for Windows. That and my controller is seamless. Even VR is working better now.
On the other side, it seems console gaming is more complex than it needed to be and we’ve seen how consoles actually hold back gaming, as a whole, like the situation with the Xbox Series S that has forced developers to either cut content or remove features to make it compatible as that is Microsoft’s requirement when developing a game to be released for their consoles. I don’t remember hearing it, but I’m sure the same is true for the PlayStation side too with the lower end model. Whereas that doesn’t happen for PC exclusive releases. If your PC won’t run it, it’s probably because it’s outdated and that’s a you problem, not something everyone else needs to suffer for because a company like Microsoft is forcing devs to make it compatible with outdated/lower end hardware.
I can’t remember trying a game on my Steam Deck and it didn’t work. Unless you mean setting up a Proton version, then I’ve had that, but the game eventually runs in 9 out of 10 cases. That is exclusive to non-Windows OSes and it could be solved by automating based on the db and make the setting easier to find and change for users, maybe even prompt the user to try another Proton version kind of like Windows’ troubleshooter when it detects a program didn’t install or run correctly. Or when devs make their games natively work with Linux/macOS like they do for Windows which is why games just work there. And if the game doesn’t run well, you just lower the settings which I’ve done for many games with no trouble. Even console games now have the same settings to lower quality to get better performance.
I didn’t get one and my kids didn’t get one. Microslop!
i think this is a bit over dramatic. seems more the next logical step in the “console” world