Will MSFT bet the farm, take the upfront loss on the unit, and try to convince everyone this is both their next handheld and their next mainline living room console at the same time?
Nah. The ROG Ally X they already make with windows 11 and 1 TB is $800+tax. The ROG Ally that came before it was $700 and currently sells for like $400 or so.
The 2TB Rog Ally X is about $1k + tax. I honestly doubt they can get people to pay more than that for a handheld, regardless of the Z2 chip. They are having trouble selling the ones they currently make. Add to this that Lenovo just launched the steam os variant of their newest handheld and it’s significantly cheaper.
Don’t worry it’s going to launch with silksong. Don’t really know what’s the point of releasing a game along a cross-platform console but I guess the publicity is good.
I genuinely have no idea what either a cost-to-produce estimate would be, or what the fuck MSFT thinks their strategy is here.
I am flummoxed.
It basically uses the next version of the same kind of chips that are in the ROG Ally and ROG Ally X… no one has any idea what the actual performance of this thing will be, I’m seeing barely educated guess at … roughly 25% more powerful, basically?
All the other specs seem identical or near identical.
Then you’ve also got the insane tariff situation and MSFT being both based in the US, and I think they still have their largest share of Xbox users in the US, but I’m not sure.
I guess I also wonder if they will pretend this thing is a console when it comes to software mods, and just lock down the bootloader and brick itself if you try to install linux on it.
Because… if you can just flash like Bazzite or SteamOS onto it… you get a roughly 15% game performance boost.
And then at that point MSFT will just have basically developed a product that non morons will use effectively as a competitor’s platform, mainly in the Steam gaming ecosystem… not MSFTs.
Oh dear god it is apparently serious.
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2025/06/08/xbox-handheld-rog-ally-x-games-showcase/
Any guesses for MSRP?
$1200 for the X variant?
$600?
Will MSFT bet the farm, take the upfront loss on the unit, and try to convince everyone this is both their next handheld and their next mainline living room console at the same time?
Nah. The ROG Ally X they already make with windows 11 and 1 TB is $800+tax. The ROG Ally that came before it was $700 and currently sells for like $400 or so.
The 2TB Rog Ally X is about $1k + tax. I honestly doubt they can get people to pay more than that for a handheld, regardless of the Z2 chip. They are having trouble selling the ones they currently make. Add to this that Lenovo just launched the steam os variant of their newest handheld and it’s significantly cheaper.
To be fair, the Legion S uses the Z2 Go chip, which is basically same benchmarks as a Z1 Extreme. If this uses the Z2, that’s gonna be faster.
Who the fuck announces a product on a Sunday? They must not have much hope this will sell…
Today was the xbox showcase
Right? Xbox showcase is always on a Sunday. Even when E3 was a thing.
Don’t worry it’s going to launch with silksong. Don’t really know what’s the point of releasing a game along a cross-platform console but I guess the publicity is good.
1200? They never expected to make a profit but they’re in too deep to turn back now.
I genuinely have no idea what either a cost-to-produce estimate would be, or what the fuck MSFT thinks their strategy is here.
I am flummoxed.
It basically uses the next version of the same kind of chips that are in the ROG Ally and ROG Ally X… no one has any idea what the actual performance of this thing will be, I’m seeing barely educated guess at … roughly 25% more powerful, basically?
All the other specs seem identical or near identical.
Then you’ve also got the insane tariff situation and MSFT being both based in the US, and I think they still have their largest share of Xbox users in the US, but I’m not sure.
I guess I also wonder if they will pretend this thing is a console when it comes to software mods, and just lock down the bootloader and brick itself if you try to install linux on it.
Because… if you can just flash like Bazzite or SteamOS onto it… you get a roughly 15% game performance boost.
And then at that point MSFT will just have basically developed a product that non morons will use effectively as a competitor’s platform, mainly in the Steam gaming ecosystem… not MSFTs.
I have a lot of questions about all of this.