/ch3/ - Video Games

I don't think I could care less

The ROG Xbox Ally is expected to be priced between $499 and $599, while the more powerful ROG Xbox Ally X is predicted to cost between $750 and $800. The dock will be extra.

>>12403
Its an Xbox branded ROG Ally
This isn't a first party thing

>>12403
>It's just an ROG Ally with the XBOX logo…
Microsoft managed to make something more lame than Sony's PS Portal.

These things never get scalpted

What probably happened is that ROG was getting ready to provide SteamOS as an option due to consumer demand and Microsoft stepped in with a very lucrative branding deal.

>>12410
First party is a ridiculous term to use as all they've ever done is license or buy out third party products to brand it as their own. Why bother recreating a handheld that would have the same components inside when you can just modify a few logos on an existing product and change the packaging?

>>12502
>consumer demand
Reminder they've only sold 4 million Steam Deck.

>>12503
>Digital store only product with stock issues and barely any marketing
Sounds like a success considering they keep 100% of every Deck sale.

>>12503
The demand comes from benchmarks showing that SteamOS runs the average game slightly better than modern Windows 10/11 while using less power.
>>12509
That's 100% of a negative number. They're sold at an estimated $100 loss for the cheapest 64GB model by industry researchers and Gabe has said publicly they're sold at a loss.

>>12510
Anyone who owns a Deck will buy games from Steam.

>>12406
Microcucks could've keep their prices dirty cheap once Nintendo put the price tag on the Switch 2, but they also have to shoot themselves in the foot and loosing their teeth during the recoil by also rising their prices. I guess maintaining leftwing freeloaders comes with a hefty price.

>>12497
Their controllers are so sluggish they even have a delayed reaction when emulating shit, checkmate scalpers.

Honestly, it does seem the handheld PC market is the primary upcoming console market - the issue is that neither Soyny or Microshart have any investment in it - Soyny having abandoned the Vita like the shithead retards they are ever since they became American, and Microshart never being in it to begin with (the ROG basically just being a rebranded sticker). Nintendies will suck up shit and thank Miyamoto for the luxury, but they're their own bag of worms.
GabeN's powermove of making the Deck compatible with Linux really set the precedent that the proprietary bullshit that the major names have got comfortable with just isn't going to fly. Why pay $60 for GoyPass+ when you can just run your own internet.
That said, from an early point of view; Steam has basically already won out the high-end handheld PC market (especially whenever they bother to do the Steam Deck 2), but the low-end market has a lot of potential. I think Ambernic, Retroid & AYN (in order of price / hardware power) are going to be names people get more familiar with, as they target the lower price points + smaller form factors than the Deck, with respectable enough hardware that can emulate old systems on a premium feeling device. If you've tried to emulate on your phone, you'll understand how necessary hardware buttons / joysticks are in comparison.

I think Retroid in particular is poised to make big gains (if I was a stocks faggot, I'd throw some money at them). Retroid Pocket 5 is just slightly too underpowered to be a long-term buy right now (older emulation exists, but it's ultimately niche; nobody's really rushing to play Shantae on original form factor hardware, PS1 Crash 1 isn't enough to sell a handheld, and being spotty on PS2-era isn't a good sell), but I think the upcoming Retroid Pocket 6, reliably being able to emulate every single game from PS2 / Wii U / Vita & the majority of the PS3 / XB360 / Switch library, for a one-time cost of ~$250-300 (free gaemz emulated after), with the form factor of a Vita + OLED + Hall Effect sticks + mega-long battery life is going to be a pretty hard deal to beat. Even a normalfag can understand the marketing appeal of "pocket-sized XBox360". At which point it's a race for whoever can get the PS4/XB1 working on a small handheld at an affordable price, at which point it's owari da for the console wars - games today like the new COD are still being developed for that hardware grade in mind. The Gen 6/7-capable handhelds will naturally have the longevity that will mean G A M E R S can just wait until the hardware gets to Gen 8 / modern standards.

Also, the current state of vidya releases might be dogshit, but the size of the 6th Gen Era + the 7th Gen era is the point in which graphicsfagging became diminishing returns + emulation finally being mostly clean experience is a huge library of still-as-good-as-the-day-they-were-made games that most gamers haven't had the chance to touch on properly. For example, who cares if the Gears remake looks like shitty anti-soul-gassed UE5slop - we're rapidly reaching the point that just running the original Gears on a dedicated handheld that's almost cheaper than the remake + online + gamepass combined is a viable option. Plus, smaller screens are less graphically intensive - so a lot of the loss in fidelity becomes practically unnoticeable; and oldschool focus on art direction makes up for it too.


tl;dr I'm keeping an eye on the Retroid Pocket 6 release

>>12511
I circumvented it via piracy.