this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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Linux Gaming

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[–] cron@feddit.org 83 points 1 week ago

From what I saw, it's more or less just a new app that starts when windows boots up. Plus some improvements like "the controller now works in UAC prompts" - which tells me that they didn't really learn anything.

[–] anaVal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 58 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This got me thinking that Valve is the best competitor to Xbox. Instead of getting to release some walled garden, single store handheld they have to open it up to other stores because otherwise people would just buy a SteamDeck.

But everyone who cares about handheld gaming already has a steam deck and this is going to be more expensive so I don't see the point anyway.

[–] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 23 points 1 week ago

Moar power! More more more more!!!

boots up an indie roguelite

[–] OrganicMustard@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

I guess they are trying to get people already paying for game pass to buy it, because you can play everything on it. But then people won't be able to cancel their subscription or they'll have a very expensive paperweight without games.

[–] rdri@lemmy.world 41 points 1 week ago

Players on either device will be able to tap into Gaming Copilot ...

...yeah

[–] BigTrout75@lemmy.world 40 points 1 week ago (2 children)

"Freedom of Windows" "Power of Xbox" Good stuff. We should make some more. "From a brand you can trust" "Pro gamers choose ... " "Powered by Copilot and Game pass"

[–] And009@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well gamepass on a cheap handheld doesn't sound so bad tbh

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

and copilot on a cheap handheld that cannot do anything except record you 24/7 and send it off to MS servers?

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[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

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?

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I appreciate the info and analysis!

The reason I have no idea what the pricing will be... is that well, GPU prices are nonsense that stick nowhere near MSRP, we got tariffs, we got all game prices getting jacked up, we got massive layoffs at MSFT, they are hurting for money...

And unless this handheld significantly outperforms other existing handhelds... I just don't think many would buy it at basically any price...

But I also think MSFT is delusional about that, and I don't think they have the depth of coin in their pockets to try to do a loss leader approach, and I think they're more likely to just price it the same way cars and houses and rent are ludicrously overpriced, a price based more on 'we need to pay our debts' than on 'how do we have a sensible long term strategy in this market'.

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Who the fuck announces a product on a Sunday? They must not have much hope this will sell...

[–] Gerudo@lemm.ee 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Today was the xbox showcase

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[–] anaVal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago

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.

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[–] LambdaRX@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Compared to Xbox OS, Windows is very free.

[–] db2@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago
[–] enbiousenvy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

yea the full sentence makes more sense. "freedom of windows, power of xbox" implies it's trying to compare to previous xbox experience, not other OS.

Although still, never had a console, but I thought a gaming PC is usually more powerful than xbox though. Or I could get mad overthinking of what do they meam by power, what do they mean by freedom. This is why I often dont like marketing speak & just disregard it.

[–] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Honestly

As compared to consoles? Windows is pretty free.

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Other than the Windows tax, ads, bloatware, constant intrusive up-sell attempts…

[–] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Again

COMPARED TO CONSOLES? That's basically paradise.

Modern, unhacked and unmodded Consoles are:

  1. Completely locked down, not only do they not let you install applications not approved by the manufacturer, in reality you can ONLY buy them from the manufacturer and you pay a hefty tax for that "privilege".

  2. Feeding you ads and upsell attempts whenever you turn them on, as the UI has basically been redesigned to try to sell you more shit first and make getting to your actual games take a few extra steps

  3. Any undesired feature in a console's OS is something you just have to accept and move on. Powerusers killing Windows bloat with third party tools is a time-honoured tradition that goes back to Windows 3.11

I'm not saying Windows is good.

I'm saying that for someone coming from a PlayStation or a traditional XBoXSeXxxx (I love making jokes out of this name), this whitelabelled ROG Ally machine would feel like finally being able to breathe. Just for the fact that you can use more than one storefront and install applications from wherever you want.

Let me put it this way:

Linux is an anarchist commune. True freedom.

Windows is an American Style Capitalist Republic. Freedom*********** with a thousand asterisks more. BUT for someone coming from the North Korea that is playing on consoles (or using an iOS mobile device or...), it DOES feel like finally breathing free.

[–] The_Decryptor@aussie.zone 5 points 1 week ago

Also, compared to something like the Switch? I don't see MS remotely bricking these devices if you run "homebrew" on them.

That's a really good comparison

[–] cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 24 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)
[–] stephen01king@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I mean, the Zune is fucking amazing.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (5 children)

You can Google it. The zune was far superior to iPods but software was absolute dog shit

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[–] LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

ROFL More like chains of Microsoft!

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 7 points 1 week ago (7 children)

The one thing I took away from it was that the Xbox-button acts as alt tab. I WANT THE SAME FROM MY STEAM DECK IN DESKTOP MODE!

But in Desktop mode the Steam button does absolutely nothing while a game is running.

[–] Nilz@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Why do you use desktop mode for a game?

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I like to have other apps like a browser easily accessible with proper window management. And most of my games are non-Steam games which allow me to easily swap between desktop and gamepad bindings easily to alt tab out.

And I've found that running KDE Plasma Wayland has no visible performance impact either. No idea why they use X11 in SteamOS.

[–] JustARaccoon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Steam os is pretty old now, compared to the Wayland readiness timeline, and proton doesn't fully support Wayland yet

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ah, but the really funny thing is how Gaming Mode works.

They start the gamescope wayland compositor which launches an XWayland session to run the Steam client in. Which will start gamescope to run the game, which will use a second XWayland session to actually run the game in.

It'll probably take at least two more years until they can get rid of X.

[–] JustARaccoon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Oh god, why have you cursed me with such knowledge

[–] WereCat@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Remote play for whatever reason works far better in desktop mode

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[–] shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We've known for a bit they were going to do this.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 3 points 1 week ago

I'm honestly surprised they didn't do it sooner. They already had half of the work done for Xbox. Should have been relatively easy to start with just the interface for all PCs and then iterate from there.

[–] Surp@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I saw that it's a trimmed down version of windows so I'm interested in giving it a chance. Who knows, maybe we will be able to install said trimmed down version on regular hardware which would be interesting.

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[–] viral.vegabond@piefed.social 6 points 1 week ago

🧐

Are they about to do some kind of shitty silk song gamepass exclusive??

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 1 week ago (4 children)
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[–] ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

That's a typo, it's supposed to be an R in the middle there, not an F

[–] Covenant@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

Yes it is a joke

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