Microsoft quietly teased its next-generation Xbox by showcasing its collaboration with Asus “to deliver two Xbox Ally handhelds to the market later this 12 months,” writes The Verge’s Tom Warren. From the report: The Xbox Ally handhelds run Home windows, however the Xbox workforce has labored with Home windows engineers in addition these PC handhelds right into a full-screen Xbox UI. The Home windows desktop would not even totally load, and you utilize the Xbox app UI as a launcher to get to all of your video games (even Steam titles) and apps like Discord. Whereas the mix of Home windows and Xbox right here is intriguing, it is the way in which that Microsoft is positioning these units that actually caught my consideration.
“That is an Xbox,” stated Microsoft through the reveal, clearly increasing its advertising push past a single console to each display screen and system. All of it felt like a real Xbox handheld reveal. There was even an 11-minute-long behind-the-scenes video on the Xbox Ally handhelds, filmed in an identical fashion to Microsoft’s “Challenge Scorpio” Xbox One X reveal from practically 9 years in the past. “It is a breakthrough second for Xbox,” Carl Ledbetter, a 30-year Microsoft design veteran, says within the video. Ledbetter helped design the unique IntelliMouse, the Xbox 360 Slim, the Xbox One X, and loads of different Microsoft units. When Ledbetter is concerned, you already know it is greater than only a easy accomplice venture with Asus.
“For the primary time, a participant goes to have the ability to maintain the facility of the Xbox expertise of their hand, and take it with them wherever they need to go,” says Xbox president Sarah Bond, in the identical video. Microsoft thinks of the Xbox Ally handhelds as Xbox consoles with the liberty of Home windows, and I believe the next-gen Xbox goes to look very related consequently.
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