Microsoft quietly teased its next-generation Xbox by showcasing its collaboration with Asus “to carry 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 group 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 mixture of Home windows and Xbox right here is intriguing, it is the best way that Microsoft is positioning these units that actually caught my consideration.
“That is an Xbox,” mentioned Microsoft throughout the reveal, clearly increasing its advertising push past a single console to each display and gadget. 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 analogous type to Microsoft’s “Mission Scorpio” Xbox One X reveal from almost 9 years in the past. “This can be 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, it is greater than only a easy associate challenge 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 feel the next-gen Xbox goes to look very related because of this.
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