This will probably be the biggest competition the Steam Deck has within the handheld PC space.
Most noteworthy is that windows is finally focusing on providing a decent handheld experience, including booting straight to a controller friendly interface, and reducing background processes for better fps and battery.
Edit: The handheld Xbox UI will.come to all windows PCs, but it’s not clear if the reduced performance bloat version will be available. It sounds like only Xbox branded devices may get the full benefit of optimized windows.
It’s also the ugliest handheld PC yet (imo), but I can appreciate that they’re pushing for comfort over looks.
So… if this device does not come with some kind of even more locked down than normal bootloader/uefi/tpm system…
We know that SteamOS is roughly 15% faster at running games, 15% more fps in a same for same hardware and game settings comparison.
They say its running a stripped down (aka debloated) version of Win 11, but frankly, I call bullshit.
Sure, it may take a bit for proper driver support to be developed for the new Z2 apus… but uh…
You can just buy this thing, wipe out windows, flash SteamOS or Bazzite onto it, and get more FPS, and now you basically exist in the SteamOS ecosystem (or also GOG or whatever).
At that point, MSFT has functionally built a product that will be used on their competitor’s ecosystem… when the whole point of this thing is to keep people in the Xbox ecosystem.
Uh, also… does this thing come with CoPilot?
Is it just gonna be or at least be capable of … snapping automatic acreen grabs of everything you are doing, all the time?
Also, don’t forget to keep paying for Xbox
LiveGamepass… for the privelege… of all of this?I don’t think there’s going to be a bunch of difference with the Z2 over the Z1, and you’ve gotta remember that they’re just 8000/9000 CPUs with Radeon graphics. AMD open sources their drivers too.
Ah, right, duh.
Ok so yeah, uh… the Z2 Extreme supposedly is going to have some kind of ‘AI’ functionality or additional component… god knows what that means…
Theoretically it could be more difficult for open source devs to fully leverage that, even if the drivers are open source…
But yeah, for the rest of it, it probably would not take much time at all given that Bazzite and SteamOS already run on the last generation of the same chips.
EDIT: On second thought: I wouldn’t put it past MSFT to go out of their way to invent an entirely new input controller interface for the buttons and thumbsticks and such, that would require open source devs to reverse engineer it a bit to properly interface with it.
There’s two versions of the Z2E, the one that is labelled “AI” has an NPU. More than any LLM crap, those NPUs can be really good for local ML features that increase accessibility for people. As for how well that’ll be supported on Linux, I’m not sure.
On the point of* your edit, MSFT have said that it’s going to support third-party stores directly in their game interface. I think it’s fairly unlikely that they’re going to break from their already exisiting Xbox controller input scheme. They already have a monopoly there, even third-party devices like the Legion Go use the Xbox layout and input scheme.
They also seem to be pivoting towards trying to make “Xbox PC” something to replace Steam (see the end of the Super Meat Boy 3d trailer).
I wouldn’t be surprised if they try and lock out developers from putting games on Steam and being exclusive to “Xbox PC”.
Worked so well for Xbox Live for Windows…
…and this risk is exactly the reason we got SteamOS, Deck and Proton.
It is hilarious to see Microsoft put so much effort into proving to bystanders that what Valve did was necessary for the industry.
I dunno, I kind of believe them when they claim they seriously debloated Windows. I bet they actually used SteamOS benchmarks to sway the higher ups to be allowed to do this. It will be interesting to see benchmarks when this thing is released.
Although I also believe that they would lock down the bootloader. And not release this mode to the general public. They haven’t been very lenient with the media people testing these things. They weren’t even allowed make their own videos of the interface or games running on them.
I mean, I can’t of course prove anything, but uh.
I used to work for MSFT.
I very much doubt thet are capable of meaningfully streamlining Windows.
And uh also no, no, the SteamOS Benchmarks came out less than a week before this announcement.
This announcement means they have been working on this project for a year or so, at least, and just haven’t publically mentioned anything definitive untill now.
They already have the whole thing designed and agreements worked out with all the mfg partners involved.
You don’t do a public announcement for a release in a few months unless you’ve got the assembly line and logistics systems in place ready to start cranking these things out after maybe a few more weeks of minor touchups.
You don’t just have a single big meeting and then BLAM! That is not how this works.
Most likely, around the time the SteamDeck OLED came out, as in you can buy one now, came out… thats around the time MSFT had at least some higher ups and teams start brainstorming making their own, and then at some point about a year ago, they decided to actually do it.
I’m pretty sure that this “streamlined, gaming-first” development team will last right up to the moment they come into conflict with any other corporate goal.
You’re not doing AI-first? You’re not injecting Bing into every experience? Where are all the ads? Oops, so sorry, your role has been made redundant.
Pretty much exactly.
There are so, so many tech bros who build their identity around not being replacable… when in fact, they are.
Then their identity collapses and they become crypto bros, some other kind of obvious start-up scammers…
I meant that they maybe used SteamOS (or a similar distribution) on whatever prototype they had to make some benchmarks to compare against stock Windows or their own Windows build.
But you seem to have better insight into the way they work.
Sorry, I edited in more details after you replied.
But uh yeah, as you yourself have said… MSFT is very good at being secretive and opaque… even internally, there is a massive culture of compartmentalizing information, to say nothing of outward facing info.
I would say that untill independent reviewers get their hands on these things to do teardowns and benchmarks, trust nothing, all their claims are just marketing BS.
Im not saying this version of Windows won’t be better than mainline Windows, in terms of game performance.
I am saying I’ll eat a sock if it ends up being even as efficient as SteamOS or Bazzite in a same hardware same game same settings frame rate test of 20ish modern games.