← Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast
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This episode is brought to you by White Claw Search.
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Great podcast pick friend. No surprises there. After all, you're all about finding the
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tastiest flavors out there, just like White Claw Surge.
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Unleash White Claw Surge.
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Please drink responsibly. Hard seltzer with flavors.
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8% alcohol by volume.
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White cloth seltzer works Chicago, Illinois.
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Spring is here and there's a whole new way to chai at Starbucks that's
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made perfect for you. Choose your sweetness.
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Dial it up.
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Or keep things light. Add a touch of pistachio, a hint
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of strawberry or vanilla.
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Or make it a spring classic with lavender.
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Because this season, there's endless ways to chai at Starbucks. What's up, everybody and welcome to today's Kind of Funny Games cast for October 15, 2025. I'm Snowbike Mike, one of your hosts and today we are brought to you by Solo leveling Arise Overdrive, the action RPG based on the popular solo leveling franchise that launches on November 17 and is open for pre orders of wish listing on Steam and Xbox PC right now. But for all my best friends over at TwitchCon, you can experience an exclusive demo at the Solo Leveling Arise Overdrive booth this weekend. And we're also brought to you by Shady Rays. But I'll tell you all about that in just a little bit. Guys, let's jump into it. Of course, today's gamescast is a very special one. We have the XCAST green backdrop here, we got the desk set up, and I got three awesome dudes to talk about a brand new Xbox product. Let's go down the list. Of course. Hi, Paris. Lily. How are you over on the remote side of things?
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I'm doing fantastic. It is always great to see your beautiful face, Mike.
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Thank you.
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And looking forward to this episode. Hi, Tim and Andy.
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Oh, hello.
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No compliments.
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Paris, what do you think about my cool baseball coach Stanford jackets? Do you like this?
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D
Oh, I love it, man. I mean, you're coach Mike.
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Appreciate that.
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D
Hey, look, I saw what Lego party tweeted at you.
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Paris, just know that if you didn't compliment it enough, he would not wear it.
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I would have checked the way.
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Put a napkin on it.
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Of course. Welcome into Paris. I'm very excited to talk with Paris today about all things green. Of course, we also have Tim Geddes, my main man, the master of hype. Hi, Tim.
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I. Hello, Mike. I love that you're going for this like Winnie the Pooh chic situation going on. Can you stand up? Can you show the people what we're working with here?
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What do we got? Look at that.
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Look at this guy.
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C
Oh yeah, color coordination.
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I'm liking that.
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You know.
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And you're wearing the glasses.
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Yeah, I'm wearing the glasses because I want to be able to see the chat today. I'm a little too far away. Lighting, you know, and it's a whole thing. It's a small screen too. Of course. Down at the end of the desk we have my best friend Andy Cortez.
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Hello everybody.
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Andy, hold it up. What are we talking about today, Andy?
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We're talking about the Rog Xbox Ally
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X and you, you said that name right off the top of the dome. You didn't have to look at a paper. You got it right.
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You nailed it today. Your kind of funny games cast is all about that Rog Xbox Ally X and our the kind of funny teams review of the brand new handheld. We're going to be talking all things Xbox Rog Ally X. I'm very excited about that. Of course. Don't forget that this is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday we run you through all of the nerdy reviews, previews and topics in the video game world that you need to know about live on YouTube, Twitch and of course on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, consider supporting us with the kind of funny membership available on patreon. You can YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcast to get all of our shows ad free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show, Greg Way, which I'm taking over today. You'll get that later this afternoon for a chance to be part of the show. Submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats and I really want to hear from you, the best friend audience out there. Are you on the fence with this product? Are you already pre ordering it? Are you going to go into the shops tomorrow and buy it? Where do you stand on this brand new handheld coming your way from Xbox and of course ASUS. Of course. We're an 11 person small business, all about live talk shows. Kind of funny games. Daily was sucker punch talking about their next games after Yote. No, you did.
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We talked about Yote's success and how it's killing it on pace with, you know, I think it's only second to Spider Man 2.
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C
Wow.
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Wow, that's impressive. Okay. You have been very good and of course after this I Sit down with Bennett fy. Actually, wow. We don't really sit down. We're going to race to the top. Amazing. Me and one of the creators of Baby Steps. We'll sit down Bennett fy. The man, the myth, the legend. And we will race up to the top of Baby Steps while I interview him all about his experience with the game and all of his past games and beyond. So check that one out. Of course. Thank you to our kind of funny supporters and our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining. Enough of all that housekeeping guys. Let's get in to topic of the show. Today's topic of the show is the Rog Xbox Ally X review. Before we jump in, of course, this is available tomorrow, October 16, 2025. The Xbox Ally X is sitting at $999.99 and then the Xbox Ally is sitting at $599.99. So something to keep an eye out for stopping there.
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We were playing the me and Andy for sure on the X. We did not play on the the other, the white version. Paris, did you. Which one did you get?
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Same.
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Okay, so you.
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I. I have the X. I don't have the white version.
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We will be talking about the super edition right there. The X version of this. Paris, before we start, I would like you to hit me with a little bit of the tech specs. When I talk about you Paris, and think about you, you know, the tech side of things, I want you to give me a little deep dive really quick into what players can expect tech wise out of this machine.
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D
In honor of Andy, period, point blank period. Or how the hell you say it, you make fun of me. Yeah, there you go. No. So the Asus Rog Xbox Ally X is a 7 inch IPS 1080p screen at 120Hz. It is VRR capable. It has a 1 TB m2 SSD drive. It has 24 gigabytes of DDR5 RAM as well. What else from a technical standpoint. So CPU wise this is the AMD Z2 extreme AI processor in it. It does have an NPU chip as well. For AI functionality. Some of what is already available is the advanced shader caching that it's able to do. Co Pilot Beta is already available. From AI standpoint, there will be future AI capabilities that will come probably early, you know, early to mid next as well. From a hardware standpoint, it's very solid. It has clear similarities to the current Ally X that's already available. But that Z2 extreme processor is, is more along with obviously having additional RAM at 24 gigabytes and having that 1 terabyte SSD. I think I covered everything from a tech spec.
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Thank you Paris. Tim.
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Yes.
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For the people like me maybe don't know all the tech stuff is that strong.
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Oh yeah, oh yeah, definitely. That is in terms of the, the PC handheld space that we have currently like that is on the higher end, not the highest, but by far not the lowest. I, I would say that it is definitively high end. Okay.
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Yeah I like that.
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D
Well this is high end for, for handhelds on the market. This is at the high end for sure.
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Yeah, I love him.
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Again at the highest end because we do have the Legion stuff that is but even that is an additional $400 that we're talking about. So we're, we're in a very much a dollar space of by hundreds by the way, the more hundreds of dollars you spend, the technically more impressive it's going to be. Does that really matter at the end of the day though that might be the conversation at hand.
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Well let's.
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I can comment, I can comment on the Xbox Ally the white one. Just so people understand some of the comparisons of it because I have had some hands on with it over the summer. So from a processor it does have a chip which everyone is saying is essentially the Steam Deck chip in it as well. So from from a performance standpoint it has the same 1080p IPS screen. It does VRR but it only has 16 gigabytes of DDR5 RAM and it has 512 gigabytes for the SSD. It, it is. It is being marketed to play games at 720p but to the point as far as this review I've not had extended hands on time with it so I can't performance or anything like that. But. And you know Tim already talked about the price on it that one or I think you did. Mike comes in at 600 599.99.
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That is correct. A quick chat, Quick question from the chat comic. Sam's writes in Paris expandable storage on this as well.
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Interesting. So it does have a micro SD slot. I forgot to mention that. And you can put put that in as well. I didn't have great success with it because the only one I had was the SD card that I had in my Steam Deck a terabyte. I, I formatted it, I put it in the Ally X it saw it but for whatever reason it was not recognizing it as a Usable drive. I reached out to Xbox about it. They gave me a couple things to try and as of us doing this today, I've not done those. So I unfortunately can't talk about expanding how that works other than it should be working. They said it should work just fine. But my SD card, I don't know if it was because I had it in Steam Deck already. Something about it wasn't reading correctly, but it didn't work for me.
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Okay, well, before we get into your reviews, the three of you, I do want to go down the table because it is very exciting, especially as an Xbox gamer myself. The idea of the Xbox handheld. I've been dreaming of this for a long time. So of course, Tim, I'll start off with you. What were you kind of looking forward to or looking really hard at over these two week review period? What were some of the things you wanted to hit? What are the things that you were really looking for out of this product?
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C
I feel like it falls into three separate categories. When I was looking at this device, there's the objective, the subjective and the how much are you invested in the Xbox ecosystem and how well does this device pay off on that investment? And in the three different ways for me, I was looking at it objectively. Does this do what it is set out to do, which is play PC games very well in a handheld fashion in comparison to other handhelds? And then the subjective is how does it feel? How do I like the experience of it? The features that it has, the, the. The quality of the plastic itself, the buttons, all of that. Like that's a subjective thing, right? And then there's the ecosystem of if you've been invested in Xbox as long as somebody like Snowbike Mike has or Paris has been, are you going to be able to reap benefits beyond what other devices are offering you because of the Xbox os? So that's what I was looking for.
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B
I like that. Andy, I go to you. You're always talking about resolution, the visual triangle with quality as well. Big triple A titles down to indie. What were some of the things you were looking at during this review period?
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I tried to focus a decent amount on the AAA experience because I know that this thing will easily play a lot of the indies that we love and care about. And I still ended up playing a decent amount of indies on this anyway because I just needed to play stuff for review anyway. But I definitely tried to dive more into a bit more into the AAA side than I would have on my Steam deck because I want to. I I remember what these games looked like on my Steam deck and I am able to compare them side by side. Which ones is the difference that much higher am I getting, you know, or are they just kind of not too noticeable to really be worth the, the money and, and the cost of a brand new device?
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Paris, of course you have a big hour long review already up on your YouTube channel. I got to watch earlier today. I'm very excited for you to bring your eyes to this review as well. But what were some of the things you were looking at during your review period that you really wanted to focus on?
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So my, it was three things for me. I wanted to test out the UI usability, right? Is it very easy to switch between the multiple digital stores and get access to the games without too much fuss going into the windows of things? Right Then from a performance level I wanted to see how did the big AAA games perform on, on this device. So Cyberpunk was kind of my big use case for that. And then the third was just how comfortable was it with the, with these hand, with these, these handles on it, the ergonomics of it, long play sessions. Did it feel good in the hands? Because when you initially pick this thing up it does feel heavy. But what I've noticed is when you're just using it, the, the weight is. Seems to be distributed pretty evenly. It's very comfortable to use. I didn't really have any problem with that. So those are kind of the three big things that I was looking for.
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I like that. Well, these three guys right here have gotten to sit down and review this product. I'm very excited. Let's get into it. Tim?
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Yeah.
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What do you think of the Rog Xbox Ally X? Give me your review. It's time.
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I think it's an incredibly impressive piece of technology. I think that we've made a lot of strides in the last couple of years and I think that there's been very few misses in the handheld market in terms of the big PC handhelds. Like post Steam Deck, right where we look at what ASUS has done with the Ally brands and I feel like they've really kind of found a position for themselves and proven that they, they got the stuff when it comes to tech and what gamers are looking for when they're buying these products and you look at Lenovo with legions as well and of course the Steam Deck and I feel like those three at the very least are putting out products that people are vibing with and are continuously getting iteratively better. And I think that a new challenger entering the field with the form of the. The os. At least here, I think that's the. The biggest question is does it work? Does it live up to the expectations? And I think the answer is yes, but we're not fully there. I do think that the os, I, I believe in it, I believe they're going to support it. I believe it's going to iron out all the kinks. The majority of it is I think that this is going to be a great way for a lot of people to play games. I just don't think it's as pick up and play as they might have been marketing it necessarily to people that have never touched one of these things and maybe aren't PC gamers at all. And this is going to be their entry point. I do think that it's. There is still a hurdle to get over. Having said that, I don't need the hurdles that big and I think that we are getting to a point that the education of PC gaming and understanding of it all is something that a lot of console gamers are, if they're not already going to have to get over because this is the future that is going to come to our living rooms very soon if it's not already. And I think that that's the OS side of it and I think that if you've been invested in it or you're planning to invest, it's a great choice. The implementation of Game Pass right there is awesome. The storefronts all being accessible. One beautiful looking user interface that allows you to jump into your Steam collection as seamlessly as Game Pass, as seamlessly as your own games on Xbox. It just works. It's awesome. It's what you would expect in terms of the objective stuff I was talking about. Yeah, very impressed. The 1080p screen is beautiful. Having that VRR is very important for some of the bigger AAA games on the system and playing things like Expedition 33. It ran way better than my initial experiences just actually playing the game on my Steam deck OLED about a couple months ago. Again, that makes total sense based on the Tech boost. But the Tech boost is showing that the value of it there in terms of the subjective stuff. That's where again this is totally subjective. I unfortunately am I. Oh a lot of the little things for me that I'm like I don't like this, I don't like this. So I'm not going to use this device that much. Going further, I don't like the feel of the. I love the grips Like, I love the handles. Like, it being like controller handles, having handles. The PlayStation Portal, it's awesome. And I think that's actually even way more comfortable ergonomically than the PlayStation Portal. Like, it feels very, very quality in that sense. But the quality of the plastic itself, I just don't like it. And talking to different people at the office, it seems pretty split. So I don't think that this is a thing of. There's not a right, there's not a wrong. I just know that I'm holding it. I'm like, ah, I don't like how this feels. The buttons were, for me, were very sticky. Very, very, very sticky. Very loud. I've played handheld gaming devices next to Gia as we watch Real Housewives for hundreds of hours over the last couple of years, and she hasn't ever questioned buttons until the last two weeks where she was like, what is happening? This is so loud. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm playing Hades 2. You know, so that I. That was a major problem for me for my use case of how I use this device, how I use handheld gaming devices. Right. So. And also, at the end of the day, the screen is so good. I'm an oled. I. I am just such a privileged little piece of at this point when it comes to oled, where I just can't get over how much I prefer oled, despite the fact that this is an incredible screen and the resolution is the bump in playing Hades 2, for example, seeing it in 1080p running at a higher frame rate. Yeah, man, it looks great on this. So I don't think you're gonna go wrong. But I do think that there is a subjective take that I would definitely suggest you go to a Best Buy and get your hands on these different things to see what you like, because it is a big investment for this type of product.
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Monster Energy, everybody knows White Monster Zero Ultra, that's the og it kicked off this whole zero sugar energy drink thing. But Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise, and Vice Guava. And they all bring the Monster Energy punch.
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C
So if you've been living in the
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B
White can branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe,
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and every single one is Zero Sugar
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Tap the banner to learn more. I like that, Tim. Paris, let's move over to you next. Paris, give me your rundown. Give me the review.
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D
So. Excuse me. So I've essentially had about two weeks with, with the device since I'm able to Pick it up. So I've just run the gambit of all the games. Like it's funny. Tim's talking about Hades too because God damn it really stands out on, on this device. I love it. I'll go back to Cyberpunk because I think that's again the one from a performance standpoint that people can kind of use as. As a bench, you know, like a gold standard of what they want to look for for this game. So being able to play Cyberpunk on this, I was to play it at the Steam Deck preset. I was getting high 70s, low 80s. You know, from an FPS standpoint, played fine for me. I really enjoyed it. If I bump the ray tracing low setting, I mean obviously the lighting, everything's a little better. But then the frame rate dropped all the way down into the high 30s, low 40s. Right. So I just kept it at Steam Deck preset. I figured I could lock it in at a smooth 60. Doing it that way, no problem going to some of the points that Tim talked about. I actually like the feel of it. I. I think the grips really worked on this. Is it one for one feeling like an Xbox controller? No. But it pretty damn close for a handheld. It felt very natural to be able to use for like. It's funny you're talking about the noise on the buttons. I guess I never even considered that. But that Xbox button became very intuitive for me to be able to start to navigate through the various menus and get to certain things that I needed to do. I like that. There's also a shortcut to the army crate button right above it as well. So all that, that was fine. My issue. And when we step down from AAA games, when we start talking about the Silk songs and the intros and obviously even I think you could put Hades two in this performance. Fantastic. I mean the processor, all that in here of what it does to play video games. A plus. Got no issues with that at all. My issues comes into which I told you was my first thing. I'm always going to compare this to the Steam Deck because I feel that Valve nailed it with the UI of the Steam Deck of Steam os. I pressed that power button. I'm in that ui. I never have to leave it to do anything unless I so choose. I want to tinker and go to desktop. That's a choice. I'm not forced to do it. It does the job of playing video games. This boots up into the Xbox full screen experience. It mostly does everything I want it to do. Again, if I'M just playing a game out of the Xbox app. I never have to leave that experience that works just fine. My issues comes into when I want to flip over, I gotta, you know, there's shortcuts to be able to install Steam, the Epic Store, Ubisoft battle, you know, battle.net stuff like that, which is fine. But now when I actually want to install a Steam game, I got to flip over to Steam and do that. The navigation, this is where Windows comes back into play and it gets a little wonky where it.
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C
And it rears mostly.
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D
Exactly. It mostly works, but it doesn't work a hundred percent of the time. And I knew this going in. I talked to various people at Xbox over the summer and they pretty much knew that hey, it's not going to be 100 perfect at launch and it's not. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done from a Windows usability UI standpoint. But that is the big difference right now between a Steam deck which plays all my games just fine. Whereas if I had to choose, I'm still going to probably choose that over this. Currently because of the Windows portion of it, they got to fix that even more. Whereas when it works, it works, but when it does it gosh darn it, I gotta go to the desktop. God, I gotta install like, like Discord as an example. I gotta go to the desktop to install it there. It isn't being pulled in as a shortcut into the Xbox full screen experience for me to easily access it. It eventually will, but it isn't today. GeForce now, ironically enough, I was able to install it shows up as a shortcut. So I can actually access GeForce now pretty quickly through there, which is great. These are the things that they still need to do the third party applications, digital stores to make them synchronize more with just using it with the, you know, with the joysticks, with, with the buttons. And I never feel like now I'm back into Windows, I'm back into the desktop, I have to go to the desktop to do this updates. I think that's another big one. I talked to a engineer about this like right now, like I don't know what your guys's experience was when you got the handhelds, but I had to go pick it up at a secret location and we essentially, because it was pre release, I mean it was damn near 2 hours of updates between having to go to the Windows updates, go to the armory crate updates. It took a long ass time to update everything. And my whole Question was, and this is where I bring Valve back into it again. When and even a console, the updates, it's a, hey, you need to update. Okay, press the button, it updates, restart. I'm good. This one. Is it going to do that? Because it doesn't today. Right now, if I want to update Windows or Armory Create on here, I have to manually go to those things and ask it to update and do it. So they got to get to a point when I mean the Xbox full screen experience, which is a mouthful to say, they've got to find an acronym for that. But when I'm in that, that Xbox experience, it prompts me, hey, there's new Windows updates you need to do. Press the button. It just does it in the background. Restart or whatever. They're not there yet. But with all that said of my little nitpicky complaining about stuff, it plays video games freaking great. And I see the future potential of this. That's what I'm saying. It is in the 90 tile there. But that's still that 10 they still need to fix. And like I said, they're aware of it, they know they're. They got to continue to iterate on this. But and I'm curious what what you guys think. Isn't this kind of like a early alpha look at the next generation of Xbox? I kind of think this is what where they're headed with all of when they're talking about their next generation hardware having open platforms, Windows being the best place to play. This seems like an early look of this is where they want to get to where this is where they want to get when next gen hardware is ready as being a true 1.0 product. Whereas this one with the collaboration with Asus, great hardware software still needs some work from a usability standpoint. But from once I'm in my game playing standpoint, I have no issues at all. I thought it was great.
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C
Undeniably. I think you're right there. And also They've already said 2026 that this experience is going to be coming to PCs and other handhelds. So yeah, we'll definitely talk more about that later.
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B
Now, Andy, I know you have the least amount of time here on the panel out of the three of you with it, but I still want to hear your impressions, your reviews so far because you got some things I'm looking for.
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A
Yeah, for, for reference, I, I was approached. Greg was originally supposed to be the one doing this and then he about halfway into his review period hit me up and was like, hey, can you Actually play because the day you're reviewing it, I have to go do something. So. And I was like, oh, okay. But then I also went to LA over the weekend and Greg was like, and don't travel with it. I was like, totally understandable because you busted out on a plane and you know, Phil Spence. I was joking with blessing that Phil Spencer would be the air marshal and tackle me on the plane. So I didn't, I lost a decent amount of time there, but I try to get as much time with the devices possible. I think going into it, this,
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C
I,
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A
I, I'm somebody who has, you know, not a whole lot of expenses in life. Right. I don't got a car payment, Mike. I don't, I don't got a kid, I don't got a wife. I, you know, my, my, I'm very much like, I like to buy that I want even if I don't need it. I have a lot of stupid shit in my house. I love wasting money. Tim.
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C
I love that about you.
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A
Retroid Pocket Flip is like, oh, cool, I'll get that thing or whatever. This, this felt like a surefire purchase for me as somebody who always wants the next best, greatest thing ever and as somebody who plays a lot of Steam Deck and has a whole lot of time with experiencing. Yeah, but I don't want to play that on Steam Deck because it kind of looks like Garbo now. And you know, I'd rather play on my PC, but I'm in bets. I'll just play this. I'll play Hades 2 or Silksong or whatever sort of indie titles out at the time that runs better on the Steam deck. I, I thought this would be a surefire purchase for me, and it's, it's just not, not right now. I, I, I can't justify it. I, anytime I hold it and then I pick up the Steam Deck, I'm like, oh, you are so much nicer to hold. Your buttons feel so much better. My Y button keeps getting stuck, which I think is just a me issue.
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C
No, I'm having a problem too.
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A
I, I, while playing Hades, you to cast and then your character, you know, you charge up your Omega, your Omega special or whatever. So many times. I died because my character stayed doing the charged Omega special and I would just stay in place while doing
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D
just
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A
got stuck right there. So the Y button getting stuck. I hope that that's maybe just the me issue. Maybe it's the moisture in San Francisco.
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C
Tim.
- [28:11]
A
I knew it is. Tim is, or Greg is like, why you why are you like drinking Mountain Dew and spilling all my shell? Like, no, I didn't do anything. Your stupid controller or to your stupid thing I had in your stupid bag, Greg. And we had an argument about it. This. This felt like it would have been a surefire thing for me to buy. I love the next. The latest and greatest stuff. I love for my games to look amazing, especially when they are in handheld mode and they do look good. I just cannot justify that price trade off. I'm playing an embargoed game right now and it's running fine. I just think there's way too much tinkering required. As somebody who loves tinker, I love getting in settings. I. But I also do love the Ease of Steam deck. Just kind of just going. And I'm ready to rock when I turn this thing on. I immediately met with the. It turned off. Maybe the battery died. I don't think the battery died. It was like an 80 charge. I immediately met with a window screen that has Greg's picture and it's half cut off. I don't know why that is, but like, right, like. Yeah, why is it stress so immediately? I think from a presentation standpoint, this is just not an appealing device like this. This does so many things wrong. I think to make the user feel like when you were a kid and you get home to open up the brand new console and it's like, oh, I can't wait to set this whole thing up. It is just. It's not friendly to look at or to use. And I think the Xbox experience has. Has a ton of work and maybe one extra year to cook. But when I finally log into this thing, I'm playing ball pit right now. A lot of it comes down to just time with the device, but I'm constantly hitting the wrong damn button. I'm always hitting the. The settings thing that opens up something else and it takes me out of the game.
- [30:05]
C
That. Sorry, that is a good point. The. The placement of the start button is in a bizarre spot.
- [30:10]
A
Yeah.
- [30:11]
C
Because above the start button where you just instinctively would think to push, there's another button that is. What's that do?
- [30:17]
A
When I hit it, it just takes me out of the game and it takes me to the Xbox Library. I think it's like an Xbox library button.
- [30:23]
B
The.
- [30:24]
A
Everything from the iconography where. Yeah, everything from the iconography where you know, the icons of the games on Xbox get the nice cool full art and anything steam wise is it looks like I just downloaded a shitty emulator and like it just it, it's. It just doesn't pull in me the user that like should easily with a device like this. I think that the amount of tinkering to be had with Asus's Aorus. What do they call it? What is it?
- [30:58]
D
Armor crate?
- [30:58]
A
Armory crate. Sorry, what they opening up the armory crate to kind of mess with. With changing the resolution and stuff like that. I just think this game, this device is such a niche product for. You have to be able to afford the thing because it's very expensive and you have to be like in the market for somebody who's down for a not super friendly user experience. All these things can get worked on. I could see this experience being much smoother and much more appealing to. To the eye. As somebody who like, you know, I just. I like the way the PlayStation UI looks. I like the way my Steam Deck UI looks as basic as the switches. It's just like it's there and it's ready to rock. I love tinkering. I think this requires way too much for the normie. I cannot recommend this to any normie at all.
- [31:49]
D
Like can I jump in on what what you're saying Andy? Because I'm assuming Mike, you're going to get to the whole price thing at some point anyways. But I think this is a good time to discuss that.
- [31:58]
B
That.
- [31:59]
D
That's kind of my issue at. Look, someone got mad in a comment when I said 9.99. Why aren't you saying a thousand? So a thousand dollars. I'll say that thousand dollars for this Xbox Ally X. It is very hard for me especially in this current climate to to recommend that if you already have a Steam Deck, if you have the previous ally. Right. Or switch to. It's hard for me to say go spend a thousand dollars for yes it does have more performance, but is it enough performance that it's that noticeable to you to where it's worth that that price difference. Right? Not to mention everything that we said right now from from a usability standpoint with Windows, all the tinkering that you still have to do, unfortunately it's tough. Look, if you can afford it, people are going to run out and buy it. I'm not telling no one to how to spend their money. If you can afford it to knock yourself out, you're not. I don't think you're going to regret it because obviously it's going to play your games, you know, at a very high performance level. It's just for people that have all already invested into another handheld is This a big enough leap to now upgrade to the next handheld at that price. That, that was the one thing. When they finally announced the price, I was like, damn. If this would have come in at the X, I would say ED 799 or something. Right? I think it would be a little easier to swallow but at $1,000 it's tough. You really have to think about is this device worth it to you?
- [33:35]
A
And I think I real quick, I think I would have, you know, maybe enjoyed the experience more had I had a couple of more days with it. And that's just my situation. So apologies there but when I, when I talk about getting into the settings, people who watch my streams, people who watch kind of funny streams, they know I love getting into the settings, love messing with everything to get everything pitch perfect. But when I get in bed to play my Steam deck, I don't really want to do that. And the amount of. First off, if you're an RE engine game like Monster Hunter Wild or Dragon's Dogma 2, you're just. I've accepted you're not going to look good or run good on anything ever. Like those games will just always look a certain way and that those games looked awful on my Steam deck. They don't look a whole lot better here or nor do they run a whole lot better. And the amount of, the amount of, of balancing act of finding. Okay, well I'll drop it from 1080 to 720 but then I'll do FSR quality instead of FSR instead of FSR. Three balance mode maybe. Okay, I'm getting a bit more frames there but I'm still like in the high 40s now and then you've try to. Try to get the most frames and it's still a blurry, noisy mess in a lot of cases. It's just I, I'm not seeing when I turn on these this Triple a. First off, Battlefield 6 still won't open on this. I don't know why. It. It just refuses to and I'm sure
- [34:58]
D
there's maybe something good for me.
- [35:00]
A
Yeah, I, I tried and I, I had Greg do some stuff and then kept on trying to open it and it still won't. So I have no idea what's wrong there. But yeah, I just this, it's a bummer because this is like something that I was really, really looking forward to and thinking. I've had the Steam deck for a while and it's starting to show its age with these newer, more modern games. I will say a Game like Kronos looks and runs pretty damn good. Turned on like the ray tracing stuff was getting around like 40 frames. I've been impressed with some of the things that it can do for sure. I think it is still a, a powerhouse in a lot of ways. I just, I can't justify that thousand dollar price.
- [35:38]
C
Yeah, I, I do think that for the conversation of the tinkering side of things, I am a bit surprised with what the point seemingly of this device from the Xbox perspective and not just from the a ally perspective because there's been allies for years. I did think it was going to be less tinkering required than it, than it is right now. Having said that, there's two things in my mind. One is we have had the Steam deck for years now. Yes, Steam decks, you know, Steam experience, the full screen experience. They've been iterating on that for so long to get where we are that we are just more used to it. So I do think that sooner than later, once people, this is in people's hands and they're addressing the updates, I, I imagine that within a couple months that a lot of these problems are going to be moot. Where we're at right now though, where we're talking about right now, we're just saying there are some problems there.
- [36:25]
A
I foresee a lot of situations where whatever game you're going to want to play, you look up best.
- [36:31]
C
Absolutely.
- [36:32]
A
You know, look at, look up digital foundries, best settings for Xbox, Ally X or whatever.
- [36:37]
C
But I do think that is a reality we're never going to get away from with these handhelds. Like the, you cannot expect a handheld no matter how expensive it is to play games perfectly. Like you're going to need to do some tweaky. You're going to need to find a guide to optimize the game you're playing the way you want to play it. So I just want to say that's true on any of these devices.
- [36:56]
A
My problem is it's not only in game settings though. It really is like the, the Asus. I was keep, I keep on forgetting armory crate experience. Like that being this additional UI element that throws more terms at me in terms of like you could change the resolution on the fly here. You could turn on AMD rsr which is like their rescaling thing. And it's. You're constantly going like I'm stuck between but options.
- [37:22]
C
But it has systems there where you can have one override the other. So it's like that. This is one of the Things, the familiarity, I think over time it's like, yes, it is overwhelming right now, but once you understand and once you just are living with it, I do think a lot of these problems will iron themselves out.
- [37:36]
A
And I'd be totally fine with all of the little nitpicks I have with the use the UI and, and all the, you know, kind of finicking you have to do with the device. I'd be totally fine with all that if the games looked sharp as and they were running at 60 but they just don't get like they. I'm having to make a lot of sacrifices and still run stuff at 720p or 900p. Like I'm still having to, you know, make some sacrifices in order to get what I want visually and, and performance wise out of it.
- [38:04]
C
And then in terms of the, the systems, the tinkering, it's like, I do think that jumping into it, the tinkering on Windows is inherently going to be a better experience for more people because more people are used to Windows than they are Linux, right? So I think that if you've never used the Steam deck and you've never used this, I think more people will have an easier time getting in here. But that's just stats and numbers there. That's like not a good thing because it's still not easy. And going to back to what Paris was saying about the, the price and like for. Is it worth the upgrade? I think definitively this is not worth an upgrade if you have PC handheld that you are happy with at all. I would not recommend this product if this is your first time entering this space. I do think that the value is there if you are dedicated into the Xbox PC ecosystem and are planning to continue to be that. If you are way more of a Steam gamer, I don't know, I really think that the game pass side of this comes back to it and there's ways to play Game pass on Steam Deck and who knows, maybe next year or beyond that this whole Xbox experience will be even more native on the Steam deck, right? That would be the dream for people like me and you, I think. But I do think that this is a product for a group of people and like you say it's niche. I do think that it's. It is niche, but it's sizable. Like I think that there, there is an audience that I do think this is a good product for, but that person is not upgrading that. Like, I'm with you where I like the new thing. I like buying the new thing. And I was saying this earlier, but it's like I have this review unit. I'm going to give it to someone at kind of funny. Like, I want someone else that maybe doesn't have a Steam deck that they're happy with. Like, and I. I think that they will be happy with it, but it's not for me.
- [39:45]
B
Guys.
- [39:47]
D
I. I wanted to jump on something Andy said. I was. I was trying to wait till. Till he was done.
- [39:53]
A
I hate the back paddles back, but
- [39:54]
D
I don't use them.
- [39:55]
A
I don't like the placement.
- [39:56]
D
But as far as optimization goes, they are rolling out the. The badges for the games to let you know if it. It's been handheld optimized or if it's mostly optimized. Which if it's mostly, you got to go in and tinker, you know, with the settings or whatever. So they are trying to give people an identifier for these games to let them know that's how they'll run on the handhelds.
- [40:17]
A
I love that. But yeah, just real quick. Sorry. That.
- [40:19]
B
Don't worry.
- [40:19]
A
The placement of the back buttons, I. I think like suck and just there's.
- [40:25]
C
It's just way into.
- [40:27]
A
I just. I just hate them for. For video. Like. Like every good back button experience for me has always been right where the controller meets the grip. Yeah, where the grip meets the controller. And like, it's just off enough to where it's annoying. It doesn't feel good to hit. It's just. It feels like an afterthought. Like they were like, ah, we forgot about the back buttons. Get. Grab that piece of plastic and toss that on there, you know, I want
- [40:51]
B
to hear more about your experience with the Rog Xbox Ally X and our review and impressions. Right after a word from our sponsors. There's just one month left until the launch of Solo leveling. Arise Overdrive, the action RPG based on the popular Solo leveling franchise. I adore solo leveling. I've seen every episode and this game cannot come at a more perfect time as I patiently wait for the next season. And being able to experience this world solo or with up to three of my friends for some co op raids is right up my alley. Andy, if you're listening, listening. We'll be playing this soon. In the game, players will work their way up as Sung Jinu, an E rank nobody that no one wants in a rating party, clawing their way up to becoming the powerful monarch of Shadows. If you're at TwitchCon this weekend, you can play an exclusive demo at the PC gaming stations located at the Solo Leveling Arise overdrive booth. Attendees will also be able to experience additional activities at the booth, including a themed photo booth for fans viewing events. Events from home Head to the official Solo Leveling Arise overdrive Twitch channel which will be live streaming from the booth. Pre orders for Solo Leveling Arise Overdrive are live now, so add it to your Steam or Xbox PC wish list to prepare for Jinu's next chapter. This episode is brought to you by Shady Rays. Get ready for the season ahead with quality shades built to last. Our friends at Shady Rays have you covered with premium polarized shades. Shades that won't break the bank. Shady Rays is an independent sunglasses company offering a world class product rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people. Their shades of durable frames and crystal clear optics making them the perfect choice for all outdoor adventures. They have hundreds of options to choose from so you're bound to find the perfect pair to match your style. Plus, if your shades ever go missing or take an unexpected hit, don't sweat it. They have the most insane protection in all of eyewear. Every pair is backed by lost or broken replacements. If you don't love your shades, exchange them for a new pair or return them worry free within 30 days. There's no risk when you shop. Y' all know that Tim Geddes has been outdoors a lot playing Pokemon Go and he's been rocking his Shady Rays the entire time. Awesome to see him out and about looking dope. Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal. Head to shadyrays.com and use code funny for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated five stars by over 300,000 people. That's 300,001 if you include Tim welcome back everyone. Now that we've gotten the top level review impressions out of the way, I want to dive a little bit deeper and this is where I really encourage all of our audience watching live and on Twitch to get involved in the conversation. If you have questions, you have concerns, you want to know more about certain areas of this product. Now's a great opportunity to of course put in your YouTube super chats. Get involved in the Twitch chat. We will pull some questions in here just like more Hammer wrote it on a super chat and this is what I really want to know more. Hammer writes in says mine's coming tomorrow. I'm very excited. I'm in for the new simple Xbox interface and all the storefronts etc being in one place on my handheld of course. Paris, you Brought that up. The Xbox full screen experience. Right? And that is the big one for Xbox gamers who are maybe really deep into the ecosystem, seeing all that now on a PC handheld. But then also the balance of jumping in and out of things. You guys have talked about it on the review and your impression so far. Let's start off first with the Xbox full screen experience. Andy kind of talked about booting it up and being not really impressed with the. Wow. I'm getting entered into this Xbox experience as I thought it would be, right of, like, day one of opening a console. What kind of fun can I have? What is it like being in the Xbox ecosystem first before we jump to other storefronts? Are you dreaming of the perfect prom? But there's just one thing holding you back.
- [44:37]
D
Speak English, Mom.
- [44:38]
B
Welcome to Ethnosync Ethnic Modification.
- [44:41]
D
What is this place? We help you reach your true potential. How are you feeling? It's good to be Hawaii.
- [44:50]
A
Hey, new girl.
- [44:51]
B
Hey.
- [44:52]
C
Look at what you've done to yourself.
- [44:53]
D
For a new plant to grow, the seed has to die.
- [44:57]
A
Slanted Rated R Only in theaters March 13th.
- [45:00]
C
Side effects may occur.
- [45:05]
A
Well, it's. It's got a look to it. It's got that Xbox look to it, which I don't mind. I think it can be appealing. I just don't know if it's completely being married in a good way visually with the other systems it's trying to implement with Steam and with the other storefronts that you're trying to. To bring in here. Like, I don't know, it's just like a lot of my. My opinions on it are just completely subjective, like, all opinions are. But when I look at the way that the. That this looks, it's like I could see the future here for sure. And I agree with so much of what Tim and Paris were saying. I just don't think we're quite there right now. Now you, as the purchaser, has to go, well, do I try to support this now in hopes that there is a future, but also, like, you're not some small startup, like, you know, figure it out. Or do I wait for the version 2? Like, for me, I see myself as. I want to see what the second version of this device looks like, and I want to see what this Xbox experience looks like in six to eight months. How are they going to improve this based on feedback? How are they going to make this. I keep using the word appealing because I just don't think this device is, like, fun or good to you. Like, it just doesn't look good when I, when I'm looking at what the software is. And I don't know, it's just, that's coming more, more from a, like if you put this on display at Best Buy, I don't think you're looking at this and going like, oh, cool, I gotta have this.
- [46:40]
C
It's it you bring this up is interesting because I do think there is a conversation to be had about this being an Xbox product and that, like reviewing it that way, but then also just reviewing this as a wrong ally. Right. And I think that like, for you, like, oh, wait for the next one, it's like, well, this is the next one and this is going to continue to be next ones. And it's like, I think they've already proven themselves like with their, their last two iterations even of the ally that
- [47:03]
A
like, it's possible I'm just not an ally, dude. Maybe.
- [47:05]
C
And then again with that myself too, of just like, like, yo, it's there. And like, I do like seeing all the software stuff. It's like most of what we're talking about, like, I would bet on being ironed out and fixed very soon, but at the end of the day, if we don't like the base of it, which I'm aligned with you on, I'm like, okay, well, there's no fixing that. It's like there's just inherent things we prefer somewhere else and there are other products that we can jump to. And I think the Steam Deck OLED for the two of us is where I'm going to continue to play. Because while I was playing this for review, a lot of like, for just a direct comparison, I'm playing Hades 2. And while I was playing on this, I had my Steam Deck OLED next to me. And I'm like, I wish I was on that from an experience standpoint, despite the fact that it had higher resolution and better frame rate.
- [47:53]
A
Right. And I, you, you're a lot higher on the screen than I am. I, I, for me, it's less of the screen visual quality. I just think it's too small or the bezels are too big. Like, I mean, that kind of goes together, but I, I hate seeing the tall bezels on top. It, it just feels like more can be had here visually. And apparently Asus just didn't want to drop vrr, which I think is kind of understandable. You know, you want to, you want your screen to be able to refresh whenever your game is dropping frames and you won't have screen tearing and all that makes sense, but I still would prefer the the OLED Steam deck screen for like any day over this.
- [48:34]
B
Paris, take me through the Xbox PC gaming side of things with this, with the storefront or all of my games there that I've collected over the years. Of course, on the PC side of things, we know it's not the console side, but like what does it look like here from a user's perspective as well from you, Paris, I think you
- [48:52]
D
guys can see it on the screen, but this is clicking the Xbox button. It brings up the shortcut and you can see at the bottom. Those are all the digital stores that I have installed right now. They show up right there. You even see GeForce now there as well. So I have steam, have Epic Battlenet, Ubisoft Connect and say GeForce now already. GeForce Now GOJ. Anyways, once you have the game installed from here, the games will show up in your in the Xbox app under the library and you can launch them from there and they play just fine. That's not an issue. And anyone that's already using Xbox Insider has already experienced this because you can do it on your desktop today and on other Windows devices. What I'm having, it's not an issue, but it's. I wish it was working 100 of the time where I feel like it's working 75, 80% of the time. Say I launch Cyberpunk from the Xbox app. It'll. It'll launch. I sometimes Steam. You'll see Steam pop up, sometimes you don't. Then the game will launch. I'm playing it just fine now. When I exit the game, sometimes it'll just exit clean and I'm right back into Xbox. Sometimes it just dumps me into Steam. So now I'm in the Steam app. So now I have to navigate through that and close it. You can do the Xbox button and close it and all that, but like I said, it's not seamless, I guess is the point. Same issue happens if you do it with Epic, GOG, etc. These stores, they will connect to these stores. You can install the games, you can play them fine, but it's not a hundred percent, just a seamless navigation. If you want to use the Xbox app as your primary way, because obviously by default it's going to launch, which you can't go in the settings and change. If I wanted to just change this to Steam and have it boot with Big picture mode, I could if I wanted to. But the whole point of this is we're using this like it's an Xbox device. I want the Xbox experience, but you're also telling me I can import other digital stores to play my games. And like I said before, it mostly works, but then there's times where it doesn't work and now I have to tinker around to close it. The whole point of them partnering with Asus for this Xbox full screen experience is this is currently the only device where it will disable the desktop and any other unnecessary resources. Right. So you're getting more performance using that web. But what happens is if, when these wonky things appear now, I'll have to close the desktop and if you do that to get back to using all the resources you have to restart the entire device to do that. Which look, I'm okay with, but you don't want to have to do that. I guess this is the whole point that we have here. So kind of going back to what Tim was just talking about you, I, I'm very curious to see where this is six months from now as they can continue to get feedback on this and iter on it and resolve some of these issues. It's just unfortunate that at launch we still have them and I think that is, that is going to be a deciding factor for people today if they want to get it. Sure, the enthusiasts are going to run out and buy day one regardless, but I think someone on the fence is going to see this and they're going to go maybe I want to wait and then go to something else that Andy was talking about. As far as Asus and the hardware itself. I think with the Switch 2 and, and what, what Lenovo's been doing in MSI. Look, I'm getting a little spoiled on having these bigger screens, right? I, I, in a perfect world it's an 8 inch OLED screen. Asus obviously decided to not do that with this hardware, but you gotta assume other manufacturers will. But we're probably not going to see those devices until next year at the earliest. Right. So then if, do you wait and see what other manufacturers are going to do? Give give Microsoft more time to fix the, the Windows experience on these. There's a lot of what ifs I guess is the point of sure. If you just want the latest and greatest, because you just got to have the latest and greatest, you already pre ordered it and you're getting it tomorrow. But I do think there's going to be people that will look at just some of the little quirks that this has and maybe not necessarily being an asus guy, they're, they're probably going to hold off on this.
- [53:15]
C
So for, for the three, I feel like we've already kind of made it clear, but I don't want to put words in your mouth, Andy, of where me and Andy stand on this. But Paris, like would you recommend this product to people if they don't have any handheld gaming device, PC gaming device and they are interested in getting into it? And if not, with your vast experience with these things right now, what would you recommend? Or would you recommend holding off?
- [53:38]
B
Off?
- [53:39]
D
This is what I, this is what I said when I, I did review on my channel. I go and what's that channel, man?
- [53:45]
B
Don't do, don't do that.
- [53:46]
D
I don't remember. It's YouTube.com/marcelo696 it freaking suck. No, but this is what I said when I did a review. For me, I, I'm not buying the the the Ally X at at this price because I would prefer the Steam Deck and the Steam Deck obviously is, is cheaper and enough of my games are already on Steam that that would be my handheld of choice today. So if someone were going to ask well what would I do? That's what I would do. I think there are still enough quirks with Windows that I would want to see more of those things resolved before I run out and go spend $1,000 on this. And the fact that I don't have the Ally, the Xbox Ally to to compare performance and all that because that is essentially the same chip as the Steam deck, but it is 400 less than the X. I don't know if for real world games beyond the ones that were curated at Gamescom if that's worth it for me. So, so I guess long, long winded to say today if I had to go spend a thousand dollars on this, seeing what the current state of Windows is on this device, I'd Wait.
- [55:04]
C
Second question. Paris Lily, you have a Steam Deck oled. You yes, currently have an Xbox Ally X. They're both sitting in front of you.
- [55:14]
D
Yes.
- [55:15]
C
You're not talking about price. Which one are you picking up?
- [55:18]
D
Steam Deck OLED says it all.
- [55:21]
B
Okay.
- [55:22]
D
Yeah.
- [55:23]
B
Jen's FC writes in and says I had pre ordered this but then canceled it when I found out that you will be able to install this experience in the upcoming 8.8 inch ol. OLED OLED Lenovo Legion 2. I want this UI so bad so parents, other people, other handhelds will be getting this experience as well. For fans out there that are really looking for kind of the Xbox full screen experience as well.
- [55:49]
D
Yeah, I mean, and I, I do want to go back to what Tim just said really quick. If, if I'm an Xbox guy, I'm fully invested in the Game Pass. That's where my library is, then you're probably going to want to go get it. Right. But if you play on, if you're using other digital stores and all that, and again, if you're mainly a Steam person, the Steam Deck, again, from a usability standpoint is still the preferred device, just in my opinion. And it's cheaper. So you have to factor that too. But to what you're saying, Mike, I mean. There's, they're, they're doing enough right. That I like the device, but there's still enough there that I'm just, is this something I want to do today? It's still a waiting game, but like you said, it's. Other devices are going to get this experience and is that the hardware that I prefer to use? Right. And by then they probably resolve these issues. You would hope. I mean, Window.
- [56:50]
A
So yeah, when Tim brings up the question, who would, what would you recommend to a brand new user or whatever, I, there's a couple different factors for me that would go into my recommendations, but I think kind of slowly divorcing myself from the really expensive Game Pass monthly fee, like that's making me like, if Game Pass never went up in price, not ever, but like if it had didn't have this most recent big ass price hike, then I could be like, well, you'd get a lot of like Xbox games as well. And, and, but with that happening, I would say like, all right, well, where's your library at? If you have primarily most of your stuff on Steam, then go with the Steam Deck. If you're trying to install stuff from Xbox and you don't want to tinker with going into the desktop mode on the Steam deck, maybe the ease of use of Windows and the familiarity of Windows would be more, you know, more along your. Or more up your alley. But, but yeah, I think Game Pass going up in price really just. Yeah, it's almost like the, the, the stake in the heart. Like it's the, that's the last thing I needed for me to go like, oh, I can't really recommend this at all now.
- [58:04]
B
O Prime writes in and says, why haven't they just portableized the Xbox series s, baked it into a handheld? Isn't that what Xbox gamers wanted out of the handheld console? Handheld, not a PC. Handheld, I don't think is that old Tim, Is that the old way of thinking now that we've moved into like you have everything now in these PC handhelds that can do what the console is doing and more or I, I
- [58:26]
C
think it's just more Xbox's vision of where they're going. Like they're done with that type of console. There it is moving to PC and this is, this is the first official hardware step towards that.
- [58:38]
A
And we, we have very different situations. So this is me, me speaking from personal experience. Your situation may be completely different, but Dean Morrison brings up a great point that Paris was mentioning earlier as well. The GeForce now kicks ass on these handhelds. And before when I was trying to play Ballers Gate 3 and it ran and looked like on my Steam deck just like Dragon's Dogma 2 ran and looked like now having this, you know, really, really competent cloud service that gets. I get to play my games and they can look and run a lot smoother. It's like maybe I don't need a handheld that can run and you, you know, that's only when you're around WI Fi. I understand not everybody has those capabilities, but that's just from my perspective like me too maybe I don't need a handheld that is the most powerful thing that can run natively cyberpunk at this frame rate with these visuals. And if I could just, just use my GeForce now and have things run just as nicely. It's like maybe I'm just always getting the, the, the cheaper handheld that can run the indie games well, you know,
- [59:45]
C
so yeah, I, I'm with Andy there where to me again use case and I whenever it comes to any tech product I all or subscription service I always go what is your use case? Because nothing else matters than is this for you or not. Right. And like are you actually going to get use out of it for yourself? And and to me thinking about my use case for a handheld device, majority of the time it is either trying to play indie games or try to play aaa Games via GeForce now or a similar thing like that. And I've had amazing experiences with that. The only other thing is when I'm traveling, when I'm on airplane and I want to play a game.
- [60:20]
D
Yeah.
- [60:20]
C
And that to me is obviously a much smaller part of the gameplay I get out of the device. So I need to decide am I trying to play these big triple A games? Because right now at the point that we're at and I don't think we're anywhere close currently to GeForce now and Cloud based things being accessible on a plane. Unless the Starlink thing takes off and it actually works, we'll see.
- [60:41]
A
Oh, I just used that recently on the.
- [60:43]
C
On a plane?
- [60:43]
A
Yeah.
- [60:44]
C
Did you do try like.
- [60:45]
A
No, no. Well not. But I was just like surprised that it was free.
- [60:49]
C
Oh yeah. Were you on a United flight? Yeah, yeah. There's rolling about all United flights are going to happen.
- [60:55]
D
Yeah, yeah.
- [60:55]
A
When did this happen? That's crazy.
- [60:57]
C
Started did like I think last November and I was like rolling out, trying
- [61:00]
A
to log into the. I was like, oh, it's just on.
- [61:02]
B
What happened? Giving my $8 back.
- [61:04]
A
Yeah, come on, man.
- [61:06]
B
So many.
- [61:06]
A
I'm a silver member.
- [61:09]
C
But then it goes down to me where it's like cool. The, the premium feel of the Steam deck, which I have my problems with the Steam deck as well in terms of button placement and things like that. But the feel of it, the oled screen, the 90 frames per second. When I'm using GeForce Now I'm playing Expedition 33. I'm like, Whoa, this is, is absolutely incredible. Right? And yeah. So to me it's all right. What's the thing I'm not getting. It's all right. Play playable AAA games when I am on flights, which I do think this is better at. And like that's kind of the. Is that worth the premium price? And to me I'm like, no, I'll just play more smaller games when I'm on a plane, you know.
- [61:43]
B
Okay.
- [61:43]
C
Or make the concessions necessary with looking up crazy ass YouTube things. If I change all these settings and it looks like. But it's playable.
- [61:51]
A
Are you running on cloud right now, Paris?
- [61:53]
D
Yeah, I'm, I'm literally doing GeForce Now. This is pulling up Cyberpunk on GeForce Now.
- [61:57]
A
It's. It's crazy. What like you asked me a year ago how I felt about cloud gaming and whether I would want a handheld device that could play the bet. Like I'm not, I'm just on the opposite side now where like I've seen what really, really good cloud gaming can do where I feel like in the past it's always been kind of lacking and there's been enough to bother me with, with response time and with visuals and you know, artifacting of visual quality. But like I, I've completely just sort of flipped sides there where it's like if my handheld can play my indie, that's kind of all I, I need right now.
- [62:37]
D
Yeah, I mean to add and I know you guys talked about it during the gamescom time as well. But, you know, when I was out there with Nvidia and. And to get that Blackwell update for GeForce now, dude, it's. It's. I mean, it's. It's a RTX 5080 in the Cloud. That, the quality that you're playing all this stuff, 4k120 frames and all that, it's. It's amazing where that technology has gone. Yeah.
- [63:00]
B
Willie D writes in and says, tim, did you and the. The crew try using the Xreal 1 pros with the handheld? Any issues? Looking forward to use this while traveling.
- [63:11]
C
So I forgot to test that. I had it on the mind, but I forgot. But I had my X Rail Pros here, so I just ran and grabbed them and if you were watching, you might have seen me. I literally just put them on. I just plugged into Andy's right there and it just. Let me.
- [63:22]
A
Let me see it.
- [63:23]
C
Yeah, it worked perfectly. Like, this is.
- [63:25]
B
So it's simple as plugging in.
- [63:27]
C
This is. And a lot of people in the chat were like, you need to show these in the ad read. Which next time we do it, I will. Because they think it's a giant.
- [63:33]
B
How about sound, Tim? What does the sound come from one of those.
- [63:36]
C
There's both speakers here and here. This is not supposed to Sponsored, by the way. Love these things.
- [63:39]
B
Now, on a plane, do I have to wear headphones or are they low enough where I can hear them and I wouldn't be disturbing others?
- [63:45]
C
You could. You shouldn't do that, though. Put in some AirPods like an adult.
- [63:48]
B
So you go headphones plus that.
- [63:50]
C
Yeah, that's what I do. AirPods. Put those things on, you're sitting pretty. Yeah. And he's playing right now.
- [63:58]
B
Okay. Okay.
- [63:59]
A
Not sponsored.
- [64:03]
B
Very cool stuff there, there. Of course, guys, as we start to round down the episode, we'll get through a couple more super chats. But Tim, Paris, Andy, anything that you have left on the table during this review of the ROG Xbox Ally X that you'd like to make sure we get out there to the best friends and the viewers and watchers out there.
- [64:21]
C
I'm very excited about. Sorry. Go for it, Paris.
- [64:25]
D
Oh, no, I was just saying battery. It's pretty much the same as it was on the. The original Ally X as well. It's 80 watt battery and you're trying to play a big AAA game like Punk. You're getting around two hours at the highest, you know, wattage. The turbo performance level that you're getting armory crates around about two hours as an example, but something like Hades 2 or silksong or whatever I was getting, you know, four plus five hours on it.
- [64:51]
B
Angled screen. Somebody wrote in there. Is there a difference on the screen angle there, Tim, that you notice from the Steam deck to this? No. Okay.
- [65:01]
A
Oh, like viewing angles.
- [65:03]
C
Oh, is that what they're asking?
- [65:04]
A
Probably. Because it's not like a curved screen.
- [65:07]
C
They're both great.
- [65:07]
A
I'm playing Elden Ringers. I'm in the ancient ruins of Raul.
- [65:15]
C
Do you hear it though, Mike?
- [65:17]
B
No, I can't hear it at all.
- [65:19]
C
I hear it a little bit coming.
- [65:20]
B
You can hear it just a little bit. Okay. You can't do it.
- [65:22]
C
It's one of those like bone sensory things.
- [65:24]
A
I'm playing native Elden ring, everybody, at 39 frames per second. Let's go.
- [65:29]
C
Let's finish my final thoughts here. I just want to say, like, I'm very excited about, about this device. And while I don't think it's for me, I do think it is for people. I just think it comes down to Xbox continuing to support this os, this full screen experience.
- [65:42]
A
Game crash. Hilderman crash. I went into the settings. Game crashed.
- [65:48]
C
But I do think that it's important for more players to be in the space and for the players that are already in it to continue to innovate and for the big dogs, the ones that are providing the games, the software, the first parties, people like Microsoft or people like Steam to care about making sure that games are verified and supported on these devices, I believe they're going to continue to do that. And I do think that there's a good product here, but I just don't think it is. For most people listening to this show, this specific kind of funny games cast, like, it's probably not for you and that's okay. But if you, if you live and breathe Game Pass and you live and breathe Xbox and you want nothing to do or you've had nothing to do with Steam in the past, but you might want to now. I do think that you should weigh the option. I. I think that there's a lot of value here. I do think it plays games incredibly well. And I think that Xbox fans are gonna like this. They're gonna like the way that the controller feels, they're gonna like the buttons, they're gonna like all that stuff. I'm not that guy. I am a Steam deck guy, and I can't believe I'm a Steam deck guy.
- [66:48]
B
Andy.
- [66:48]
A
Dude, Greg's gonna be so angry about this. Y button. Like, it just, it just Gets stuck on command. Now look at that.
- [66:54]
B
Stuck. I'm looking.
- [66:55]
C
He's gonna blame you.
- [66:56]
B
You. He's definitely gonna blame you.
- [66:58]
A
He has been. And it's like you. I didn't do anything. Playing Hades, man. I'm not even pushing it hard.
- [67:04]
B
Paris, any final thoughts?
- [67:07]
D
I mean, I think Tim nailed it pretty well. I'm excited about the device. I mean, we've obviously listed out the things that. That we've had issue with, and I think most of them are correctable. It's still going to take a little bit of time to get that done. I would also say, yeah, if you are investing in the Xbox ecosystem, you use Game Pass. This is a device for you. You're going to like it. Let's just take price and stick it over there for just a second. The hardware itself is great. The software still needs a little bit of work, but once you're actually in playing the games. I had a great time. Great time every time. I never had a bad experience while I was playing a game again. Frame rates, you know, depending on how the performance was, I was getting anywhere between 30 to over 60 frames per second in these games. It was fine. I. I really enjoyed that. They just. It just needs to get some of the annoying little tinkering out of the way. And I think this will be a really great experience for people.
- [68:11]
B
Andy, finish us off.
- [68:13]
A
Oh, man, you don't. You don't want to know, like. Because, like, here's the thing. When I found out today was the review, I was very happy and relieved that I don't have to use it anymore. That's where I'm at with it, like. Because I was like, all right, my gaming time. If I'm not streaming, I have to. I'm playing shit for review and I gotta. I gotta use this device. So I have to play those games for review on this device. And I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore. That's where I'm at with it. I'm. I'm happy to not use it anymore. Greg will take it back and he'll blame me for the sticky Y button.
- [68:44]
B
Brett Hunter writes in before we go and says birthday tax 33. Decided to treat myself to the Xbox. Ally X. Can't wait till tomorrow. Happy birthday.
- [68:53]
A
Happy birthday.
- [68:53]
B
We're excited for all of you tomorrow. Sorry, jump in. One last question.
- [68:57]
C
One last question, because I. Wait. I feel like we should ask this. Mike, you are like an Xbox guy in my mind. I know. Maybe I wanted this so bad, but here's the thing, I don't think of you as a handheld guy. I think of you definitely more as like I'm sitting at the desk playing games. So I don't know if there's ever a way and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think any device is going to make you a handheld guy. But. But hearing all of this, what's it do for you? Are you excited for this thing?
- [69:20]
B
Well, I've been doing a lot of handheld gaming since the Switch 2 came out and Andy got me really into Hollow Knight Silk song. I would watch an Andy Stream and play my Steam deck a lot in bed. And so I've been riding the high of a handheld. The dream of an Xbox handheld has always been there since the early 2000s. And now hearing your review and impressions, I'm a little more on the fence than I was. I was definitely ready to jump over the fence and give them a thousand dollars of my hardhorn dollars and see where I'd go. But right now I'm a little concerned. I think I need a little time looking over your shoulder, maybe check out some more reviews. I'm not.
- [69:56]
C
I'm gonna give you mine.
- [69:57]
B
I was.
- [69:57]
C
I'm gonna give you mine, Mike.
- [69:58]
B
You get mine.
- [69:59]
C
But I want you to. I want you to like, like really like get it. I wanted to go to somebody at kind of funny that is going to love this thing and like have it be their handheld device because I. I'm sure somebody here it will be for them and it might be you, Mike.
- [70:13]
B
I think Parrish is going to teach me.
- [70:15]
D
I don't know if I'm going to teach you just one other feature we forgot to mention in this. We talked about GeForce now as far as cloud streaming goes. But games that you own that are cloud stream enable and this goes into the whole what's native can you play on here what you can't. So the games that you can't natively play on this, like the Witcher 3 I own on. On Xbox digitally. Right, Right. So it shows up in one of my recently play. So I was able to navigate that. It sees it, I click play it, cloud streams immediately through that. I thought that was slick. It worked. No problems at all. So anything that you have in game pass that you can cloud stream, any games that you own digitally that are cloud stream enabled, you can play through this device as well. So it does open up more of the Xbox library to you. For games that currently won't be playable on this and obviously they might one day do some kind of weird backwards compatibility emulation. But for now those games you can cloud stream on this. And it worked pretty well.
- [71:12]
A
I know Greg stoked to get it back, but as far as Mike liking it, I think there is like going to be a little bit too much tinkering for you to, to like you
- [71:20]
B
made me worried of. Yeah, I wanted to turn on and I wanted to look like my Xbox. I wanted to go through my library and just bang on that. If I want to jump over to Steam game, which I've invested a lot of dollars in, I want a quick button swap over to that. I want to see the games play that. I do not want to get lost in an armory crates, window settings, having a shutdown. The best part about my Steam deck is it puts a little, little exclamation point at the top of the screen. It says, hey Mike, you need an update. And I click that button and it updates, it shuts down, turns back on and I'm in and gaming. Right. If I want to get weird, I can get as deep as I want, but I want this as surface level as possible. I need this to turn on. Welcome me with my Xbox icon and I'm off in gaming. And I never question that's out. Well, that's what I want.
- [72:04]
D
So. So Mike, what you're saying, I know we're wrapping this up, I'll make this quick, but that, that's the whole point. And that's why when I say I still prefer the Steam deck, it's because of that, the simplicity of it, I get right to gaming. If I want to get freaky and get weird, I can go do that, but I don't have to. Whereas this, you still got to tinker a little bit to do it. And to the whole point about Xbox and where this is headed, I think this is them setting up the pieces that a couple years from now, when they're ready to say we're in the next gen and whatever their hardware strategy looks like, this will be the template to get there to, to exactly what Mike's saying. You're going to press the button, be it a handheld console, whatever, it's going to bring up this experience. I want to pull in Steam, I can do that, play those games. If I want to get weird, weird I can, but I won't have to. And that is the current advantage that Steam has right now over what Xbox has introduced with this new full screen experience.
- [72:59]
B
An exciting time. It's a new time, it's a new generation. That's the best part of it is I am at the edge of my seat, excited for all the bells and whistles that all these companies are putting out in front of us and saying, hey, we want to vie for your attention. We want your money. We got something cool here, here. And then I want Andy and Tim and Paris and I want the audience to come to me and be like, this is dope, Mike. And then I played and I go, that is dope. But I also don't want a lot of this. So let me be real with you. But with that. That has been our Rog Xbox Ally X review. Please let us know in the comments below. Are you jumping in? Are you buying this? Day one? Are you trepidatious about this? Are you looking forward to more reviews? Are you jumping in? In the future, let us know where you stand on the PC handheld gaming side of things. We have some really great content coming for you the rest of the day. I'm going to sit down with Bennett Foddy and race him in baby steps while doing an interview all about the game and his career in the gaming space. So stay tuned to that. If you're live on Twitch, you don't got to go anywhere. If you're on YouTube, a brand new link, we have plenty more awesome content. We had a great kind of funny podcast yesterday. What a fantastic time.
- [74:07]
C
Good times.
- [74:08]
B
Great games cast, great games daily. Go check out all the kind of funny reviews content that you can find. We'll catch you back here tomorrow. Gamers, goodbye.