From the way I see this, the Windows handheld devices already exist and this is them being a bit late to the party, as usual.

No matter what UI they use, they'll continue to annoy the users with ads and other crap because they already do that on the Xbox side. Add AI into this and you'll have a bunch of people running away from this device.

The Microsoft Store is nowhere near the level of Steam when it comes to games but of course, they offer other pieces of software that aren't game related. If they couldn't compete with Steam with their store then, what makes anyone think it'd be any different now?

As for Game Pass, that side of the business isn't growing as fast as they would like and they already raised their prices on it, which isn't even that attractive anymore but this what happens when they acquire Activision and Bethesda for $80 billion combined while needing some way to make back the profit for it. Even with this new handheld, why should I buy it when I could go with a Lenovo Legion Go or ASUS ROG Ally that already has Windows installed with the Game Pass software?

Xbox Cloud Gaming can be used on many devices including Steam Deck and while it's great for those that like cloud gaming, not everyone has a fast connection to take advantage of it. I don't see this as a large enough threat to Steam or Steam Deck.

Overall, unless MS can give a good reason why people should use their handheld device over the other Windows handheld devices, they're going to have a hard time standing out. Until then, Valve will continue to do the work they're doing right now with Steam, SteamOS and any other hardware they have in the pipeline.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I disagree. Yes, they made some shitty business decisions and it already started with Alan Wake as an Xbox exclusive. Then they decided to get Epic exklusive and even killed the retail version for Alan Wake 2.

@Strapinski
While that was true at the time, Remedy ended up making physical copies of Alan Wake 2 available for purchase on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Honestly I could have probably got by with a 5800x3D but those are hard to find these days.

@HendrinMckay
You can still find some at Aliexpress but they're pricey. However, your best bet right now is the 5700X3D but it's too bad it performs slightly slower than the 5800X3D.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I like what I see in this game because it really does remind me of Golden Axe and Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara from what they mentioned in their press release.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Good to see Godot continuing to get more new features and improvements out to go toe to toe with other game engine software.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I'd imagine most devs/publishers do not actually support Deck/Linux. It's nice when they do, though.

@rivalary
This is why Proton exist since most of these devs/publishers aren't going out of their way to support Linux natively and Valve and their partners are the ones that do the heavy lifting to make these games work on Linux/Steam Deck using Windows builds.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

We seriously need to get China on board with Linux. Don't they even have their own distro? You'd think not having a US company spy on their data would be a serious selling point.

@belisama
I remember back in the 2000's, they had Red Flag Linux but it didn't take off and based on what mphuZ said, it looks like they're going to use HarmonyOS NEXT now.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I'm kind of at a loss to how awful this product launch is. This seems like a MASSIVE swing and a miss from framework, and I adore them for their laptops. This is extremely disappointing to me. They made a really expensive NUC, but even shittier than an actual nuc.

- no gpu
- soldered on cpu (wtf!)
- soldered on ram (wtf!)
- REALLY expensive

This isn't even a desktop computer. If the major components are soldered on, and it's missing a gpu, this is just a shittier version of their laptops, but in bigger form.

HUGE wasted opportunity from them to create a maker kit level plug and play desktop computer than even children could play around with and swap parts in and out of willy nilly. Instead we get this ............... whatever this is.

@R Daneel Olivaw
They already mentioned in the video why they ended up having to solder the RAM and CPU and it has something to do with the new AMD Strix Halo APU. If it wasn't for the APU, it would be no different than a Mini ITX motherboard that you could've gotten for a lot less than what they're selling here and build your own Desktop PC.

This product isn't for you if you expected a GPU because the selling point is the AI portion of the APU since a lot of people in the AI space need the fastest and best APU they can get to do their work in a small package. Also, the APU being new is going to cost a lot before it decreases over time when newer models appear.

According to Framework on Twitter: "The 128GB Framework Desktop config is by far our top-selling product from yesterday’s launch."

@Liam Dawe
I'm not surprised by this because if you're going to pay a lot for this desktop, you might as well go for the top of the line model with all it's BYO options. I saw a video recently of Youtubers playing games on this new APU using the ROG Flow Z13 and it seems like it handles 1440p pretty well with their iGPU.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Happy three years, Steam Deck! I got mine back around August 2022 and it's been a great device for many of the games I play and I want to see what Steam Deck 2 has in store whenever Valve decides to release it.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I just hope the companies that use Anti-Cheat Expert will eventually get around to enabling it for Desktop Linux if they're currently focusing on Steam Deck.

View this comment - View article - View full comments