Announcing the ROG Xbox Ally X Series X Pro Edition featuring Windows 11 Home w/ Xbox UX

This week, Microsoft and ASUS officially unveiled the Asus ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. This is exciting news for anyone who hasn't been paying attention to the state of gaming on Windows lately.

The ROG Xbox Ally comes in two SKUs. There’s the ROG Xbox Ally X and the rip-off, lower-tier ROG Xbox Ally.

Now, Microsoft missed an obvious opportunity to enshittify their Xbox naming conventions even further. In my opinion the new SKUs should have been called the “ROG Xbox Ally X Series X Pro” and the “ROG Xbox Ally Non-X Series S”.

I feel that would have provided more corporate synergy with their other consoles. So I'll do them a favor and just call them that from now on.

These new handhelds feature a newly revamped version of Windows 11 Home. This new experience has been borgified “Xbox-ified” to free up system resources in an attempt to triage the flailing state of Windows gaming.

This is notable as this Xbox/Windows UI is the first time Microsoft has allowed the Xbox team to ship substantial changes to the proper Windows operating system. And reports have it that it’s a much-improved experience for handhelds.

But I mean, that's not saying a whole heck of a lot considering a Retroid Pocket running Android is a better PC gaming experience than Windows 11.

The major change here is the desktop is entirely disabled. When you first start up your third-party Xbox or resume from sleep, the device drops right into the Xbox interface — a seeming knockoff of Steam’s Big Picture Mode.

Honestly, that’s good news for folks who continue to subject themselves to the exclusively painful experience of Windows on a handheld out of some kind of hype-led FOMO.

And RAM consumption and battery life could also be improved here, too.

But the question is: is this the world we want to live in?

A world where a sleeping giant like Microsoft can suddenly awaken, flex one monopolistic, anticompetitive muscle to significantly styme competition... then fall asleep again secure in the knowledge they’ve hampered innovation for the next decade.

Because that’s (zero hyperbole) exactly what’s going on here.

Microsoft is using its brand power, technological properties, monopolistic market share, and an obscene pyre of money to undermine the first serious competition in the OS space in decades.

It may seem trite, but we collectively have the means to affect change and, despite their market dominance, and their shameless and repugnant affluence, we can get organized and we can make a difference.

With this move—essentially combining two of their largest customer-facing brands—Microsoft is essentially attempting to consolidate their dominance in the PC space once and for all.

Their ambition here is no secret: they want to kill SteamOS before it can gain a formidable foothold in Microsoft’s turf. This is a kingpin move on the part of Microsoft and it's designed to kneecap their competitor(s).

Furthermore, they know what they’re doing here is against the law. There’s no clearer indication of this, to me, than the fact Microsoft cancelled their own first-party Xbox handheld last week ahead of this announcement.

Why? Because a first party Xbox/PC – in any normal and healthy democracy – would raise the specter of antitrust investigations (as well it should).

Frankly – in any normal and healthy democracy – Microsoft's business would have been divvied up in the 90s.

But there’s no better time to right a wrong than right now. And the wrong of a failed anti-trust proceeding against a criminal enterprise (in this instance, Microsoft) should be righted as soon as possible.

Microsoft has held back the PC for decades. They, long ago, killed off the competition and threatening products and reshaped the industry in their image.

But they also muscled their way into the console market only to, once again, deal significant damage to their competition and retard innovation for the next 20 years.

They used their pocketbook war chest to bankroll even more anti-competitive and anti-customer services. Again, reshaping the market and even their competitor’s products to be worse versions of themselves.

For example, the PS2 and PS3 were both complicated and exotic architectures that developers had to grapple with in order to truly understand and maximize their potential. But once a developer knew the hardware they could craft highly optimized masterworks of software.

The PS4 and PS5 are virtually indistinguishable from the Xbox One and Xbox Series hardware. Which are essentially just PC hardware with very little post-launch potential.

The PS3 and the Wii U had free online play (so did the Switch, until it didn’t).

Meanwhile Microsoft was pioneering the concept of enshittification with Xbox Live. Now the Switch 2 has a physical button on its controller that’s paywalled behind Nintendo Switch Online like it’s a goddamn Roku remote.

When Microsoft pushed enshittification further with Game Pass, Sony and Nintendo followed suit in record time. Nintendo got rid of their Virtual Console in favor of their own, tiered and inferior version of Game Pass which only features emulated titles. And if you pay more? You get more (and more poorly emulated) games!

These aren’t coincidences. Microsoft is one of the principal architects of the PC and gaming industry’s decline. They do it on purpose because they can profit from it.

It’s quintessential post-capitalism where they aren’t building things that generate wealth or value, they’re instead using their position at the top of the pile to profit from the destruction and dismantlement of the things the capitalists built.

So, to bring this full-circle, it’s time to dismantle Microsoft.

It’s time to part off Windows, Azure, Edge, Office, Xbox, Mojang, Rare, Activision, Bethesda, and every other one of their offerings into their own companies. Ban them from working with each other for the next 50 years and heavily regulate which industries and acquisitions they’re allowed to participate in.

And for the love of all that is holy, every one of their executives need to have the proverbial cords on their golden parachutes cut as they're falling back to Earth. :fedora:

As for the ROG Xbox Ally X Series X Pro Edition, though? Too little, too late.