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  • brucethemoose - Wednesday, June 14, 2023 - link

    Will. These things be on display at Best Buy?

    I feel like that would huge. Theres a whole segment of buyers that has no idea this form factor exists outside the Switch.
  • Slash3 - Wednesday, June 14, 2023 - link

    A lot of Best Buy locations have had one on display at a kiosk for a while now, yes.
  • lemurbutton - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    Imagine if Asus could use Apple Silicon SoCs instead of inefficient AMD APUs.
  • Samus - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    What would someone play on Apple SoC's? iPad games? Okay...
  • meacupla - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    no no, I bet he wants to run iOS sonoma, with a windows version of steam running from command line, off the back of some very hacky wine/proton translation layer.
    And then the game may or may not run well, even when using an M1 ultra.

    Yeah, I bet that'll get gamers to buy an apple handheld gaming pc.
  • Samus - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    Someday, Steam and many games will be ported to Apple's ARM platform but that day isn't now or anytime soon. It took nearly a decade for Steam to come to MacOS when it was Intel. Now that it isn't even x86 the ask is pretty huge.
  • Kangal - Saturday, June 17, 2023 - link

    You're all correct, that an Apple Silicon wouldn't be able to do much since it is very restricted.
    But lemurburton's point still stands; it has A LOT of potential.

    Just look at the 2019 iPhone 11 Max with A13 chip, a pocketable device with relative performance of the Xbox One. Then if you step up to the 2020 iPad Pro with the M1 chip, a portable device with the relative performance of the PS4 Pro. And going further you have the 2022 MacBook 14 with the M2 Max chip, you have a small device and here it shows relative performance to the Xbox Series X.

    A Gaming Console using Apple Silicon, will it happen?
    No.
    Apple is the largest and most profitable gaming company in the world, and they achieve this without having to directly compete against Nintendo on software or Sony on hardware. They own the AppStore and take a sizeable chunk out of In-App-Purchases. This is their Cash Cow. There is no way they are going to risk affecting their business strategy just to make something that seems logical from the consumer perspective. Until big-budget games become more profitable, the market won't change. We see the same with big-budget movies, making way to Short-Series Shows from Subscription services. The best you can hope for in terms of Gaming Console running ARM is something pocketable (Retroid Pocket 3+), something portable (AYN Odin Pro), something small (ThinkPad X13s), and something plugged in (Khadas Edge2)... but you can see these aren't the most ideal options.
  • Thunder 57 - Saturday, June 17, 2023 - link

    The M1 compared to 8 Jaguar cores is hardly a great comparison, but I'm sure you knew that. Jaguar came out in what, 2013? It is energy efficient for sure, but it would get blown away by a PS5.
  • meacupla - Sunday, June 18, 2023 - link

    Whatever you are smoking, you do realize there is already an iphone and ipad, right?
    iphone 14 pro max is already at 6.7" screen size, while the ipad mini is a 8.3" display

    And apple thinks the A15 and A16 are perfectly adequate for gaming on.
  • ads295 - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    One of my main reasons to stick to PC gaming is that I much prefer a keyboard+mouse combo for games. I own a PS3 and PSP as well and we play fighting games and Gran Turismo on those.
    This device is cool on its own but I don't know if I want to be fixed to a joystick and buttons for a PC "console".
  • excalibur1814 - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    Plug in a wireless or cabled keyboard and mouse????
  • ads295 - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    That sorta defies the point of buying something portable, doesn't it? May as well buy a laptop.
  • Hazed_Phantom - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    The point is that you have both capabilities. It's a full fledged PC that is great in handheld mode. I own a Steam Deck and I mostly play in handheld mode but if I want to I can easily use my USB-C dock and plug in my M+KB and gaming monitor. That and the ROG Ally are very capable pieces of equipment.
  • excalibur1814 - Friday, June 16, 2023 - link

    Why? This is fast enough to be your main computer. Video/photo editing etc. Why constrain yourself to singular thinking? This can be your portable. Your gaming machine. Your workstation.
  • meacupla - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    Yeah, okay, so this device is not for you.
    You should go get a GPD Win Max2.
  • ads295 - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    I did not know about this! Very interesting device.
  • excalibur1814 - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    "ROG Ally game console "

    It's a portable PC. It might get a bit confusing for some. Then again, we've had the UMPC, which was later renamed MIDS.
  • Hifihedgehog - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    You made sense until the MIDs and UMPCs comments. That's false. MIDs and UMPCs are different. UMPCs are typically business class and run Windows. MIDS, on the other hand, are often consumer oriented and run slimmed down OSes meant for mostly web browsing:

    https://m.hexus.net/tech/tech-explained/systems/18...
  • PeachNCream - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    I find the form factor appealing, but what the Steam Deck and by extension the Switch lacked was the ability to operate as a single, unified computing device that could do other things besides run games. With only casual interest in games and an aversion to gathering a pile of single function, wasteful consumer electronics devices, not having access to a conventional OS and keyboard + mouse functionality has always been discouraging. The few other niche computers in this form factor have all been rather limited so far, but I think Asus has done a few things right with their iteration so maybe its worth a closer look.
  • phoenix_rizzen - Thursday, June 15, 2023 - link

    Steam Deck gives you access to the underlying Linux OS, including a graphical desktop. They even have a dock that includes HDMI and USB ports. Plug a monitor, keyboard, and mouse into the dock, and you have a full-fledged desktop PC. Anything you can do with Linux + KDE on a "normal" PC can also be done on a Steam Deck.

    If you're really crazy, you can even install Windows on the Steam Deck, making it no different than the Ally.
  • PeachNCream - Friday, June 16, 2023 - link

    That, I didn't know about. Thank you! I guess it would really just need LibreOffice in that case which would cover the bulk of what I'd want to do outside of gaming. I'm a rather low-demand person in terms of computing so it would probably suffice.

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