As Xbox execs are back doing interviews to promote the new Asus ROG Xbox Ally, they can’t avoid questions about Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox plans. Xbox President Sarah Bond has already teased a “very premium” and “curated” experience, and now Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has chimed in too in an interview with Japanese publication Famitsu.
First of all, Spencer reiterated what we already knew, which is that the next Xbox console will be built by Microsoft and not a third-party manufacturer. “When it comes to hardware that we at Microsoft announce as a first-party, that would be our ‘next console’,” Spencer said in the interview with Famitsu translated from Japanese.
Just like Bond previously hinted at a Windows-powered next-gen Xbox, Spencer also implied that the work Microsoft has done on the ROG Xbox Ally is influencing the software that will power its next console. “With the ROG Xbox Ally series launching as a handheld device, and as we see continued evolution in experiences through the cloud and PC, what I’d really like people to pay attention to is this: This product hints at how the Xbox software platform will evolve going forward, and how it will connect all kinds of devices together at a single point.
Even though Spencer didn’t explicitly mention Windows, it’s pretty clear that the Xbox experience on the ROG Xbox Ally, with a unified gaming library that integrates games from Steam and other stores, is where Microsoft wants to go. The only problem is that the full-screen Xbox experience, as it works today, is quite unfinished.
In a lot of ways, the ROG Ally booting straight into the Xbox app in full screen is reminiscent of how Windows 8 threw people into a full-screen Start Menu that hid the familiar desktop interface. And on the Xbox Ally, you do need to go back to the Windows desktop to do many things, such as managing storage or installing Windows updates.
The Xbox experience on the ROG Xbox Ally, which doesn’t do a great job yet at making the Windows desktop unnecessary, is far from the seamless experience console gamers are accustomed to. Valve’s SteamOS currently does a much better job at providing a console-like experience on gaming handhelds, as well as PCs via the Steam Picture Mode.
Earlier this week, YouTuber Cyber Dopamine (via Tom’s Hardware) also published a YouTube video showing a ROG Ally X running Bazzite, a SteamOS-looking Linux distribution optimized for gaming handhelds. And as it turns out, Bazzite offers better gaming performance than Windows, with up to 32% higher FPS in some games and more stable framerates across the board. This was previously observed on the SteamOS version of the Legion Go S, which ran games better than the Windows version of the handheld.
All in all, Microsoft may still have a lot of work to do to fully optimize Windows for gaming handhelds and what could be the next-gen Xbox console. And the clock may be ticking as more PC and handheld manufacturers start embracing Valve’s SteamOS instead of Windows.
