Attracting new players with ROG Xbox Ally will be a ‘longer journey’

We're starting to see Xbox's transition, you know, away from consoles exclusively and more into this sort of console PC hybrid. We've seen Xbox on PC, but this is kind of like an Xbox PC.
In terms of what you were saying about increasing the size of the audience, I think that's problematic because the pricing is high.
Yeah.
So, it's kind of like for those that could afford it.
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across the globe to produce campaigns for gaming's biggest titles. They may be marketers, but they're gamers first. And for nearly two decades, they've been putting their love of video games into everything they do, helping marketers connect with their fans. From indie to AAA and from mobile to PC to console, Keyword supports studios with marketing services across the entire life cycle of their game. To learn more, visit www.keywordstudios.com. Now, back to the show. Hello and welcome to the game business show. Today, what did we make of opening night live? The European video game market has declined and we're here at the Xbox booth to talk about Xbox. To help me to do that, I have Alex Donaldson. Hello. You're a gamer editor at large. and founder of RPG site
and various other fingers in many pies
journalist extraordinaire Alex let's just start with so this is gamescom's just opening
y
but opening night live happened last it's actually quite a busy one there was quite a lot of games announced what did you make of it
I felt like it was a broader spread than

the last few sort of opening night live
it I guess what I'm saying is it felt like more like the sort of spread that you get at something like the game awards or summer games fest where usually I feel like Gamescom opening night live is a subtler
yeah a more European maybe
a lot of European centric stuff but it felt broader and you know everyone was there to yesterday in to some degree even if it was not actually in OL like with the Kirby direct and stuff like that. So the whole day felt quite felt larger than last year I felt I also felt there were more Nintendo Switch 2 announcements which isn't saying very much in the whole of Summer Gamefest. Um, but it was also I think was it this E3 moment because everyone's been they're talking about Gamescom going to going to be the is it finally going to replace E3 and I um I this felt stronger than I've ever seen Gamescom's opening night live. Obviously in the years past Sony used to have a press conference and EA had a press conference and Xbox would have like a reception which is what we're here uh doing. So it used to be bigger back then but I actually felt

this was quite significant. I actually felt it was probably stronger than Summer GameFest. It's that's that's a bold statement.
Maybe not in terms of surprises, but indeed Resident Evil was here, Call of Duty was here, um there was um uh there was the the Black Myth title, Hollow Knight was here.
Well, actually, does that not give you the old E3 Gamescom dichotomy returning to some degree where it's like, so Capcom had Resident Evil at SGF and they announced it. They made it very limited, playable to a handful of people and showed a little bit. And then here they've showed a lot more. They're making it playable to a wider range of people including the public.
Yeah.
And it's the blowout. The same sort of thing for COD, which is the old E3 cadence, right? Of you of you would see Mass Effect 3 at E3 and it would be hands off. And then I probably came to this very hall probably over in that corner and played Mass Effect 3 here two months later. So you feel like you're getting that back a little bit?
Yeah. But I was trying to think about what would E3 look like if it happened this year? And I actually think most major companies would have been there.

Maybe Ubisoft wouldn't be, Square Enix wouldn't be, but Take Two have got some games out. Um EA's got Battle for they all have fewer games apart from Xbox. They'd all have fewer um titles at these things. And yeah, and but they didn't they weren't all there at Summer Game Fest where apart from PlayStation and even then PlayStation had an announcement last night in the latest Ghost of Yoai stuff. Everybody's here. Every you know Nintendo have got a massive booth. They weren't there at Summer Gamefest. Xbox's booth. Okay, this is about half the size. We were talking about this before we started, right, where this is definitely half at minimum, but it might actually be a little bit half at most, but it might be a little bit less than last year, but last year was like this big coming out party statement for Xbox. And actually, a lot of last year's booth was quite empty. They had like gacha pond machines that were giving you Xbox Live codes, things like that. So, they they've stripped it back and, you know, Blizzard obviously is elsewhere in this hall.
Yeah, Blizzard were there last year, not not in this booth this year yet. But it's on a theme, right, where you look at these stands like I can see Sagga over there and it's got a huge huge stand, but it's ostensibly for one game.

Yeah.
And when I walked through, you felt that quite a lot where it was like a lot of big stands, but also quite a lot of empty space. Part of that is out of necessity for Games Cop because the football's so high. They have very big walkways compared to packs or E3 or whatever. But at the same time,
it tells a story about where we're at with publishing, right? where every publisher's got a little bit less. And that's the thing, can E3 ever come back when every publisher's got so much less?
Yeah. And sometimes they don't have a game at all like your Ubisoft or someone like that. I do find it funny though, we're at the Xbox booth. This is a press bit for the Xbox. It's not as busy as it will be. Um, and there's loads of pods for Grounded 2. We're at the Age of Empires bit here, which is a very Gamescom, by the way, Age of Empires is always at Gamescom.
RTS games in general. Halo Wars has always announced the Gamescom,
but the ROG Xbox all I think they've got 20 units on and that's going to be an absolute packed queue, but it's silk silk five displays, five opportunities to play Silkong.
Media were fighting to get on those Silkong pods at the start of this uh to be the first to get their previews up.

I find the PR campaign for Silkong to be very strange. There's no big like re-reveal trailer. It's been sort of little snippets of footage in various events and then and now it's here and you can play it.
Sometimes less is more, especially when the hype has built that much. And I'm very curious about the story they're going to tell about why that game took the time it took cuz there's got to be something interesting there. Whether it's a reboot, whether it's a creative re, whether it's a break. It'll be interesting to see. I thought all the stuff last night opening night live wasn't last night, two nights ago when this goes out was very good. I tell you what though, I think the problem I have with the I know that I'm speaking. I'm I The game business is part of Jeff Keely's projects. I'm aware of what I'm saying here.
I There is an awful lot of games with colorful shooters where someone's jumping up high and shooting down below. There's a lot of souls like games where there's a house with arms and legs chasing someone down the street.
There's a lot of um uh JRPGs which I know you love. Um there's a lot of those and I think it speaks to the same

audience and I often worry I Indiana Jones was here again. Yes. because it's got DLC coming out in next week I think or two weeks time that for me went oh that's different Lego Batman even though it's another Lego game I thought oh that's different and it wasn't a lot of difference there's a lot of similar looking stuff and I do and I used I always try to reason with myself is it everyone just making the same game and I just think it's the nature of an event which has an audience and has certain people that want to pay you know and it's a it's not like a platform holder who who will go no we're not going to run that trailer that's too similar to this
it's also the publishers right because who's always missing from these things
yeah Yeah. And Nintendo provide a lot of that flavor. And you think about the broader,
you know, we've come a long way from in a negative way from when we had Breath of the Wild gameplay debut at the Game Awards. Nintendo truly now only does everything on its own really. It feels like um and that does hurt the overall flow of
Yeah. But I do think I do think like if maybe if the trailers were a little bit more story focused, I know it's a ridiculous thing to say. Everyone says just show gameplay because the gameplay is always big man with sword hits things

or you know shooter bang bang jumping and I just sit there and wonder could we not have something that focuses more on the on the flavor of it. We had Glenn Scoffield on the show earlier in the week right and he talked about his next game and he and he just says he said and honestly I was one over by it. I have no idea what the game is. He said um uh Rammeses the 8th's tomb is the one that's never been found. They're still looking for it in the Valley of the Kings and I've come up with a game idea where his tomb is not there. Um and um and I just went I want to play this game. And I don't know what is it? Is it an action game? Is it a shooter game? He then starts talking about monsters and stuff and I become less interested. But like it was I like oh sort of Egyptian horror mystery is is something that I'd be well up for. But yeah I don't know the whole like CG trailer thing has been a debate forever. What I will say is I've got an interview later today with the creative lead on a game that was revealed or shown last night and I watched the trailer prepping again this morning prepping for my interview and it was like a CG and I was like this has given me nothing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What I know is

that this game exists and I don't know that what you know broadly what the tone of it is but other than that it's given me nothing which
you don't get it when I must I watched Superman movie three four weeks ago and every trailer before that apart from one of the kids ones was really like I was like oh oh because it's story right and um and that is how they can focus we we show gameplay and our gameplay is perhaps a little bit more
you know stabby jumpy shooty but
gameplay you can look we had the Kirby direct yesterday right and
45 minutes 45 minutes and like Sakurai for 5 minutes explaining what the B button does. And yet that 45 minutes absolutely flew by. I can't explain why, but it's like yes.
I think Donkey Kong's Bonanza's direct was only 15 minutes. But I I can't
I can't
Sakura, you let that man cook.
I he just he just he just probably asked and he just went yes, of course. I think they do as their I think they do as he as he as he asks because he's so they know you don't mess with like I even laughed a little bit of like the little self-referential reference to Mario Kart

he made where he was like this is a racer with only six races on the track because when you have lots of races it becomes more confusing and it's harder to have comebacks from behind and who wants to play a game like that then he sort of looked into his lap a little bit knowing that Mario Kart World is is is hundreds of players it feels like sometimes.
Yeah.
Yeah. Um, what do you think of um, Call of Duty had the big reveal and it looked like Call of Duty like circa like via remedy in terms of its
Well, the the the first trailer had that vibe as well, right? Beware that CG trailer at Summer Games Fest, people initially thought it was some sort of remedy game.
Um,
I like it. You know, at the end of the day, Call of Duty is going to be Call of Duty. Yeah.
That you can't expect too much different out of it. That formula works. So, if you can take something aesthetic like that and have world fracturing stuff like that and make it a little bit more interesting without upsetting the cart of what COD is, I'm I'm fine with that. Like, it doesn't particularly blow me away. I think when it comes to the shooter world, I'm more in big shooter world. I'm more intrigued about

Battlefield at the minute. I feel like they've got more on the line.
Yeah.
Um and more to lose. But, uh yeah, I I think it looks cool. Um, and I'll always make time for COD. But, uh,
yeah,
it's it's interesting. I was chatting to someone the other day and I was talking about, um, Call of Duty is a series that absolutely knows what has shifted identity quite a lot. Yeah.
But absolutely knows what it is. And I was talking about it in the context of um, I was talking to someone about Magic the Gathering. And Magic the Gathering is a franchise that is both at at its su peak of success, but also is in the grip of a really weird identity crisis. And it's that's sort of the antithesis of where COD is where COD is in the grip of its success but absolutely knows what it is. Even though what it is has changed quite a lot and even though that upsets some not all of its player base cuz I'm sure there's some player base that are like I don't want any of this nonsense any of this controlly Alan Wakey stuff. I just want
Yeah. You know, War Zone and more guns

and rebalance
which they can get.
Yeah. Exactly. Right. So yeah,
Xbox was there in quite a big way in a way. It was it was relatively new within and announced a lot of stuff. There was um a PlayStation version of Age of Empires. Again, very very Gamescom announcement that one. Um and uh they showed, you know, little bits and bobs around Indiana Indiana Jones on Switch. They finally announcing the game for Switch after Tony Hawk's Pros Skater uh 3+ 4. We're at their booth and it is quieter. They've got the they've announced stuff around the ROG Xbox ally, including the fact that uh they've got a sort of like um a Steam Deck verified system going in place there so you can know which games will run and which games will run well
on the uh on the Xbox handheld which is out in October. So that's quite um it's quite exciting actually. It should be exciting. I don't know. I don't know if I should be excited or not. I don't know if Xbox I can't I I'm speaking to them later and I'll speak to them after this and we'll I'll talk I'll share with the listeners of the game business what I what what what I heard from them. But I can't work out how big they're they're treating this. I know I know from conversation I had before that this is what they call a um an hours ad. So the objective is not to necessarily sell to

new customers. It's to sell to existing Xbox players.
Yeah.
I'm excited for I love I like the idea of playing the Xbox games on the go. And I think there's something to us in general as an industry moving more into a space where it is that argument that Phil Spence has been making for a while actually about play your games anywhere, but it's more ways to play your games and more hours ads. So yesterday I was with Nvidia and I was looking at GeForce Now and that obviously is their game streaming service. But unlike a Stadia style experiment where Stadia wanted to supplant your Xbox or your PlayStation as your way of playing games, GeForce Now is really not intended as that. And it makes that obvious because the only way you can play games on GeForce Now is by piggybacking it onto your Steam account, your Xbox Game Pass subscription, whatever. It's just a way to play these games in more ways, in more places. And I that tech is incredible now. Like that tech is the streaming that was promised. But I think what's more interesting is the concept of that streaming as promised as an

alternative way of you playing your games,
not the way you play your games. So I actually legitimately I played Expedition 33 quite recently and I played it three ways. I played it on PC.
Mhm.
Natively, high-end PC, really beautiful graphics. I played it on Steam Deck natively when I went on a flight because I didn't have an internet connection. And I played it on Steam Deck using GeForce Now when I had an internet connection where that was coming through the cloud and looked as good almost as good as the PC version at home. And that's sort of the that's that's the dream that's been sold, right?
Yeah. I guess I still want just one device that play does it all. Not between the two between multiple ones. Um I I I'm I'm So we'll talk about the ROG Xbox ally um later. Um, there is a few other things they've got going on over here. They've got a uh they've got you can get a rare tattoo for their 40th anniversary.
I cannot see that.
It's sort of in the corner. I think it should actually
You'll definitely be going and getting that.
I kind of like
We need a photo of you with that on your arm.
A banjo tattoo or something. So, yeah, there's a few other little bits and

bobs.
There's an indie select booth over there. And I think that's really interesting. So, I think that's a big part of what Xbox is being strongest at right now. Like say what you will about what's been going on with first party which is a lot of stuff but that indie operation
ID is amazing. What I will say is worth noting that um Xbox had a load of third party games they're working on. Almost all of them have been not cancelled but they they've ended the contract.
Yes. Yeah.
There's about I think they've only got about two they've still got um on the go. They've closed most of them which is um so yeah the sort of yes they're still doing a lot with the indies. They've got their own first party stuff, a lot of it still, but um it's the stuff that So, we didn't even know about half those games.
But speak to those. I mean, whether you know whether it moves units, grows the Xbox ecosystem is another question. But like you look at this booth now, the most popular game here is an indie that Xbox is supporting. And actually probably the second most popular here is probably going to be Meat Boy, which is over there.
Yeah. Right.
Um and Invincible Versus as well. I

think looks really cool. So like
those sorts of games I think are really important to Xbox. Oh, I think they're really important for the whole industry. We we just had so um I'll change topic slightly. I don't know if you saw we reported earlier in the week. Finally, GSD have shared some data which I've been trying to get them to do and I'm really pleased they did it. Thank you, GSD. Um about where the video game market is in um so far in Europe. Market is 6% down in units. It's like 2% down in revenue for the first 20 weeks, but it
so revenue is a little bit stronger. Um it's worth noting GST doesn't track everything. It tracks everything perfectly, but the everything everything it tracks it does perfectly, but it doesn't track things like Exhibition 33 isn't in there. Repo is not in there. Schedule one is not in there. Uh, Peak isn't in there.
But it's what was interesting to me about that data was Assassin's Creed Shadows is the bestselling new EA Sports FC as it always is. Number one, Assassin's Creed Shadows number two. Assassin's Creed Shadow bigger than Monster Hunter Wilds in Europe, bigger than uh uh Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. I'm not too surprised by that one, but it was um bigger than Split Fiction is like the second biggest selling I think. And I was genuinely like, you do you believe the internet? Assassin's Creed

has been a colossal disaster and yet in Europe clearly it's got an audience.
You can't believe the internet. And and there and there's interesting things in that like Monster Hunter is is a fascinating one because that game was tremendous out of the gate.
Yeah.
But it just didn't have the legs the world has had and it's had all manner of user complaints in terms of balance, performance, stuff like that that has really hurt it. I think Shadows almost went the other way, right? Where it had a lot of hate in the run-up to release. Yeah. And then as people played it, people were like, "Oh, this is this is good." Um, so which always helps, right? And and I'm not surprised by Split Fiction at all because that game is remarkable.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, no. I'm Split Fiction in the top 20. Both Split Fiction and It Takes Two, which are both developed by Hazelite, are both in that chart. I I'm genuinely You're talking mega numbers here. There's some of EA's biggest hits.
And that's like 120 people or thereabouts, something like that. Like
Yeah. It's not really indie anymore, is it?
No. But even so, that's 120 people's quite small really in the grand scheme. And for those numbers,
it's also the market was also a little bit more digital. What I found actually one of the most interesting stats, I didn't actually talk about it on the

show very much and I should have on the uh in the story that I wrote was that on average gamers spent €29 per game over the this year, which is $2 more than last year. So, the one of the one of the conversations we've had, we've had Ampair sharing this data, a lot of analysis looking is actually cheaper games are more popular at the moment. go lower on your pricing, which still might be the case, but actually gamers are per game are spending more on average than they were 12 months ago.
Well, I think people are more willing to spend a bit more on indies, spend a bit more on shorter games than they were. I feel like the appreciation for that sort of stuff has gone up. I'll be very curious in in in a few months time to see how mafia stands up in all that um for that reason because about 10 12 hours. Um,
it's also worth noting I think the first half this year has been a maybe a little bit more AAA heavy and Mario Kart World's in there which is a more expensive game.
I think in the media we notice that like I think when when when all of us media look back at our performance over the year it's going to be a front heavy year.
Yeah. Now before I wrap up before I have

to go in and play the ROG Xbox ally what are you what have you what have you what are you looking forward to seeing while you're out here in Cologne?
Um you know the interesting thing and this is an interesting thing about Gamescom in general. Um, most of the things I'm most excited to see are embargoed for quite some time.
Oh, so you can't tell me.
So, yeah. So, my top two are embargoed until September sometime. Um, which is an again that's an interesting change just in the structure of the show and how the the show factors in and how publishers are approaching marketing like runouts. um in that I'm seeing two things today that I'm really pumped for and I can't on camera tell you about any of them.
Oh well, I what I will say is the best thing that I've seen so far just in terms of sheer confidence was that GeForce Now stuff from Nvidia where I just they've been confident in that tech's been really good for a long time. Um but they're just growing it and growing it. It's getting better and

better. It's getting more reliable. It's needing less important internet connection. They've just announced the upgrade where um where so before it was 40 series graphics cards. Now if you're on their top tier subscription fan, you get 50 80 quality. So that means you're getting the highest highest level of fidelity um almost on a that's equivalent of a 1,000 graphics card and you can play a game on that through streaming through this service. They added they've they've got this weird thing they've changed on the service which basically means the number of games it's compatible with has doubled now. It's now 4,000 some on Steam. Um and I think I will struggle to see anything that sort of wows me as much as that. Um just in terms of the effort. I do wonder sometimes though when I go to these shows I have to get wowed by technology and then it doesn't ever I remember coming to I went to E3 once where it had he said stand on this spot and they were showing Avengers on the screen. I could I couldn't hear it. It was a busy E3 show floor. Son the spot and suddenly I was like hearing surround sound Avengers. Couldn't hear the rest of E3. You could only hear Avengers. Stepped off the spot and I went, "This

is incredible." That was 10 years ago.
It's going to change the world.
I've not seen it since.
Hey, I remember my first project, Project Natal demos where it had much higher fidelity and I was like, "Wo." And then obviously the final thing was much more. What I will say about that is though, GeForce Now at least is an existing technology. It's just an upgrade. Like all those upgrades they announced yesterday, I'm pretty sure they're all out now. You can go home and try them. And I'm just really impressed by it as an idea and I think any individual game will struggle to top that. But I am excited to see more of Sonic Racing.
Oh, that's a good game.
James Bond is here. Like, you know, there's there
you know what, it's going to be a good year for British games. So, I know James Bond's, you know, IO and and studio. That game's being made partly in Brighton. Lego Batman last night obviously TT Games um as UK studio. GTA is next year obviously UK studio. Fable and Forza are next year as well. UK studio. might be a good year for the UK for our uh our local market. Um I'm looking forward to playing cuz I'm old. I'm looking forward to playing I played Star Wars Dark Forces for the first time with a night dive remaster. Fell in love with it. And when I saw Outlaws, so I've

never heard of before made in the same engine, I was like I'm after that. That's how boring I am. And I Nothing boring about that.
I might get a rare tattoo.
I want to see a photo of you on the stream with a rare tattoo.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, uh thank you, Alex, for joining us. I'm going to go and check out this uh this handheld and uh and I'll report back in a moment. So, I've just come out of a meeting with Xbox where I spoke to some of the creators of the ROG Xbox Ally and the ROG Xbox Ally X handheld and uh we also got to go hands-on with it. And the person who was there with me in that meeting was none other than Digital Foundry's very own Richard Lead Better. Hello, Richard. How you doing?
Fantastic. It's great to be here.
It's great. I'm I'm delighted to have you on the show. We'll have you on the show fully at some point to talk about independent digital foundry which is very exciting. Um, but what did you make of it? What did you think of the handheld?
Um, there's two sides to this story, right? There's the software, which is kind of like um primarily driven by Windows and Xbox, right?
And then there's the hardware side of things where we're actually looking at the third generation product. We had the

Asus ROG Ally, that was the first one. We had the Asus ROG Ally X, which I think is pretty much right now the best gaming handheld you can get in the PC scene. And um the the new one I don't know whether it's Xbox Vogg Li X or
Vog call it the Xbox handheld. Yeah.
Um this one is quite interesting because there has been hardware design input from Microsoft into this you know into sort of refining uh this third generation product. But the really interesting thing is we're starting to see um Xbox's transition away, not just, you know, away from consoles exclusively and more into this sort of console PC hybrid. You know, we're seeing it like um we've seen Xbox on PC, but this is kind of like an Xbox PC.
And I find this quite interesting because
it's going to need work. It's going to need time, but what you also need is a first generation product to actually work with.
Mhm. And that's what I think this is similar to the way in graphics the

future is AI and RA tracing. That's what the PS5 Pro does. Yeah.
It's like a a frontier product for what is to come in the future. But the challenge with Xbox is actually much much greater because Windows is not great for a handheld.
Right.
And we've got Valve who've basically mastered the console hybrid PC with the Steam Deck certainly in terms of the the interface. Right.
Mhm. So what Microsoft are doing is effectively a launcher.
Right.
Right. So you can actually access Game Pass, you can access your Microsoft library, but you can also access Steam, EGS, Gogg, all of the rest of it. So they're wanting to sort of integrate themselves into the wider PC space, and they're using this as a kind of frontier product to make that happen. Now, you asked a load of technical questions we didn't understand in the in in the meeting, but I I asked one question, which was um is this primarily about

giving Xbox players something else to play and and means for them to be able to take their games on the go and play them in other environments uh and hours play effectively, get more hours out of those players, or is it an opportunity to reach more mainstream consumers maybe in a Switch style way and expand the Xbox ecosystem? The answer he gave me was both. and he talked about simplifying the experience on the Xbox handheld um uh the Vog Alli X so that people can just jump in. Um but I have to say from my experience it still felt like a PC handheld and it didn't feel
didn't feel easy, you know, I said to them it sounds it it's coming across as more of a a PC than an Xbox.
Yeah. for a start, your existing library of Xbox games, unless it's Play Anywhere or it's on Game Pass, um, well, it's it's kind of, what can you say? You can't access your Series S and X libraries, for example, if there is no PC version. You can't access backwards compatibility from Xbox 360 or or Xbox

One. You can't access the OG Xbox, you know. So, the concept of what a digital library is and how it arrives on this device, it's it's nasonent. It's not there yet. I reckon all of that stuff's going to happen, right? Your access to Xbox 360, OG Xbox, but right now it's it's a PC with an Xbox launcher. Yeah.
And I think there are issues there. You know, I've made it crash a few times. It's it's it's very early days still in terms of the software. I mean, they've got some time to get it right. I mean, um, I think both of us managed to load in two games at the same time, and it didn't like that.
No, he did not. I thought something was wrong, and they had to film my bits. And what's annoying is I was playing quite well at the bits when it was moving really slow. Um, and so, um, I I I I mean, I quite liked it though. I mean, I like gaming on the go. I'm a Switch player because I like, but I am a bit
I am a bit lazy. just want it to play perfectly when a problem, right? Because they've got this uh handheld compatibility thing where they've

basically similar to Deck Verified, right, where it kind of guarantees that this game is going to run well on the Steam Deck. They've got their Xbox compatibility um uh alternative, so to speak. But when I ask them, well, does this set up the correct settings that are appropriate for a handheld? It's like, well, we've got to work with the developers on that, which is basically something for the future, but for the present, you're kind of stuck. And in which case, again, it's more like a PC than an Xbox. Xbox is plugandplay. You load up your game, you're good to go. Everything has been curated for you by the developer. If you've got that existing library of games that hasn't been curated by the developer, it's it's a PC where you're looking to lower settings to or or or adjust settings to get a good experience. And that's kind of there's a lot of stuff where they're saying, "Okay, this is this is stuff we're working on. It's going to come later or going to come soon."
They did they did talk about a road map. So, this is a journey, you know, maybe October 16th. I'm trying to remember the

date now. That's the release date.
And is um is not going to be the uh
it'll be a very good ROG Ally, I think.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. The hardware is topnotch. Yeah. You can't I don't think unless you're going to go in crazy with specs that you can make something better.
Yeah.
But in terms of what you were saying about uh increasing the size of the audience, I think that's problematic because the pricing is is high.
Yeah.
So it's kind of like for for those that could afford it, which you know I think how many is Steam Deck shipped to sold? It's like three million or something.
Not a huge number, is it?
And that's and that is affordable, right? And this is not that affordable in comparison. Yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to I mean, I'll get it. I'm looking forward to playing some of these games on the go. I'm not entirely sure some of them are built for it, but um but then I thought that about the Steam Deck as well.
Yeah. Yeah. And well, I think for the PC enthusiasts, half the fun is actually getting AAA games working on a handheld, right? So, there is that, but it's, you know, it's it's not quite mainstream friendly, but I think, you know,

hardware fine, software is an ongo I mean, they admitted it. You're quite right. they got a road map, an ongoing journey of of features that they want to add.
And um I think it's okay in the short term to have this frontier uh product that's actually quite expensive because um uh well, you know, uh it's not going to sell millions, but yeah, it's how you begin. And and you know, I like um I don't think Xbox are expecting anything from it. I don't think they're going to be disappointed. I think they know what they've got. They know it's probably going to talk to that same Steam Deck audience and and ROG Ally audience and um it just you know they clearly hope that it can do more but probably down the line.
Richard, thank you so much for your time.
Absolutely. Great to see you
and we'll have you back on to talk digital foundry and independence and all things soon.
That's it for today's episode of the game business show. That's it for this week at Gamescom. But don't worry, we've done loads of interviews. We have a live show recorded here that we'll be releasing over the coming weeks and days. Until next time, thank you for tuning in.