Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
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Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#2Touchscreen buttons? No thanks.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#3An astute executive that saw an early prototype of this asked “how much does a Nintendo 3DS cost?”
It’s a Rube Goldberg gaming machine.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#4Touchscreen buttons? No thanks.
Just pair a controller.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#5This is screaming for Microsoft to release a gaming Surface, possibly one that looks/acts a lot like a Nintendo Switch.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#6Touchscreen buttons? No thanks.
Just pair a controller.
At that point, why use the surface duo over some phone that doesn't take up that space with another screen?
This does bring up that a good gaming controller meant to mount to a phone might have a lot more use these days with the cloud gaming services than it would a decade ago though.
A high quality Xbox or PS4 like controller that could mount a phone might sell well. Or an adapter for the real ones.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#7I'd much prefer pairing a controller directly to the phone (like Stadia style) than a touchscreen button.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just pair a controller.
At that point, why use the surface duo over some phone that doesn't take up that space with another screen? This does bring up that a good gaming controller meant to mount to a phone might have a lot more use these days with the cloud gaming services than it would a decade ago though. A high quality Xbox or PS4 like controller that could mount a phone might sell well. Or an adapter for the real ones.
> A high quality Xbox or PS4 like controller that could mount a phone might sell well. Or an adapter for the real ones.
These adapters exist today.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#9What's pretty clear is that the small form-factor multi-screen device needs a compelling story to establish value and utility.
The Surface Duo looks like a very cool device that I would probably never use over a phone with one good screen, more power and a great camera. Similar to tablets, I personally just reach for the phone or the laptop or my TV, and never a tablet.
But a Duo released with some more power and some imaginative use cases might start to sell. I think it's a shame that the larger Neo and Windows 10X seem to be dead before arrival, because it might have led to something interesting. But Microsoft has not resolved the conflict between Windows for everyone, and an application store that feels competitive and properly populated, so locked down devices have consistently failed for them.
The Duo running Android doesn't have that limitation, so the bigger question might be if Microsoft can do a sufficiently sophisticated job customizing Android, making it feel like something more than just Android, and making it work perfectly with this unique form factor. But it's hard to see the business case for all the resources going into what still feels like a very niche device category.
Re: Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
#10This is screaming for Microsoft to release a gaming Surface, possibly one that looks/acts a lot like a Nintendo Switch.
Yeah if Microsoft released an xCloud device that looked like a Switch that could side load emulators I'd buy it.