Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox

theverge.com

157 pointstosh141 comments

No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!

Touch controls for most games suck (I've tried). Replicating somebody's Xbox controller on the second screen sucks. It's unendingly annoying when you die over and over in a game because your thumb or finger wasn't in quite the right place to fire or move in a particular direction.

Not to mention, the Duo is ####ing expensive: top-end iPhone kind of money for the unlocked variant.

If you really, really want a dual screen console with a second screen, buy a used Nintendo 3DS (get the "new" variant if you can). But, since with the Duo you're sacrificing the second screen to the controller anyway, you may as well go the whole hog and get a single screen portable console with decent physical controls. The Nintendo Switch is a great option, as is a used Playstation Vita. Or, an increasingly viable option if you have a decent single screen phone already, is to buy a Bluetooth game controller that you can clip the phone into as a screen.

I don't know what the writers at The Verge were thinking with this because if you really want to game on the move a Surface Duo is so far from being the best option - unless that's the device you already own - it's unfunny. All of the other options are also hugely cheaper, again, unless you already own the Duo.

I'm not saying the Duo is terrible or anything like that but don't buy one for this. If you have one already and do want a decent gaming experience on it, your best bet is to buy a controller. I imagine an actual Xbox controller, which you might already own, would probably work fine.

> Touch controls for most games suck (I've tried)

Pubg Mobile controls are amazing.

You can still use a physical controller with this, and it's obviously at a proof of concept phase.

I did mention using a physical controller toward the end of the post. But then it's unclear what the advantage is versus doing that with your existing phone (as I say, unless you already have a Duo).

Bigger screen. Better Sound. Is this just not obvious to you??

The bottom half is the controller, so you really only get a 5.6 in screen.

A switch screen is bigger than that, and if sound is your major concern it also docks into an actual TV with audio output. Presumably if you’re playing handheld headphones are no big deal (in contrast, not using headphones just pisses off everyone around you)

Not really, especially because when playing on the move I'm always wearing headphones/earbuds so the device's internal speakers are irrelevant.

The screen size issue is marginal at best. You're trading it for a bulkier device: you might prefer that, and that's cool, but it's not an obvious and objective advantage for everyone as a result.

(Assuming all things equal and you've chosen the separate controller route: if not you lose the bottom screen anyway, because it's used as the controller.)

Now extend your argument to a large equipment that travels at lethal speeds on 4 wheels. It's gotten so bad that I am surprised they've have kept the steering wheel intact and still analog.

FWIW I 100% agree with you about touch controls in cars. I even considered drawing a parallel between the two but thought my post was already long enough.

Automotive EE here, touch controls on vehicles are because it’s cheaper than buttons, dials, and switches... by a lot. Not to mention single supplier, remove the testing an validation for the switch bank, remove the firmware and ECU requirements (you didn’t think there was a wire behind that switch or dial did you?), and they don’t need it “done” before the vehicle goes to production (we have tens of thousands of cars in lots waiting forever flashes before they can ship), so if the HVAC dial is buggy, so what? Fix it by the time they hit the dealer for inspection.

Everyone designing the car knows that touch is dumb. But marketing and bean counters love it.

Steering wheel is still “analog” in some new cars but it isn’t actually connected to anything. Super crazy that we’re doing a ton of work to make it feel right by adding back in pull and vibration.

The goal is to disconnect the wheel from the tie rod because “we know better” for accident avoidance, self driving, and it’ll help with packaging.

to be fair, you shouldn't be messing with your radio or things like that while driving anyways. Just stop somewhere!

The Verge made a video about how to build a computer at one point and it was full of laughably bad advice. I'd say they're more of a culture blog than tech experts/analysts. Hardware stories come across as uncritical ads.

werent they bankrolled by microsoft? or was that polygon?

I'm not sure. I don't see mention of MS in either sites wikipedia page, or Vox's. They're both under Vox media.

100% yes. Touch controls suck for gaming because your fingers drift. There's no physical feedback that your fingers are on top of the button and ready to press.

It sucks, and I really really hope that this doesn't catch on.

Haha, yeah... well... brace for the impact of a passing but possibly prolonged fad. It happened once before when the iPhone 2G and 3G came out, plus some of the early Samsung Android tablets. I'd say it's likely to go bigger this time simply because high quality, powerful, touch-enabled devices are so much more ubiquitous now. It does remind me of the car touch control fad a bit.

I doubt it will, thankfully. Touch controls have been around for a long time on smartphones so lots of people have already had a chance to see how crappy they are.

It’s not perfect, but for FPS shooters touch aiming is closer to a mouse. I wish there were controllers with the joysticks replaced with touch pads. There was the Steam controller but it’s discontinued. The reason is that like a mouse, movement on a touch pad is final. You don’t need to ‘return to center’ like with a joystick to stop moving. With added gyro assist, aiming is even better. Call of Duty and PubG are pretty good on mobile, the aim speed is better than console and drift is avoided because the screen and controller are one in the same.

You could put a thin plastic/silicon stencil over the screen, with holes in the places where the buttons are located, which makes it possible to feel where the buttons are.

Or you can pair a controller.

The real enemy is latency. Physical switches that trigger an IRQ directly to be handled by the program within microseconds would be ideal for human gaming (edit: or directly reading hardware registers). Everything else is just another weak option, pretending to be a gaming system. Also while I'm on the topic, F microsoft for still preventing me from developing software for their system independently.

The latency on the proprietary WiFi woth Xbox controllers is best in the industry. The Bluetooth latency is surely minimum connection interval which doe BT5 is what, 7.5ms or so...

> be handled by the program within microseconds would be ideal for human gaming

Ok, well, for the rest of us humans who aren’t eGaming Professional Athletes staying sharp every moment away from the “the dojo”, I think pairing a controller is probably fine. Yea, microsecond direct register reads though... makes a lot of sense for cloud gaming.

>The real enemy is latency

You think a cloud-streamed game is going to be hampered by Bluetooth latency?

As someone who bought an mp3 player because I wanted a physical play/pause button, I completely agree. Nothing will ever replace buttons that click, for me.

I wonder if in the future you could have micro-fluid channels underneath the screen where you can pump fluid to create raised bumps for the buttons. I remember seeing a techdemo years ago, but haven't seen it materialize in a product. This seems to be a good fit.

This is the closest story I found: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-35232827. But I do remember, and I'm sure it was also on the BBC, a piece several years ago where they demonstrated "physical buttons" the the form of reconfigurable raised bumps on a touch screen that was, I think, either on a phone or a small tablet. I just can't find it now unfortunately.

If a company could get that to work well, and it was also robust in the face of day to day wear and tear, being dropped, etc. - and of course it wasn't incredibly expensive - I think they'd probably be on to a bit of a winner.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/01/new-microfluidics-pa...

https://la.disneyresearch.com/publication/tactile-rendering-...

Disney has been working on this, although their method is different from your proposal.

This is the one I was thinking of..

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/01/new-microfluidics-pa...

>I wonder if in the future you could have micro-fluid channels underneath the screen where you can pump fluid to create raised bumps for the buttons.

The problem with this technology is several-fold:

1) Areas that can be raised are fixed.

2) Liquids.

3) Do you like the feel of squeezing a zit when you press a button in a game?

4) Anything that uses this technology will not have a uniform looking screen, relegating the second screen to a sub-status compared to the first.

5) Microfractures due to repeated flex.

6) Scratches at 1 with deeper grooves at 2.

Thanks for your comment! How did you learn about these details? Would love to read more about it.

What'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.

I've considered getting a larger Android tablet for the purpose of playing games on GamePass /xCloud with a paired xbox controller. It works quite well on my phone, but the screen is kind of small or my eyes are bad. The piece missing for me, currently, is the lack of vibration support. I did not appreciate how many tactile cues today's games have until it was missing.

For example, in Sea of Thieves, there is a "clunk" vibration when your ship's wheel is centered. It's very difficult to grab the wheel and straighten your heading without the clunk. Visually, the wheel had a center spoke which looks different than the rest, but the wheel rotates several times in a given direction before stopping.

If they ever add vibration support, I may purchase an Android tablet with a larger screen.

>I've considered getting a larger Android tablet for the purpose of playing games on GamePass /xCloud with a paired xbox controller.

As far as I know, [there is still no tablet-sized controller with proper analog triggers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF-wWUSq3Cc#t=12m10s).

>The piece missing for me, currently, is the lack of vibration support.

My understanding is that this is an Android issue. Nvidia added vibration support for Shield TV, its Google TV box, but vibration only works on a) GeForce NOW with b) the 2017 Nvidia game controller. Not the 2015 controller, not Xbox One controller, not xCloud, etc.

I would be propping the tablet up on a table and using an Xbox one controller. I do this with my phone (OnePlus 7t) today, but the screen is a bit small.

I'm just waiting for some sort of vibration support before I get a tablet, knowing that it's an Android issue and that a specific Android version may eventually be required in order to use it.

This seems to be the ongoing story with Windows Phone / Surface: interesting and well-made hardware, let down by mediocre software and UX.

I'll disagree with UX on the Windows Phone. I miss it to this day.

The problem was 100% insufficient ecosystem support. Friends having social apps I simply couldn't get my hands on (and third-party apps that worked great getting blocked by official sources.) And bank apps that required Android/iOS - the convenience of mobile check deposit can't be overstated in the U.S.!

The Surface UX (Windows 10) has improved massively since Windows RT / Windows 8. So I don't think that's to blame, either. But software/ecosystem is everything. And it's what Windows 10 excels at, but every locked-down Windows has failed at.

I wish Microsoft had continued to develop Windows Phone as an alternative to Windows, instead of trying to incorporate some features into Windows as Metro, which met with inevitable backlash. I would have loved to see it evolve into a tablet/touchscreen laptop platform on its own merits.

Indeed, my sense is that Windows Phone 7 was picking up some decent momentum, and then it was scuttled by the Windows 8 initiative. There was probably some guilt by association with the ill-fated desktop OS. But there was also the confusing compatibility story between Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8, which I found to be confusing and slightly intimidating both as someone who was shopping for a phone at the time, and someone who was considering developing an app for Windows Phone.

I get what they were trying to do, and it was certainly an interesting and ambitious goal. But they made the same mistake I repeatedly make when I'm trying to kindle a campfire: putting the fire out by throwing way too much wood onto it at the first hint of a visible flame.

I used Windows Phone for a few years back in the day. I did find it a bit buggy (my phone would crash about once a week), but the UX was pretty good. Especially at the time, where screens were lower-resolution than they are now, the tiled interface worked really well.

I eventually moved to Android, and it took me a long time to get used to it - for a long time I kept thinking that just about everything had been more intuitive in Windows Phone.

>The problem was 100% insufficient ecosystem support.

The root cause of which is insufficient Microsoft support. If they had stuck with it and kept investing for 10 years and kept up their investments in physical stores where people could go to buy non malware laden products and get tech help, I think they could have been a 3rd option in today's market.

Microsoft couldn't get over the hurdle that US phone carriers refused to sell a 3rd option at all, no matter how much money or time they threw at that problem. They could invest in physical retail Microsoft Stores all they want, but they were locked out of the stores US consumers actually buy that hardware form factor from, and in many cases they couldn't even get SIM cards for most of the US networks even if they did manage to convince people to buy their next phone from a Microsoft Store.

Against that kind of gatekeeping, of course there is no third option in today's market! It's harder to sell three things than it is to sell two things, and AT&T/Verizon/et al decided that they didn't want to sell three things.

(Sure, Microsoft could have trundled on in other markets than the US. They had such a sizeable India marketshare against the troubles in the US, for instance. But when you've already lost your "home" market, it's hard to keep people's confidence. Especially in that case where Microsoft got the biggest marketshare gains from cheap hardware from a variety of hardware partners, those thin margin partners are nothing but confidence driven.)

Interesting. I wonder how could Microsoft not have enough political sway to force FCC to do something about that? Maybe not force them to sell their phones, but not giving them SIM cards seems egregious. And at all 4 mobile networks?

How are Pinephone and these small timers getting SIM cards then?

It's also that OEMs and carrier had absolutely no way of customizing Win Phone.

Samsung's dream is for you not to buy an Android phone that happens to have been built by Samsung but a Samsung Phone running Android. That's why they try so hard with their vocal assistant.

Win Phone offered OEMs the option of shipping glass slabs that were competing on price and specs (just like the PC market!) while Microsoft would own all the value added on top. By the time Microsoft started shipping it's own hardware, it was too late.

> By the time Microsoft started shipping it's own hardware, it was too late.

I think if any company had a chance, it was Microsoft. They are the only ones with the in house expertise and cash flow that could have sustained the kind of spending needed for the 10 or whatever years it required.

Of course, it would have required a lot of short term sacrifice, which obviously their executives could not stomach.

> They are the only ones with the in house expertise

The first windows phones/pockets (based on Windows CE) were already fairly old when the iPhone launched. Microsoft was used to dealing with multiple OEMs, not building it's own hardware.

That one has always felt to me like monopoly abuse by Google to prop up android

> The Surface UX (Windows 10) has improved massively since Windows RT / Windows 8.

As a Surface owner, I am sorry, but the Surface/Tablet UX on Windows has actually _significantly degraded_ compared to Windows 8. Just pick up a Windows 8/.1 Surface and compare; it is night and day.

Windows 10 may have upgraded "desktop" Windows usability and reduced the much-hated "tablet influences", but the cost is that as a result it is a much worse tablet OS, no doubt about it.

Windows Phone 8.1 was the pinnacle of modern smartphone UX and is still far ahead of Android, with BB10 OS being the only serious competitor.

If I had to describe Android's UI in comparison: usable but I hate every second of it. Especially the text input is so frustrating I have to wonder whether it's intentional.

It's still a great mystery to me why it seemed like the swipe keyboard (Word Flow[0]) on Windows Phone was so, so good, and yet even SwiftKey which is owned by Microsoft doesn't measure up (but SwiftKey co-existed with Word Flow...)

At this point, some seven years since I've used Windows Phone, maybe my memory isn't that accurate, but I remember the transition to using Android keyboards to be very painful.

It's interesting to see a thread where even going from Windows Phone 8.1 to 10, the predictive keyboard got worse.[1]

[0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-new-word-flow-keybo...

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/windowsphone/comments/4smmuc/what_h...

> It's still a great mystery to me why it seemed like the swipe keyboard (Word Flow[0]) on Windows Phone was so, so good, and yet even SwiftKey which is owned by Microsoft doesn't measure up

I worked with the guy who lead the swipe keyboard on Windows Phone. Amazing machine learning engineer who lead an amazing team. Some of the work he did for my team was out of this world (ML models to do predictive touch inputs to decrease perceived touch screen latency and improve touch recognition accuracy, on a Cortex m3)

Unfortunately for whatever reason his code was never adopted outside the mobile org, and I believe he was moved off that project after its initial version was completed. This is also why the desktop Windows swipe keyboard for Windows tablets at that time terri-bad compared to Windows Phone's swipe keyboard! Also this is possibly why the keyboard got worse, not sure it was long enough ago that I remember it was mid-Win8.1 mobile -> 10 transition but I don't recall all the details and the timeline.

>Unfortunately for whatever reason his code was never adopted outside the mobile org

If it were open source people could still use it elsewhere.

I'm not sure making your labels so large they don't fit on the screen is part of the "pinnacle of modern smartphone UX".

It had interesting ideas that work better for a fancy site, not for a OS that should be used by hundreds of millions of casual users.

Every time I revisit the device, I'm just disappointed all over again that it doesn't run Windows 10.

This seems like the device that might have justified Windows 8's ill-fated attempt to unify the mobile and desktop operating systems. I see it, and what I want it to be is a dual-function device that works like a tablet when I'm on the train or whatever, but switches into a more PC-style interface when I plug in a monitor and/or connect a keyboard. When I see those dual screens, my mind immediately wants to stick an emacs window or tmux pane on each one, a bluetooth keyboard just below, and still have plenty of space for a notebook and a beverage, all within a cramped coffee shop table.

I would absolutely buy a device like this that ran Windows 10 and could dock, providing an experience like an evolution of the "Continuum" feature seen in Windows 10 Mobile.

So much this. If it ran Windows 10, I'd not only own it, I'd be excited to own it. There's just nothing exciting about anything iOS or Android is doing. They're just phones.

What's frustrating is that Microsoft is in this incredibly deep rut with their OS team and haven't been able to dig themselves out. Each successive alternative flavor of 10 has failed to launch for years, including this month's death of 10X.

As much as I'd love a Duo running Windows 10, if it had waited for a Windows OS to run on it, it never would've launched at all.

It's odd that they haven't tried shipping a RedHat/Ubuntu derivative instead then.

I mean, the issue is that their own previous attempt, Windows Mobile, was a high quality, competent OS platform. And it's largest issue was that you couldn't get Google apps on it because Google's a monopolist. Pushing a different OS that doesn't have Google app support doesn't really move the needle.

Considering Microsoft's OS has it's own (much larger) app ecosystem this seems like a pretty strange complaint.

If I understand correctly, they are referring to Windows Phone 7/8/10 which had a store and some apps, but things like Gmail and YouTube were actively blocked but Google to make life difficult for Microsoft and the consumers choosing Windows Phone. Simular things happened with Snapchat and Instagram. No first party support, and third party apps for blocked from their APIs.

Windows Mobile was kind of before the time of Google / Android apps. Neither WM or WP could run Win32 apps though, so ultimately the software ecosystem was very limited.

death of 10X, leadership would like us to believe was more so because of COVID and their concern around less consumer confidence during a pandemic. Obviously, that didn't really happen since prices are through the roof for cars, houses, gpu, gaming consoles etc.

> Obviously, that didn't really happen since prices are through the roof for cars, houses, gpu, gaming consoles etc.

Which can be indicative of supply crunch, rather than high demand.

demand being higher than expected is what causes supply crunch.

Most management people I knew were very pessimistic right around when lockdowns started in March.

The picture in the article reminds me of the GPD Win 2, which has physical buttons and runs Windows 10. The Win 2 doesn't really give the impression of a laptop or a mobile phone, more like a portable game console that runs PC software. Maybe there are some form factors in between laptops and phones/tablets that are worth exploring further.

It would be nice if the GPD hardware had better dockability. All the available docks are 3D printed by enthusiasts.

Also, the GPD has made me realize that I don't really want a tablet-style input device for ultraportable use. Having the physical knobs and buttons works better if the environment is that of a desktop PC. Remember that weird trend that started in the 2010's where every laptop manufacturer felt the need to make their screens into touchscreens? There were plenty of people I saw who would switch between the touchscreen and mouse awkwardly, as if the touchscreen was beckoning them but they realized five seconds later that navigating Windows with touch regions that small was too cumbersome to bother with. And yet the cycle kept repeating, because the touchscreen wasn't going away.

switching between a touchscreen and mouse is no more awkward than switching between a keyboard and mouse, imo

Have you seen the Surface Neo? It's a larger version of the Duo that runs Windows 10(X). Although 10X is canceled for now and development is paused on the Neo.

> Similar to tablets, I personally just reach for the phone or the laptop or my TV, and never a tablet.

That's an interesting point.

I, too, never reach for a tablet. But I use my tablet a lot to read research papers and books- both fiction and nonfiction.

So, to me, it is never a replacement for a mobile phone. It does something else.

So, if MS or anybody else wants to popularize this form factor, I believe that they would have to convince people of its uses _other than_ as a smartphone, and focus on that.

I use my iPad as a mousepad 95% of the time. It is the most opulent thing I can imagine but most of the time I am either at my computer, which for me is the optimal way to do any real computing, or I'm out and about and I'm not going to carry a full-size tablet, so I use my phone. However when I'm backpacking I will bring the iPad and use it for a map (Much nicer to have the screen real estate compared to the phone and I'm loathe to pull out the paper backup unless I have to). Similarly at night I can use it to watch videos I've downloaded. I very occasionally use it for reference material if I need to look a manual for some piece of equipment since it is nicer to have the bigger screen for that as well, but for normal books I prefer an e-reader (Kobo Libra H20 for me).

Touchscreen 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.

> 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.

I picked one up for the PS5 controller, and it works great and costs less than $10.

Still seems like a nice form factor to me. If you get a text you can just switch to that and type as you normally would. When a phone is strapped to a controller it seems a bit more cumbersome but I think it comes down to personal preference.

This mode only adds a feature and takes nothing away so in my mind its just a nice addition.

Perhaps I was too dismissive initially. I can see the benefit of having controls already there without having to take up screen real estate, so it does make sense, especially for games that don't require precise timing and movement, and there are plenty of those.

Having access to those games easily and without needing a separate controller or using controls on the same screen you view the game with is beneficial, and doesn't preclude adding a separate physical controller for games that would benefit from one, so this seems like a net win.

There are controllers that split in half and you stick the phone in the middle for a Switch-like form factor. The ergonomics are much better than the controller clips because those end up being very top heavy with most newer phones.

The real problem is that there are few mobile games designed for controllers, unless you want to use one of the streaming services or console emulators.

Thus defeating the entire purpose of having a two screen setup where one screen acts like a controller. You'd be better off getting a larger screen phone and a bracket to clip the phone to a physical controller. Especially with one that has as many buttons as the XBox controller does.

I'd probably prefer this little laptop mode over holding a phone strapped to my controller. You could fold it around to one screen and use that configuration if you like as well. There are a lot of options and I think that's neat.

One of the best games I played last year was Outer Wilds. Would have played fine with a touch controller if it’s all I had.

I think some people are making too big a deal about this article. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.

Or use a Nintendo Switch, which has great slate of games that work well with the form factor, a great "grow up story" for social gaming, and physical controls.

Especially tiny, closely packed touchscreen buttons, on a screen you're not even looking at. Trying to hit the right button, with no tactile feedback, is not a recipe for success.

Or you hit the right button but you have to keep holding it down to move the character and don't realize your finger has been slipping and the character suddenly stops moving at the worse moment. I've had that happen with Gameboy emulators on the phone a lot of times.

Exactly this. And it is $836.21 for the device according to this link: [0]

No thanks and certainly no deal.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JTDPRM1

Using that link, I see the 128GB version for $768.99 a discount of $631(45%) from the $1399.99 original price.

The 256GB is $849.99 being a $650(43%) discount of the $1499.99 price.

I see no other discounts to get to the price you posted.

That was my thought initially too, but on further reflection, there are plenty of games that have input that's not time sensitive (or not that time sensitive) that having a built in (mediocre) controller is better than not having one and needing to put finger over the display screen for the same controls.

And you can still pair a controller. I think that maybe makes this "better than other phone devices for xcloud" at least, which is something.

I play a lot of JRPGs on my Android tablet. Input is far from time sensitive. I still prefer a gamepad 100% of the time and I just won't play at all if I don't have one on me. The UX is simply not comparable.

Xbox Cloud Gaming, unfortunately, it's far from ideal. For several games, lag kills the experience. And I'm not talking fast paced FPS. Even platformers can feel weird or unplayable when you add latency.

> Even platformers can feel weird or unplayable when you add latency.

Even? Super Mario Brothers lets me know very quickly if the lag on my set-up is anything other than quite low, because I'll fall down every damn bottomless pit on the map.

I got caught by surprise trying to play Ori on Xbox Cloud after having no problem at all with Cyberpunk on Stadia.

I have high-speed node-to-node wireless internet in the Bay Area (~700mbps symmetrical) and cloud gaming is terrible on it, mainly due to jitter and small amounts of packet loss.

Assuming the infrastructure over time can support it, I see cloud gaming succeeding, but it only works well if the circumstances are perfect.

@some-guy

Is your experience for xcloud or all the cloud gaming platforms in general?

Both Stadia and xCloud. Any sort of ultra-low-latency / UDP-based protocols suffer with my kind of internet (Monkeybrains ISP in the Bay Area) because of jitter / packet loss.

Hell, failing to set my TV to Game Mode makes local gaming unplayably laggy.

Competitors aren't much better. I beta tested Google's assassin creed on a gigabit connection. It still dropped me down to 144p during lag spikes like a youtube video.

An astute executive that saw an early prototype of this asked “how much does a Nintendo 3DS cost?”

It’s a Rube Goldberg gaming machine.

Microsoft seems to have Rube Goldberg DNA.

"The gaming phone is neat idea and I’ve been actually thinking this is the way Microsoft gets back into phones. Leverage their XBox platform to build a phone meets Nintendo DS like device. Thats what I thought the Surface Duo was going to be."

- me 88 days ago on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26258796

The shitty thing is, how does a nobody like me see this? Microsoft had once chance to take this narrative front and center. The surface duo product identity has now sailed. It will always be a failed product trying to be salvaged. Microsoft is a bad consumer company. Incredible enterprise company though.

Get a Razer Kishi or Backbone (seems better for iPhone) for your current phone. Much better experience as you have actual buttons.

Or just use your XBox GamePad with the phone clip

https://cdn-reichelt.de/bilder/web/xxl_ws/E910/8BIT_XB-CLIP_...

I use one and the top heavy weight is super awkward. Nice part of the DS was that the weight was in the bottom, the flip-up part was just a dumb screen.

Backbone on iPhone is an amazing experience. What shocked me was how well they nail the software side of the "game console". it has a full home button and button based UX for selecting games

I have a clip for a regular xbox-style controller (SteelSeries duo) and I gotta say the top-heavy weight is extremely awkward, and my phone is pretty small (pixel 4a).

Are those better?

To be clear, this is not running the game on the device "like a Nintendo 3DS", it's streaming.

Ah, so it's even worse

This 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.

There's something like that called the Aya Neo[0].

It runs Windows. It runs emulators. It's reasonably powerful and compact. And it has hardware buttons.

It's also a bit pricey if you think of it as a portable game device, and it also probably falls down a bit on battery life comparisons.

Would you want a gaming Surface to have two screens and touchscreen buttons, or hardware (perhaps as a Surface keyboard-like magnetic accessory)?

[0] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ayaneo-world-s-first-7nm-...

It's too much money, so it doesn't matter. They've priced themselves out of relevance.

For most people and use cases, I agree. If you get it as a combo tablet/gaming/tiny laptop, it's not a bad price. The OS allows you to do all those things, and the screen is acceptable for some of them.

But personally, yeah, I want a 15"+ screen for laptop usage, and I don't really have interest in a tablet, so there's not enough value here for the money.

>If you get it as a combo tablet/gaming/tiny laptop, it's not a bad price.

It's an integrated graphics Ryzen 4500U machine - it's not a gaming device and shouldn't be called that. It doesn't have a keyboard, so it's not a laptop.

It's at best a ryzen 5 4500U powered tablet with integrated gaming controls. You can buy a $500-600 dell laptop and a $50 xbox controller and get the keyboard too.

I'm happy they found 2500 people to back their project but it looks like a major rip off to me.

It's not without some controversy either

https://www.reddit.com/r/ayaneo/comments/n6k0n0/breaking_lat...

https://www.reddit.com/r/ayaneo/comments/n7hgmd/guide_on_ref...

The company behind the device has been sold and it's a new team, new manufacturing, etc.

I would not back a $1000 crowdfund for any reason.

There's obviously a niche for high-end UMPCs with integrated controllers. (Aya Neo, GPD Win 3, ONEXPLAYER, etc.)

If you are planning on using an eGPU with a laptop, the laptop might as well be smaller.

It would be dead on arrival. Nintendo is just too good in the handheld department. I'd look at the PS Vita as a cautionary tale.

The Vita is an amazing piece of kit (I own two!) and I think the main fault with the system was Sony's lack of support and the garbage proprietary storage medium that was worth its weight in gold. If Microsoft made a Vita with xCloud, I imagine it'd be a pretty popular device and further enhance the value of the Microsoft gaming ecosystem.

Also, even though the Vita was not a smash hit for Sony, developing for the Vita was apparently pretty lucrative. The attachment rate for Vita was very high and Vita owners bought a lot of games. Granted, that was probably due to Sony's abuse of its Vita buyers.

I can foresee dozens of people buying it.

Why buy a PS5 when you can buy a portable touchscreen device from Microsoft for twice the price and none of the games.

The only good experience I've had with it so far is Slay the Spire (mysteriously missing on Android). I play it full-screen with a gap in the middle -- I wish there was an OS or app-level setting to let me choose whether I want the screen to be slightly smaller with pixel perfect gaps or have a random chunk missing from the middle of every full-screen experience.

I pair an XBox controller, but I don't tend to travel with it (I just keep one on my coffee table). It would be pretty sweet to have a switch-style dock that let me put my TV in "big screen mode" and just let me navigate the whole phone with the controller. More like an XBox Phone than a Windows Phone at that point.

Update: I played a run on Slay the Spire with the new controls and I actually prefer it to the paired XBox controller. I think this is a pretty great update for any turn-based game (todo: check out Monster Train and Nowhere Prophet).

Is that lt and lb and rt and rb buttons in the corners?

I keep hoping software-bindable shoulder buttons would become standard on phones. Beyond the challenge of touchscreen face buttons, the lack of triggers is a huge limiter.

Can we make it clear that Microsoft has NOT turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox in any way. This is streaming games with an existing Android App, all they did was span the touch controls on the second screen. It does not actually run Xbox software.

You'd have a better experience just plugging in a real Xbox controller on any Android phone equiped with the xCloud streaming app.

This is the first time I have seen a video of one of these cloud services where you can see the physical input and the game screen at the same time, and it's exactly as bad as I thought it would be. Sea of Thieves isn't exactly a latency-sensitive game but that looks almost unbearable with the input lag.

Imagine if MS would have launched Windows Phone as Xbox Phone and focused on making a kickass gaming phone.

From what I’ve heard the input lag on xCloud streaming is pretty bad in some games.

I'd much prefer pairing a controller directly to the phone (like Stadia style) than a touchscreen button.

You can pair an Xbox controller with a Surface Duo.

The real handheld "xbox" is off course GPD Win 3 and it has the "VAIO UX" form factor

Virtual buttons... no thanks.

I wish Apple would do this with the iPad.

M1XBoX

with no shoulder buttons

Console Sales:

- Switch: 85 millions

- PS5: 8 millions

- XBOX: 4 millions

Looks like both Sony/Microsoft forgot something when they announced their new console..

A proper portable console with 1 (and not 2) home console would have been a killer

I'm not sure what the target audience is with a virtual gamepad, smartphone users want games designed for their phones, and console users want games designed for a gamepad, and that is why the Switch sells very well, it suits the need of portable gamers in a world full of smartphones

source: https://www.vgchartz.com/

Competition in the portable market would be rough, although I would love to see Sony give portables another shot. Especially now that smartphone gaming is its own segment entirely.

Microsoft's strategy seems pretty solid, especially given their stumbles last gen. They're buying in heavily into Game Pass and making games subscription and cross platform across PC and Xbox. XCloud streaming ties into their subscription model and allows for continuity to mobile devices as well.

What are you on about? there is 0 competition for Nintendo, that is why they are able to sell 80 millions of units in the first place

No matter what game pass strategy is, it will not work on smartphones, console gamers doesn't want to play on smartphone using touchscreen controls, and smartphone gamers doesn't want to play console games because they aren't designed for their device in the first place

XCloud is not a tech ready for wide adoption, everyone with a smartphone know how shitty the network is in busy cities at peak hours, even when at home it's not perfect, wifi? then daddy will complain because he can't stream his netflix movie anymore

Looks like Valve went ahead.. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/05/exclusive-valve-is-ma...

That's another missed opportunity for microsoft

PS4: 115 million units.

Looks like Sony didn't forget something when they announced their new console.

PS4 since 2013

Switch was released 4 years later in 2017, and yet about to pass the PS4 lifetime sales by the end of the year

Days since launch (as of 2020-05-24):

- Nintendo Switch: 1,543

- PlayStation 5: 193

- Xbox Series S/X: 195

Even if we extrapolate, Switch is still #1

I never said it wasn't. Just adding some more context that you left out.

Switch isn't of the same generation though. Switch was released back in 2017. Also, switch didn't face hardware delays like PS5 and XBSX. So not a fair comparison at all.

for comparison:

PS4: 115 millions (since 2013)

XBOX One: 50 millions (since 2013)

People should stop trying to find excuses, we all want a portable console, that is why the Switch sells like pancakes

Both Sony/Microsoft missed a huge opportunity

Nintendo has no competition, there is room for another player over there

What? When did I say that portable consoles are not needed? Please stop twisting the words. I only said that your comparison is not at all fair based on the year of release, hardware shortages etc.

Of course there should be competition in portable console area, but that doesn't mean one should cherry-pick data and piece it together to prove a point.

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