Ask Paul: April 14 (Premium)

It finally feels like Spring here in Macungie, so let’s kick off the weekend a bit early so we can enjoy the weather for a change.

Handheld gaming

OldITPro2000 asks:

There are more and more Steam Deck like handhelds being released, like the Ayaneo 2 and ROG Ally, not to mention the rumors of the PlayStation “Q-Lite” handheld and the already released Logitech G Cloud. In the news today was a Microsoft project to create a “handheld mode” for Windows to pair with devices like this.

Yeah. There’s nothing wrong with this idea: Windows 11 can and should adapt to whatever hardware it’s being used on, and a handheld (gaming) mode makes as much sense as a tablet mode. (And this kind of adaptation makes a lot more sense than the approach from 20 years ago where each of these things would be a specific Windows product edition.) I like the idea of a “launcher” in this mode where the user might select the Xbox app or Steam, or whatever, and have that be the full-screen UI when in this mode. It’s a good idea.

I keep asking myself why Microsoft doesn’t make a device like this themselves. It would fit more under the Xbox brand, but I could see it as a Surface device as these are often docked and used with external peripherals. Any ideas why Microsoft might be hesitant to enter this market?

I have wondered about this for years. I still think that Microsoft making a handheld Xbox makes sense, and that’s true whether a handheld mode for Windows 11 is a thing or not. (After all, console and PC games coexist in Xbox already.) I don’t understand why Sony killed the PSP/Vita and feel that those devices started to really make sense when they correctly emulated a console controller (i.e. went to two thumb sticks). And now that most videogame sales are digital, this would be yet another great way to move the platform forward.

Back in the day, I always sort of imagined that an Xbox handheld would basically be based on whatever the previous-gen console was and that you would play those games on it. Today, however, Microsoft has formalized a tiered development system in which games scale to meet the capabilities of the Series X and Series S consoles. So why not call this thing Xbox Series H (or whatever) and formalize a third tier so that this thing could play the same games? This seems doable today. And, honestly, semi-obvious. Plus, it could be a good Xbox Cloud Gaming choice.

The other option, obviously, is to make an Android-based gaming handheld. This could make a lot of sense too, but the missing piece is the mobile gaming IP that Xbox currently lacks. Perhaps this is a side goal of the Activision Blizzard acquisition.

Regardless, Sony is apparently looking at making another handheld gaming machine and, whatever form it takes, Microsoft should do the same.

The Amiga of mobile

j5 asks:

Hi Paul! Did you try out the Palm Pre when it came out? If so what were your thoughts on it? I had one and I loved it! I thought the OS was fantastic but the hardware was terrible. I was so bummed it didn’t take off and then sold to HP was the death nail for it. I wonder what the smartphonae landscape would be like if Palm OS was still around. Would it be number one? What would Android and iOS look like today if it was still around? We could use a 3rd major smartphone OS competitor in the market. Thanks!

I sure did, and I will never forget the Pre and its WebOS platform as being the biggest missed opportunity in the history of mobile. Literally, it is the Amiga of the smartphone market, the device/platform that got everything right and somehow leapfrogged the iPhone as amazingly as the iPhone had done to the rest of the industry. The issue is that Palm was floundering financially and didn’t have enough money to properly market the device and get it out into the world, and the initial hardware release was woefully underpowered. Palm imploded in the wake of its release. It’s too bad.

For those who have no idea what this thing was all about, or are hazy about the details, I strongly recommend watching the Palm Pre launch event, which took place at CES 2009. This speech is notable for lots of reasons, but I’ll point out that Palm’s CEO at the time, and the presenter, is John Rubinstein, one of the people who factored very heavily in the creation of the iPod at Apple, and his presentation is very clearly modeled after those by Steve Jobs. (He lacks that charisma, of course, but the product was exactly right.) And that the lead designer on these products was Matías Duarte, who went on to create Material Design at Google. (And previous to all that, he lead the design of the T-Mobile Sidekick.)

This an incredible example of “what could have been” in our industry. Like the Amiga, it’s what should have been.

More Bing in Edge

MartinusV2 asks:

I do not know if you have seen this. Microsoft added Bing inside the collection’s part of Edge. Is there a way to remove that? It slows down the opening of the collection’s panel. Is there no place Microsoft will not add Bing? I am about to try Brave if they continue. 

First, please do try Brave. If I can promise you anything with certainty, it is that this—this being the enshittification of Microsoft Edge—will absolutely continue and get even worse.

Beyond that, in looking at this feature again, I can see that it’s changed dramatically since I wrote about it for the Windows 11 Field Guide, which means I have some work to do with the book. But more important to you, Collections used to be a standalone drop-down (optionally pinned) pane and now it’s been integrated into the Edge sidebar. That is, when you open Collections now, the Edge sidebar opens with it, even if you’ve disabled the sidebar.

But I’m not seeing a new Bing icon “in” collections. There is, of course, a huge blue Bing icon in the toolbar. I did explain how to remove that button in a previous post, and it seems like it stays off if you use Collections. I assume that solves this problem?

On a side note, someone had asked about the Followers feature in Edge in our forums and I can see that this Collections update actually addresses a discoverability issue I raised in the book. So that’s good, I guess, though no one should be using that feature, which is still redundant and semi-pointless.

PC gaming

jrzoomer asks:

Paul do you think you’ll ever come back to gaming on the PC? Games are available for both platforms, and as an example, right now you can get about 70% extra performance (either FPS or fidelity) with even a mid-range graphics card like an NVIDIA 4070 playing the same game on a PC vs an Xbox Series X. And this will certainly continue to improve pretty quickly given the cadence of PC hardware. Thoughts?

This is an interesting coincidence, as I was just thinking about this. The last time I turned on my Xbox was probably March 1st, right before we went to Mexico for three weeks. And as with all of my previous long trips, I found that I didn’t miss it at all. However, I did bring along an Xbox Wireless Controller so that I could write the Xbox App chapter for the Windows 11 Field Guide, and not for the first time recently, it occurred to me that PC gaming has evolved to the point where you don’t necessarily need a really high-end PC to play most games effectively (and that Xbox Cloud Gaming has improved to the point where it fills part of the gap as well).

When I got home, we had a busy couple of weeks between selling our house, moving, etc. and I still haven’t turned on the Xbox. But as I wrote recently in More Mobile: A Lot Less Mobile (Premium), I’ve been using a workstation-class PC for the past few months at home, and this PC is absolutely viable for games. I kind of wonder about the logistics of this, since one of the nice things about my normal setup is that the Xbox and its display are next to my PC and its display, making it easy to go back and forth. But … yeah, I could game on this thing.

This past week, Microsoft offered me a code to try out Minecraft Legends and because it works on both the console and the PC, I decided to just try it on the PC. And, yeah, of course, it works great. I did connect a controller, mostly because that’s what I’m used to. But it was a minor proof point.

This morning on First Ring Daily, Brad and I discussed the Ubisoft+ Multi Access subscription service coming to Xbox. And there is, of course, a PC Access version of the service for PCs. That conversation was about whether anyone would want to pay $18 a month to just play Ubisoft games ($15 on the PC), but I sort of view it similarly to video streaming services (Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, etc.) where one strategy is to subscribe to one service for a month or two, in this case playing whatever games, and then moving on to the next service (PC Game Pass, whatever) for the next month or two. It’s an interesting idea. And it’s something I’ve been considering to get out of my Call of Duty rut.

Anyway. Would I game on a PC? Sure, and there’s no reason to not mix and match. I prefer the Xbox for a variety of reasons, but gaming on the PC isn’t as complicated or expensive as it used to be. Am I going to “switch” to the PC (switch back to the PC, I guess)? No, but these things don’t have to be hard stops. I go back and forth between different phones. I would like to see whether the coming Google Pixel Tablet could replace my iPad. I test things. I would certainly put the PC in the mix when and where it made sense.