and Xbox have just announced the limited edition Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition, an all black and green version of the regular Meta Quest 3S that, for $100 more than the regular headset, comes with a limited-edition controller, matching Touch Plus controllers, an Elite strap, and three months of both Meta Horizon+ and Game Pass Ultimate. , this will give you “everything you need to start gaming on a massive virtual display♋ the moment you open the box”.
“You Have Access To All The Games”: The ROG Xbox Ally X Has ꦺOne Big Advantage Over Theဣ Steam Deck
The ROG Xbox Ally X could capitalise on one key failing of the Steam Deck and Nintendo Swi𒁃tch 2.
Play Anywhere Isn’t Really Play Anywhere
The statem🃏ent is technically true. You can stream Xbox games to your headset through the Xbox app on Quest, and there’s some appeal to the idea of starting a game on your headset and moving to your console or PC when you get tired of having a large device strapped to your head.
But, of course, it’s not entirely true. Play Anywhere doesn’t work on every game, just some of them, which means the convenience of streamin🎉g to a headset only extends to a specific selection – and that’s before 🅘that number is further restricted by what’s on Game Pass Ultimate.
You can 💛stream Play൲ Anywhere enabled games that you own, though.
Maybe I Don’t Want Everything To Be An Xbox
Reg♌ardless, it’s obvious that this partnership is yet another part of Xbox’s “everything is an Xbox” campaign, which it’s been rolling out in earnest since last fall. The campaign has promised that you’ll be able to access the platform’s games on as many devices as you can imagine. Your smart TV will be an Xbox. So will . And your phone. And your Amazon Fire stick.
I’ll admit, when I was in the throes of the honeymoon period with my Steam Deck, the idea of Xbox being everywhere was very appealing. I liked the idea of being able to take my games anywhere – on the train, on the bus, to family gatherings that I didn’t really want to be at. Of course, Play Anywhere doesn’t actually mean anywhere – it means anywhere with a strong internet connection, because you are streaming games. This🧔 has alway♔s been the most annoying thing about the service for me. It suggests portability without actually being portable.
But maybe that’s a good thing. Once I recovered from Steam Deck syndrome, wherein I brought the damn thing everywhere, annoying all my friends and family, I realised that maybe I don’t want everything to be an Xbox. It’s akin to when smartphones became a thing and you could access the internet anywhere, at all times. My iPhone is a beeping, vibrat🐼ing tool, constantly screaming for my attention, demanding that I be available to everyone at all times. I’ve taken to turning off notifications for nearly all of my apps so that I think about my phone l🐽ess.
‘The internet used to be a place’ is a refrain I’m hearing more and more often. You used to have to dedicate time to sit down and use the internet, and now it’s intruding constantly into our lives, no matter what we’re 🔜doing.
I’m realising that I don’t want to carry an Xbox with me. I don’t want to see Xbox branding on everything, insisting that I let it intrude on the thing I use to watch TV, or the thing I use to text my parents. I understand the purpose of it – it decreases the barrier to entry to use Game Pass, while also incentivising people to buy an Xbox so they can play those games on a purpose-built device – but as somebody who already owns one, I think I’mꦐ perfectly ꧃fine just playing games in the room I designated to play games in, on the devices I keep in it. Seriously, who wants to play Halo on an iPad?
