Surprising news emerged last week in an exclusive posted by Windows Central’s Jez Corden. According to this report, Microsoft is sidelining development of its first-party next generation handheld console in favour of “doubling down” on efforts to deliver a first-class Xbox experience for the wealth of PC handhelds in development by the likes of Asus and Lenovo. Development and investment in Microsoft’s 10th generation consoles continues apace, in concert with efforts to improve Windows 11 for gaming.
In my opinion, it’s the right move – especially in light of coverage of the Lenovo Legion Go S from Dave2D. This is a fascinating video that’s well worth checking out. Lenovo has released two variants of the same handheld: one running on Windows, the other running on SteamOS. The results are startling. The same hardware delivers overall better gaming performance on SteamOS while delivering better battery life. This is on top of the established fact that SteamOS is simply a more fully formed and functionally superior interface for handheld gaming.
With that being the case, the decision to shift gears is a good one. Microsoft has been signposting for some time that the future of Xbox features some kind of more in-depth integration with Windows – and it’s clear that there’s a huge amount of work to do. It’s been over three years now since Steam Deck launched and while there have been improvements to the Windows 11 gaming experience, we’re still a long way off from an experience that’s as seamless, as performant and as efficient as SteamOS. Ideally, what we’d like to see would be some kind of Windows Gaming Edition – a variant of the OS that puts the gaming interface front and centre, while retaining the ability to drop back to the standard Windows desktop. That’s exactly the approach that SteamOS took and it makes the most sense.
0:00:00 Introduction0:01:16 News 1: Switch 2 retail units leak!0:33:30 News 2: Microsoft reportedly delaying Xbox handheld0:50:49 News 3: F1 25 packs path tracing punch1:12:20 News 4: Nvidia releases native GeForce Now Steam Deck app1:21:02 Supporter Q1: What games has John picked up in Japan?1:28:58 Supporter Q2: How do the DLSS versions and presets interact?1:34:34 Supporter Q3: Could Nvidia make DLSS mandatory on PC?1:40:09 Supporter Q4: With Switch 2 fast approaching, have we underestimated the appeal of DLSS?1:45:16 Supporter Q5: Is the RetroTink 4K still useful on Switch 2?1:47:41 Supporter Q6: Are there technical obstacles to standardising ML upscaling through DirectX?
Meanwhile, some of the shortcomings of Windows seen in the Dave2D video are ripe for fixing. Perhaps the biggest elephant in the room is battery life, which is markedly poor on Windows, primarily impacted on less demanding games. Noted handheld gaming expert Cary Golomb (his YouTube channel, The Phawx is excellent) says this can be fixed with what he calls an “AutoTDP” solution. In essence, he says that legacy Windows systems to maximise CPU performance are harming battery life. Homebrew solutions can already solve the problem, but ultimately, the end user shouldn’t be bothered by this.