I can't be the only one who thinks "ROG Xbox Ally X" is a really stupid name.
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2025
77 points (96.4% liked)
Technology
74792 readers
2829 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Asus and Acer have some of the biggest dipshits in their design departments.
"Republic of Gamers" is cringe, and Acer settled on having "PREDATOR" written in all caps across their gaming laptops.
Gamer aesthetic is not, never has been, and never will be cool.
If I remember correctly (from my mom who grew up in Taiwan) asus, acer, and msi(?) used to be one giant company that was split into three. so it doesnt really surprise me that their design teams share some cringe similarities ( okay i mean like ik this split was a long time ago but like they all do the same thing).
i always thought rog (republic of gamers) was just a play on roc (republic of china aka taiwan). Im just waiting for gigabyte to come out with peoples republic of gamers
At least ROG is just three letters that don't mean anything to people who don't already know what it means.
I've got an old-ish Acer Predator and thankfully it doesn't have quite that level of dogshit branding but I did have to go into the bios to disable the boot screen and obnoxiously loud boot up noise. I like the metal and the RGB isn't that bad, but if I buy another gaming laptop it's probably not going to be from the Predator line since that seems to be all NVIDIA and I use Linux now, lol. Also who the hell thought Predator was an appropriate name for any commercial product, it's pretty yikes.
(Also my laptop has always been an RGB space heater but that seems to be a problem with gaming laptops in general).
Also who the hell thought Predator was an appropriate name for any commercial product, it's pretty yikes.
As in not prey. A line of gaming stuff so superior that it exploits the market and eats the competition, competition like the Alienware line. Alien vs Predator, and all that?
The world was a slightly more innocent place two decades ago.
I got the "not prey" bit and the Predator movie franchise when I bought it (if the first thing I thought of was the other definition, I probably would have bought a different laptop), but I'd completely forgotten about Alienware, the Alien vs Predator angle is kinda funny.
Still, at some point you think they'd go for a rebrand, because you don't want people to think about your line of gaming laptops and go "wait... yuck".
My Schwinn Predator bike begged to differ
Probably from the Predator movies
I put a "Rebublic of Gamers" sticker on my membran microsoft keyboard which made it a lot funnier but its on the down side so i dont see it very often
Just imagine what they’ll have to name the sequel.
It’ll be like Street Fighter games in the 2000s. Get ready for Super ROG Xbox Ally X Turbo HD Remix Plus Alpha Double Upper.
Released with two other versions but they are Double Kick and Arm Slam. The difference us purely cosmetic between Double Upper and Arm Slam while Double Kick uses a whole different cpu architecture but no other changes. Only one edition will be promoted and have easy support
I think the idea is hilarious that in 2025 people would still trust Microsoft to competently launch a product and then not enshittify it until it is nearly unrecognizable.
Microsoft has zero capacity, competency or even desire to stand behind this over things like game streaming.
It's not a Microsoft product. It's an Asus product with a bit of Xbox sponsorship.
That doesn't make it any better
That doesn’t make it any better
Whether or not it's better wasn't the question. The claim was that Microsoft was launching the product and being in charge of defining the price. They aren't because it's an Asus product with Xbox branding, just like https://www.8bitdo.com/ultimate-3-mode-controller-xbox/ is a regular 8bitdo controller with Xbox branding and not a Microsoft product.
That's all.
That wasn't the claim from the comment you replied to. It was about Microsoft botching a launch and making the product worse over time which Asus is just as guilty of doing.
It was about Microsoft botching a launch
And Microsoft isn't launching the product because it's not a Microsoft product.
Yes, fair enough
That's almost worse, Asus also makes a lot of garbage.
That’s almost worse, Asus also makes a lot of garbage.
That's not the point. The point is asking Microsoft about the price of a branded 3rd party product.
Asus ... Well that's half the problem right there. The other half being Microsoft
It's both. It was co-developed by the companies.
It’s both. It was co-developed by the companies.
No, the actual hardware wasn't. That's the point of the entire exercise to not develop the product in-house. Microsoft only develops Windows game mode. https://www.8bitdo.com/ultimate-3-mode-controller-xbox/ is not a Microsoft product (or "co-developed with Microsoft) either. It's yet another 3rd party product with Xbox branding and why would Microsoft have a say on the price then?
Well I hope Microsoft has next to no input on it then, for all our sakes not just the people at Asus.
Well I hope Microsoft has next to no input on it then
Microsoft develops Windows game mode, so the user-facing bit of the system and of course such a major sponsor surely has general "don't do anything that hurts our brand" clauses in the contract with Asus but other than that there has been not a single piece of evidence that the handheld will be anything but a more high-profile version of https://www.8bitdo.com/ultimate-3-mode-controller-xbox/ which is also just branded 3rd party hardware. IMO there is a decent chance the identical hardware will also launch as a SteamOS version with the buttons then carrying Steam branding.
Microsoft has zero capacity, competency or even desire to stand behind this over things like game streaming.
Said like someone who doesn't understand why Microsoft are in gaming to begin with.
To rip people off, apply surveillance capitalism to kids and strangle associated competition from gaining a foothold?
Honestly it seems like Microsoft is making enough profits from aiding Israel in its Genocide of Palestinians with Microsoft Azure I am actually not sure why they bother with the comparatively less lucrative video game industry.
I also don't know why Asus would want to brand their gaming devices with a label deeply associated with genocide.
Yeah they can't say because who fucking knows what tariffs will or won't be in place next week, much less when the thing launches.
Plus monthly subscription fee to play games that you already bought
"Who knows how much Trump will fuck things up before then."
Sony just announced a USD$50 increase to all their PS5 models literally the day MS said this. MS are just waiting to see what the market is doing so they can jack the price up to meet it. They don't want to announce $500 if everyone else jumps up to $600.
These are premium, low volume, enthusiast devices - the exact price doesn't really matter before it releases. The people that are buying one are already going to buy one, and we know the general price range that it will be in.
With their track record lately the storage inside will become corrupt at some point most likely