No you are not having a nightmare, although you might be on drugs, but whatevs: that hipster tech blog that hates stuff not out of apple's bunghole is saying MS is working on the Xbox Surface, a 7 inch windows tablet meant for gaming I see a billion ways in which this could suck big time, one of them being as overpriced and underpowered as Surface is
An XBOX tablet? That makes me cringe just thinking about it. I really can't understand why any developers would think tablets would make a good tool for gaming. The only genre I can think of that would work well on such a platform would be RTS.
This is microsoft's answer to the handheld market. They are basically doing what sony was planning for the vita, all touchscreen. However to catch up with apple they have a very long way to go.
*facepalm* oh well, i like to try and take a positive approach to everything, where possible, and see the good in things but... ermm... yeah....
I think M$ is too far behind at this point to get a mobile platform for their consoles. I think they have done well with windows 8, and I will have a windows 8 phone soon, but an xbox tablet? I just don't see how it would ever work out. It will be like apple devices, really expensive but really underpowered. But really more so I am curious of what they plan to do with controls. It also sounds like they are trying to mirror a vita, but with nothing but touch which imo is pretty bad sounding. Hopefully this isn't true, this would probably put m$ even further in the hole.
Some rumors point to attachable controls like that other tablet some company is making, but it will be magnetic like the type covers from the surface It sounds stupid imo, you have to carry a 7 inch tablet around (which wont fit most pockets) AND the controllers? Just make a phone with actual controllers...
The only way to make a gaming tablet is to make one with built-in controls, for example WonderSwan-like, with two sets of controls - for horizontal and vertical. But it will fail anyway. What makes pocket consoles so popular. You can put them in pocket - very easy with (3)DS, a bit harder with fat PSP in hard protective case or Vita, but still possible. What you'll do with tablet ? Carry it in a bag ? Better to use a small laptop - normal keyboard (you can play, for example, real fighting games, not something like iPhone/Android castrated KOF XIII), 3+ USB ports, 320-500+ Gb of disk space). I don't use tablets, well except Galaxy Note with dead GSM module (i removed it so now it's a small tablet which works for many hours.) which i got for free. Touch screen gaming ? Come on, we got a few millions of devices for Angry Birds and strategy games, for any price and size - from like less than one hundred matchbox-sized to huge 17" beasts, who needs another one called Xbox-something (a cow called "horse")?
Totally, and didnt alienware have a gaming netbook or something? why buy a tablet for angry birds when you can play skyrim on a device almost the same size? MS should stick to making a cheaper surface, I dont know if any portable consoles are a good idea right now
