The new Xbox is not an Xbox

The Vergecast

Vox Media Podcast Network

News, Tech News, Technology

4.4 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're very bullish on the handheld future of gaming. But we're not bullish on the new ROG Xbox Ally. The Verge's Sean Hollister joins the show to explain why this Xbox-branded device barely feels like an Xbox, and why it's definitely not a threat to the Steam Deck, before he and David debate whether the future of Xbox is even in good hands. After that, The Verge's Hayden Field walks David through a couple of important recent studies, asking the same basic question: is AI making us dumb? Finally, Sean returns to answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email [email protected]!) about hybrid computers, which are an extremely 2012 idea and also maybe the future of computing. But probably not. Help us improve The Verge: Take our quick survey at theverge.com/survey. Further reading: Xbox Ally and Ally X review: this is not an Xbox Prongs rock MIT: Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task How chatbots — and their makers — are enabling AI psychosis Sam Altman says ChatGPT will stop talking about suicide with teens Some doctors got worse at detecting cancer after relying on AI Microsoft Research: The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed.We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to [email protected] or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of the Xbox button.
0:06.0	I'm your friend David Pierce, and I am doing a thing that I have to do like two or three times a year now, which is charge a bunch of iPads.
0:13.7	If you're watching this on YouTube, you'll be able to see it.
0:15.7	But there's a stack of tablets on a shelf behind me. And it's a bunch of different iPads. There's a stack of tablets on a shelf behind me.
0:21.9	And it's a bunch of different iPads.
0:23.8	There's a remarkable tablet in there.
0:25.7	There's a thing called the daylight computer.
0:28.0	And for some reason or another, a few times a year, I have to use a bunch of them to test something.
0:34.0	This time it's new iPads.
0:35.3	There's a new iPad Pro.
0:36.7	I have it.
0:39.2	I've been reviewing it. And in order to test it, I have to get out every other iPad that Apple makes and test them all.
0:45.5	So I've been doing things like pull a four-year-old iPad Pro out and install iPadOS 26 on it.
0:53.4	It's a delight. My life is just filled with software updates
0:56.2	that make everything glassy and make me like them less. Um, tech journalism is a delight.
1:01.9	What are you going to do? Anyway, we are not here to talk about iPads. We did that last week.
1:05.1	We'll do more of that later. We are here to do two things. First, we're going to talk about
1:09.9	handheld consoles. And specifically, these new ones, we're going to talk about handheld consoles, and specifically
1:12.1	these new ones, the Xbox Ally and the Xbox Ally X, that are supposed to be the ones that point
1:17.1	to the true future of handheld gaming, and maybe don't. Then we're going to talk about, well,
1:23.9	frankly, whether AI is making us stupid. And then we have a question from the Vergecast hotline.
1:28.4	Lots of fun stuff to get to today.
	...

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