👾 Welcome to the Friday edition of The Memory Core newsletter.

Yesterday, I had the chance to try out Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, and it was the most time I've spent using the Switch 2 in mouse mode. It works and looks fantastic, but my main takeaway is that I would have rather played on a PC with a real mouse.

This week had some major industry news, so our two main stories are about the ROG Xbox Ally and Qualcomm's latest mobile chips. There was also plenty of emulation, FPGA, and retro gaming news, so scroll to the bottom for the full roundup.

Just as a heads up, there probably won't be a mid-week newsletter next week. As always, the roundup will still be sent on Friday!

ROG Xbox Ally pricing revealed: $699 and $999

After months of rumors about how much the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally would cost, pricing has finally been revealed.

The base version, with an AMD Ryzen Z2 A processor, 16GB of LPDDR5-6400 RAM, and 512GB of storage, will cost $699. That's $100 more than the introductory price of its predecessor.

The higher-end ROG Xbox Ally X, with an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor, 24GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM, 1TB of storage, and a slightly larger battery, will cost $999. That's $300 more than the original Z1 Extreme model, or $200 more than the ROG Ally X released last summer.

Both devices have the same 7-inch FHD IPS panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and VRR support.

Those are some pricey handhelds, and the announcement comes right on the heels of Microsoft increasing the price of the Xbox Series S and X, which now start at $399 and $599. Microsoft might be pushing its games to more platforms, but its first-party hardware is more expensive than ever.

It's worth noting that although these handhelds have the Xbox branding, they essentially run Windows. A new software layer removes some background processes to boost performance, but early testing has indicated that it's a minor boost, at best.

That feature is expected to launch on other Windows handhelds next year, although some of it can already be accessed on other devices via early builds from the Windows Insider program.

Pre-orders are open now on the Microsoft Store, Amazon, and local retailers. Shipping starts October 16.

Qualcomm's latest offers big gains, bad names

Qualcomm has finally announced the follow-up to the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, and despite having the worst naming convention of any product the company has released so far, it looks like another big upgrade.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which both continues and breaks the naming conventions of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Snapdragon 8 Elite, is the second-generation mobile SoC with Oryon cores.

None of this makes any sense, but Senior Vice President Don McGuire couldn’t help but dig the hole deeper in an absolutely bonkers blog post. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

The post closes with this word salad, generously dressed with buzzwords and light on actual content.

To sum things up, it keeps the Elite because it’s more powerful (like every other new chipset), but it adds Gen 5 because it was stupid to remove Gen 4 on the last one.

If you asked me, I’d say Qualcomm dropped the Gen 4 to avoid an inauspicious number in Chinese culture. Four considered the number of death (because it sounds similar), which is likely why there was no OnePlus 4 or ROG Phone 4.

Regardless, the chipset itself looks like a substantial upgrade in both power and efficiency. There’s a great breakdown of early benchmarks here, but the main takeaway is that the CPU is roughly 19% faster than the 8 Elite and 65% faster than the 8 Gen 3. The GPU provides a 23% boost in benchmarks, although the test unit had significant thermal throttling.

In case you weren't confused enough by the naming structure, there’s also a non-Elite version of this chipset called the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. This hasn’t been fully revealed, but it will have lower-clocked Oryon cores (1 Prime, 7 Performance) than the 8 Elite. It will still have a next-gen Adreno GPU, although it's unclear how that will translate to actual performance.

Still, this should be a cheaper alternative to the 8 Elite Gen 5, which is set to be one of the most expensive chipsets Qualcomm has ever released.

Now that AYANEO and AYN have committed to using the 8 Elite, it’s only a matter of time before one of these chipsets makes its way into a gaming handheld. Once it does, Windows emulation on Android could easily replace full-fat Windows handhelds for many gamers.

Sorry, ROG Xbox Ally fans.

Handheld highlights

🪄 MagicX finally revealed the release date and price of the dual-D-pad One35 handheld. It will cost $79.99, with sales starting October 10 and units shipping November 10. [Discord]

💨 Likewise, MANGMI has also announced the release date of the AIR X, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. Orders start October 15, with all orders in the first week getting a free case and $5 discount. [Discord]

😲 AYANEO has been going nuts with livestreams lately, showcasing performance on the upcoming Pocket AIR Mini. It seems that it can play a variety of PS2 and GameCube games, which is very impressive considering the $70 starting price. I'll test this for myself when I can, but global orders are expected to start in mid-October. [Discord]

🆕 In those same livestreams, AYANEO also revealed that the KONKR Pocket FIT Elite will run Android 16. The G3 Gen 3 version, which I reviewed earlier this week, runs Android 14. [Weibo]

FPGA Focus

💹 The Commodore 64 re-release, which uses FPGA to imitate the original 1982 home computer, announced it hit 10k sales earlier this week. It's still available for pre-order, if you can stomach the $299 asking price. [X] [Commodore]

🥳 With less than a week left, the Game Bub open-source FPGA handheld has smashed through its crowdfunding goal. It currently sits at nearly $160k raised, which is very impressive for a project like this. [Crowd Supply]

🌫️ In a slight update to the ModRetro M64 story from last week, the company has confirmed that it's contributing code back to the MiSTer project, and that "the goal is to make currently MiSTer FPGA cores playable on M64 without any need for modification." My guess is that means modification to the hardware, not the cores, but it's still good news for open-source FPGA gaming. [Time Extension]

📺 Speaking of MiSTer FPGA, the CD-i core was updated with experimental DVC support. It still needs work, but you can find the GitHub links in the video description to learn more. [YouTube]

The Emulator Report

🎮 Android PS2 emulator NetherSX2 Classic dropped update 2.1, with fixes for regressions and performance issues introduced in v2.0 a few months back. [GitHub]

🕹️ MAME v0.281 was released today, with lots of bug fixes and added support for some modern homebrew projects. There's a lot in there, so check out the full release notes to learn more. [Release notes]

🫧 iiSU is a new emulation frontend on Android from UsagiShade, and it looks incredible. It's still just a design concept, but the team is looking for developers to help. It's absolutely gorgeous, so I highly recommend watching the video to see what it's all about. [YouTube]

💿 The LaserActive emulator developed by Nemesis, which made big news earlier this month, has now been added to Ares nightly builds. [GitHub]

Retro archives

📋 A Norwegian blog interviewed an early game tester who worked on games for the Atari Lynx, SEGA Genesis, and more in the 90s. He reveals some fascinating details about how early games were tested. [Spillhistorie]

🩸 The indie platformer Mute Crimson just released a free Dreamcast port. Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted it in my Pocket FIT review earlier this week, but it's a bloody good time. [Itch]

🥊 An upcoming Street Fighter III: Third Strike PS2 decomp has been showcased for the first time. It's far from complete, but the goal is to both preserve the game and rebalance it to match the arcade version. Although the potential for mods is probably more exciting. [Reddit] [GitHub]

🤚 ModRetro has teamed up with Ubisoft to re-release the Game Boy Color edition of Rayman. Does this mean more Ubisoft classics are coming soon? One can hope. [ModRetro]

🐭 Speaking of Game Boy games, a new ROM hack for Pokémon Red adds more than 400 Pokémon, modern mechanics, a new endgame, and more. [Romhacking.net]

👻 Still struggling to beat Ghosts'n Goblins 30 years after its NES release? A new ROM hack is here to help, and it might finally let you see the secret ending credits. [Romhacking.net]

🙋‍♂️ Doug Bowser announced that he will be retiring from his position as CEO of Nintendo of America at the end of the year. The Koopa Kids are already fighting to see who will be Bowser's successor. (jk, it's Devon Pritchard) [X]

That's all for now. As a reminder, there won't be a mid-week newsletter next week since I need to finish chasing down some stories, but stay tuned for more interviews and exclusives early next month.

Signing out,

Archivist Rowan