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The gaming handheld market has changed quite a bit over the past couple of years. What started with Valve\u2019s Steam Deck offering a portable, and somewhat more affordable way, to play PC games has quickly been upended \u2013 no thanks to AI.<\/p>\n
The enormous demand for memory and storage from the AI industry has pushed component prices upwards, and gaming handhelds \u2013 along with every other consumer electronic products \u2013 have been caught in the crossfire. Manufacturers have had little room to absorb the higher costs and while the result is a new generation of handhelds that are more powerful than before, they are also starting to cost as much as a budget gaming PC.<\/p>\n
That makes the launch of the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+<\/b> rather interesting. Priced at $2,299<\/b>, it is considerably more expensive than most of its rivals, including the very good ROG Xbox Ally X<\/b> \u2013 even after its latest price adjustment. But such is the world we are living in now. Any consumer electronics product that relies heavily on memory and storage seems to have become more expensive, from laptops and graphics cards to smartphones and gaming handhelds. Don\u2019t get me wrong, the Claw\u2019s price is still difficult to swallow, but it no longer looks like an outlier. It is simply another sign of how expensive personal computing has become.<\/p>\n