In my MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ evaluation, I pulled no punches, calling it a generational leap in handheld gaming, with Intel’s new Arc G3 Extreme chip blowing AMD out of the water.
But the large story, sadly, was not a lot how good the (terribly named) Claw 8 EX AI+ was, or how Intel is doing a little spectacular issues as of late, however slightly the $1,799 value, which might be about $500 greater than deliberate because of the continued excessive demand for RAM and storage.
However, if there may be one factor I learn about PC gaming after 20 years on this web site, it is principally that gaming is “recession-proof,” which means regardless of how dangerous financial circumstances might get, avid gamers do not cease spending. Anyone doing analysis on this may attain the identical conclusion: Gamers will spend, and excessive value tags aren’t any impediment.
To wit, in checking in Best Buy, Newegg, Micro Center, and B&H inventory levels this past weekend, I noticed the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ was sold out for shipping and local pickup.
Likewise, checking in on /r/MSIClaw reveals loads of folks sharing pictures of their MSI handhelds with early impressions, mini-reviews, and people coveted gaming benchmarks (the tl;dr is close to common reward).
Now, for this story, it’s completely honest to level out that every of those shops possible had very restricted launch stock. For all we all know, your native Best Buy had one or two units available, so “selling out” right here is doing lots of heavy lifting when you think about availability.
Indeed, MSI (and we suspect Intel) are usually not the perfect at stocking MSI Claws. We reviewed final yr’s mannequin, the Claw 8 AI+, and gave it excessive reward, however famous the way it was inconceivable to truly purchase one. We even launched an MSI Claw stock tracker, however lastly gave up after weeks of no restocks.
This is not simply an MSI difficulty, both. In December, I famous that Lenovo, actually the world’s prime PC shipper by a mile, couldn’t maintain its Legion Go 2 in inventory, both, inflicting costs to skyrocket even earlier than the RAMpocalypse took full impact on gaming handhelds.
Who is aware of if we’ll even see the SteamOS model, introduced at CES earlier this yr.
While we predict demand is robust for handheld gaming PCs, there are additionally some {hardware} shortages at play right here.
When will MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ be again in inventory?
So, the million-dollar question is whether a new shipment of Claws is en route to your local store?
Probably not.
One Reddit user noted, “I spoke with someone from Best Buy earlier. They said they tried to order more from MSI, but MSI hasn’t told them when they will restock them.” That sounds about proper for MSI, which means this might be a weeks-to-months-long wait, and your finest wager is to enroll in stock notifications from whichever retailer you favor.
What is more likely to occur is that your native Best Buy will get possibly one unit at a time, and whoever will get it first is the winner.
👉I gamed on the brand new Intel Arc G3 handhelds from Acer and MSI — here is what to anticipate
As to why this retains taking place, it is like a combo of these excessive costs, MSI being shy on overproducing what is probably going a low-volume product, and Intel possible doing low-yield manufacturing on that Arc G3 Extreme chip (at the moment solely MSI, Acer, and a few smaller boutique producers like ONEXPLAYER are on board, with a few of these units, like Acer’s Predator Atlas 8, coming later this yr).
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