The ROG Xbox Ally X shocked me with how gentle it felt the primary time I picked it up. Regardless of being one of many heaviest PC gaming handhelds, it doesn’t truly really feel overbearing or burdensome. The controller grips on the perimeters may make it look goofy however in addition they make it extra comfy, so the battery life will cease me from enjoying lengthy earlier than drained arms or cramping wrists. And none of this can matter if the value isn’t proper. An October 16 launch date for the Xbox-branded Asus {hardware} was revealed at Gamescom 2025. That was two weeks in the past. Now we’re 42 days from launch and there’s nonetheless no pre-order web page and even an official price ticket. The latter is seemingly beneath evaluate following the most recent U.S. tariff updates from President Trump’s White Home. But when, for no matter cause, it finally ends up costing double the value of a Change 2 or Steam OLED as some leaks have advised it’s going to, it’s going to have some huge footwear to fill. I’m undecided neat paddles on the perimeters, a brand new AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Excessive chip, and a slick UI overhaul alone will be capable to justify the experiment. I went hands-on with the Xbox Ally X (the extra highly effective of the 2 upcoming fashions) at Microsoft’s places of work final week in Seattle throughout PAX West and got here away with what felt like a glimpse of the place the tech large may take Home windows gaming sooner or later, in addition to numerous questions on the place it’s going to truly be come this fall. When he tried it at Summer season Sport Fest earlier this yr, Kotaku‘s Kenneth Shepard lamented handheld gaming’s newfound obsession with replicating high-end PC and console experiences on the go. I got here away from my hands-on demo extra inquisitive about how the PC gaming handheld may reshape the Xbox dwelling console expertise shifting ahead.
The Xbox Ally is Microsoft’s try to bolt a gaming OS onto Home windows so the common particular person can flip it on and boot up a recreation with out ever having to navigate a activity bar or desktop shortcut. Flip the hand held on and it boots immediately into the brand new OS layer operating on prime of Home windows 11. By accident crash it by making an attempt to navigate round too quick or hitting a button if you’re not presupposed to, as I did a number of occasions, and that dreaded error window will pierce via the overlay like an undesirable virus alert. Kotaku The experiment gained’t be price it if Microsoft and Asus can’t work out a good price ticket, but it surely gained’t imply something in any respect if they’ll’t preserve the brand new UI steady sufficient to efficiently trick you into forgetting that the Xbox Ally, opposite to catchy advertising and marketing, continues to be truly a Home windows PC. When it does work, the promise of the Xbox Ally shines via unmistakably: your PC recreation library made straightforward to navigate and play on already confirmed {hardware}. Tags for each recreation inform you if it could run at excessive settings or if it’s but to be examined.
A lot has been made from how the Xbox UI will mechanically pull in video games you already personal on Steam, letting you launch them from throughout the Xbox layer with out having to individually descend again into Home windows and open them manually. Can you purchase Steam video games immediately from throughout the Xbox layer as effectively? Microsoft hasn’t confirmed that but. The concept might merely be that most individuals will purchase Steam video games on their precise PCs, then have them simply accessible after they transfer over to the Xbox Ally the place they are going to then even have Sport Go ready for them. The Xbox Ally is step one in a brand new race with Valve to see which firm could make accessing its competitor’s merchandise by itself units extra frictionless, and Sport Go on SteamOS continues to be a ache.
Maybe the largest coup for the Xbox Ally workforce inside Microsoft is a function that permits you to maintain down the devoted Xbox button to rapidly navigate between apps similar to you may on a smartphone. It appears like an evolution of Fast Resume on console, by far Microsoft’s largest contribution to the present console era expertise outdoors of Sport Go. If solely each gaming handheld made it really easy to toggle between video games, Discord, and the net. If solely each gaming handheld even had Discord. Talking of the Change 2, I introduced it to the demo for measurement comparability functions. I spent most of my time on the Xbox Ally enjoying Hole Knight: Silksong, a recreation I shall be shopping for on my Change 2 when it comes out this week. The unique recreation on the unique Change was a really perfect handheld expertise, as evidenced by how few of Kotaku‘s workers on the time even performed it earlier than it got here to Nintendo’s console. The sequel solely prices $20 and won’t be testing any PC gaming handheld benchmarks. Do you really want a $600, $800, and even $1,000 PC gaming handheld to take pleasure in it? Over 150 million Switches bought proves there’s a marketplace for low-cost gaming handhelds. Six million PC gaming handhelds bought, in the meantime, suggests there’s not but a marketplace for the high-end ones, at the very least not one that may meaningfully revenue a public firm investing $80 billion a yr in AI. However even when a commerce battle finally makes the Xbox Ally lifeless on arrival, at the very least within the U.S., I’m glad to see corporations making an attempt. There are loads of cool concepts in there and I’d like to see how they could possibly be utilized to console gaming sooner or later.
