Microsoft announced that it is diving into the handheld gaming market with its own Xbox-branded handheld in partnership with PC maker Asus.
It’s called the ROG Xbox Ally (16GB) and ROG Xbox Ally X (24GB). It has Hollow Knight game available at launch.
“The Xbox experience grows with you,” said Sarah Bond, president of Xbox, in the Xbox Showcase.
The company plans to launch the handheld in 2025. As such, it will compete with rivals such as the Nintendo Switch 2 and the Valve Steam Deck. There are already a number of Windows-based devices on the handheld PC market, but those have had mixed results.
The move could inspire both fear and derision, as the prospect for such a move has done in the past. Microsoft considered launching an “Xboy” handheld back in the early days of the Xbox. But the dual challenge of taking on Nintendo’s GameBoy/DS franchises in handheld at the same time it was trying to beat the console makers was too daunting and Microsoft shelved the project.
“This is an Xbox,” Microsoft said in its show.
The device looks like an Asus ROG Ally but it has an Xbox button on it. The Ally has an AMD Ryzen Z2A, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage. The Ally X has an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme, 24GB of memory and 1TB of storage.
It has an Xbox controller configuration. You can download natively and stream from the Xbox cloud. It runs Windows and it has impulse triggers. It is coming in the holidays of 2025.
