TECH PREVIEW – The ROG Xbox Ally is absolutely not the handheld from Microsoft that fans were waiting for. Far too many details remain in limbo. ASUS’s new hybrid PC was revealed at the 2025 Games Showcase, and the real game-changer is its operating system.
At the Xbox Games Showcase 2025, Microsoft finally pulled back the curtain on its long-rumored handheld: the ROG Xbox Ally (and its beefier sibling, the ROG Xbox Ally X). But this was nothing like what longtime Xbox fans were hoping for—a device crafted from scratch by Phil Spencer’s team, in the tradition of Nintendo’s or Sony’s old-school portables. Instead, Redmond jumped on the “handheld gaming PC” trend kicked off by Valve’s Steam Deck and handed the spotlight to ASUS’s ROG Ally series, which has actually been around since 2023. Unsurprisingly, that left the community with a mess of questions that have flooded Twitter for days.
• Does the ROG Xbox Ally run Xbox console games or just PC games?
• If it’s running Windows, just like every other rival handheld, why brand it as “Xbox”?
• Is there anything new here compared to the previous ROG Ally except for a power bump?
These are all perfectly valid questions—or, more accurately, different ways of phrasing the same big doubt. Even Xbox’s official website hasn’t spelled it out in plain English. There are answers, but they’re scattered across social posts and only make sense if you follow the right context. Bottom line: ROG Xbox Ally doesn’t run Xbox console games natively, only PC titles. Sure, with a Game Pass Ultimate subscription, you can hop between platforms and your digital library stays (mostly) the same. But if you wanted to revisit Halo 5, which never got a PC port, you’re stuck streaming it.
The heart of the matter is the OS and interface. The new Ally is still just an improved version of ASUS’s existing Windows-based laptop-in-disguise, but this series introduces several tweaks designed to better mimic the “Xbox” experience.
The ROG Xbox Ally Brings Together the Top PC Game Stores
One of Microsoft’s main goals is to make PC gaming less of a headache and more user-friendly—starting with a new UI, plus some serious system-level optimization. This means that when you power on the ROG Xbox Ally, you’ll land in a dedicated, Xbox-themed Windows 11 environment that dials down background processes for extra speed. Want to hop back to classic Windows 11 to install Discord or whatever else? No problem: you’re free to switch at any time, and the new Xbox overlay lets you bounce between your games and your apps on the fly.
What’s more, this interface will eventually let you gather your games and mods from Battle.net, GOG, Steam, and probably other stores in one place. How? That’s still fuzzy: ASUS’s own Armoury Crate app already does something similar for locally installed games, but the new Xbox approach is shaping up to be more like GOG Galaxy or Playnite, where your whole collection syncs across platforms. According to Tom Warren at The Verge, this “unified library” will soon come to the Xbox app on any Windows PC, and next year, other hybrid handhelds—like the Lenovo Legion Go and MSI Claw 8 AI+—will get access to the same interface.
Xbox Isn’t Just a Console Anymore—It’s a Platform
From my perspective, this entire messaging mess is a symptom of how the industry is moving away from the old hardware generation model; look no further than Microsoft’s lightning-fast “this is an Xbox” campaign. The very idea that any smart screen could one day be officially called an Xbox might sound bizarre, especially for those of us who grew up when consoles were tightly locked hardware with limited years of support, destined to be left behind by the next big upgrade.
This Is Basically an Xbox
But this whole campaign isn’t really meant for gaming veterans. Microsoft is targeting new audiences in places where most people only have a phone or a tablet—and the price of a real gaming device is out of reach. It actually makes sense: as Alanah Pearce pointed out on her YouTube channel, in the post-COVID world, investors are convinced that video games have hit their growth ceiling. “So what’s this got to do with the ROG Xbox Ally, especially when it’ll probably launch at a crazy price?” you might ask.
A lot, actually: this new machine is all about simplifying the PC gaming jungle. If you’ve ever felt lost in the PC gaming maze, you’re exactly the kind of player Phil Spencer wants to reach—along with everyone else who’s never even owned a gaming machine.
-theGeek-
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