Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

Ewan Spence

Having spent some time with the ROG Xbox Ally X, courtesy of Asus’ PR team, the portable console is not only a perfect reflection of today’s PC gaming market, it also points out a path for the industry to follow.

Everything You Need To Know Is In The Rog Xbox Ally X’s Name

Let’s start with the name. Every part of the composite is rightly there — the ROG brand name, the Xbox brand Name, the product name, and the ‘this is the extended specs version’ X — but it is rather unwieldy. Much like the franchises that drive the top titles, everything needs to be on show and above the line, even if it makes the resulting product a tad unwieldy to type and say.

That most casual gamers are going to think “it’s the portable X-Box” and be done with it reflects a community deciding on a communal name for a title, and there’s little that the marketing department can do. It’s the product itself that counts, not the name.

Does The Rog Xbox Ally X Windows OS Work?

By choosing Windows 11 as the base, Asus and Microsoft have made the ROG Xbox Ally X a complicated beast to navigate. While it is mitigated by using the Xbox launcher and toggling to appear full-screen and run on startup, it adds a layer of complexity to the Ally.

Sitting alongside the Xbox Launcher, you have Armoury Crate, which is Asus’ launcher. Previous ROG Ally owners will be familiar with this launcher as it drives the earlier Ally handsets. Outside of the two top brands in the console market, many will opt to play games from their Steam or Epic Games collections, which means using another launcher. And on top of all that, you have the Windows 11 interface itself, which may be necessary for homebrew games, older titles installed from the source material, or for accessing services like BBC iPlayer or Netflix to watch a film.

There’s an argument that all of this should be stripped away, that the interface should be clean, that the flow is to switch on the device, see a game, start a game, and that’s it. When you look at console-based gaming, both in the home with Xbox and PlayStation, or in the curious hybrid space that is Nintendo’s Switch.

Yet, when you look at the current top-tier games, the sort of games that the ROG Xbox Ally X is expected to play, you see complexity. You see multiple game modes, you see control schemes that change depending on the state you may be in. Is that any different to the various launchers and variable UX that the Ally X presents?

Rather than paring back the gaming world to create a simple interface, the Xbox Series X is built around taking something complex and making the process smoother. It embraces the chaotic and underfinable but separate gaming worlds and lets you jump between these equal spaces in your own way.

Three Ways To Play With The Rog Xbox Ally X

First up is streaming your game from the cloud. This function is built into the Xbox Launcher, and those with a Game Pass subscription can search through a subset of the game catalogue. With one touch, you can be underway. The latest release of Doom, The Dark Ages, is part of Game Pass and available for immediate play. Everything is set up, any cloud-based game save files are used, and you are taken right into the action.

This is where the specs of the ROG Xbox Ally X are less critical. Much of the heavy lifting can be done in the cloud, so all the console needs is a strong internet connection; the controls, settings, and other features that are built in are already set up. While it is a subset of games, and you do need a subscription, this is the epitome of “it just works.”

Then you have direct downloads and purchases through the Xbox Store. Again, look at Doom: The Dark Age. It’s a simple matter (after adding payment details) to buy and download the title. Any PC titles already bought for Xbox will be available to download here (and Game Pass owners can download games and play them while their subscription is active at no extra cost).

I’m going to add Steam and Epic clients in here as well. While those platforms are designed for a broader range of specifications and compatibility across the PC platform, they offer a consistent ecosystem of games. No doubt consumers will have an extensive collection of games on Xbox, Steam or Epic, and it is to the credit of this partnership that it is not locked down to just the Xbox titles.

Downloading means a closer examination of the specs of the ROG Ally as well as the requirements of the title. The concessions made to create a portable console involve trade-offs that are evident in current major titles. As the years tick by (and everyone will assume that any ROG Ally is going to have some longevity), the question of suitable specs will become more prevalent, and decisions around suitability will need to be made.

The third way is to utilise the underlying Windows operating system to install almost anything you like, such as the various homebrew versions of the original Doom from 1993 that can run under Windows 11. That could be from the Microsoft Store, it could be direct from the developer, the possibilities are endless. It’s a bit of a chore to get some launchers to accept an external program – you can point to the executable, manually add some, or hope that the third-party libraries are picked up and scanned, so it’s a bit hit or miss. It’s straightforward enough to drop down to Windows and launch from the desktop if you must!

You might spot that, once again, we have a hierarchy of complexity and flexibility that allows you to find your own comfort zone.

The Rog Xbox Ally X And The Nintendo Switch

The ROG Xbox Ally X enters a curious market space. On one side, you have the obvious comparison to the PlayStation and Xbox home consoles — add a USB dock and external controller, and the ROG Ally can be used as its own home console. However, the compromises required to run games on the hardware become more apparent as the screen size increases.

The Nintendo Switch offers mobile gameplay in a similar format, as well as integration with the home setup via a dock, making for an easy comparison. Mobile Nintendo consoles from the Gameboy and DS through to the Switch have always had a challenger in the wings, from the Sega Game Gear and Neo Geo Pocket to the Sony PSP and PlayStation Vita. Now the Switch and Switch 2 have an Xbox-branded yardstick.

If we’re going to go for a comparison, then the Switch is the simpler and more focused system, while the ROG Ally is the more complex and flexible system.

How The Rog Xbox Ally X Can Define PC Gaming

But there is another challenger in the wings to the ROG Xbox Ally X, and it’s the one that I suspect many will make… Valve’s Steam Deck. This is focused around Valve’s Steam store and the Linux-powered Steam Deck offers a slightly less complex environment (due to the initial limitation of installing games from the store), although it is possible to drop out of the Linux launcher and get a command line for more complex tasks.

Research by IDC at the start of the year indicated sales of around 6 million in this high-end portable gaming space, with the Steam Deck accounting for two-thirds of the sales. That’s the target and the market the ROG Ally is aiming for, and with this latest release, it now has the might of Microsoft backing it.

I could easily see Microsoft ensuring that developers looking to feature their games in the Xbox Store ensure that their games support and are playable on the ROG Xbox Series X — at the very least through streaming. That could be the biggest win that this ROG Ally delivers to the mobile gaming community.

This complex, oversized, and delightful device can redefine the mobile future of high-end gaming, offering a simplicity that surpasses other consoles by providing a single device that can run everything in the PC gaming space.

Now read my interview with Asus’ Senior VP Shawn Yen talking about the ROG Xbox Ally X’s predecessor, the original ROG Ally X.