New gaming portables are on the way from the maker of the Xbox and Asus, as the Xbox ROG Ally sets a date in two months.
Gamers have a reasonable amount of choice if they want to take their games to go, what with a choice of high powered laptops and portable gaming machines, both of which are options when looking for a portable computer. But there has been long an idea that has seemingly been missing in action: a proper portable version of their favourite console.
Nintendo has seemingly answered that with the Switch and its follow-up, the Switch 2, portables that work as both living room console and made to go, but over in the world of Xbox and PlayStation, things are a little bit different.
If you want to take your PlayStation experience to go, you need a Portal, a dedicated PlayStation handheld that needs your PlayStation online to play. Meanwhile, Xbox has an answer with Xbox Cloud Gaming, a virtual version of the Xbox that can play Xbox games remotely provided you have a Game Pass Subscription, or Remote Play if your Xbox is powered at home.
We’re still not quite at the point where you can take the Xbox to go, so to speak, but a couple of new portable PCs could just help push that in the right direction.
Last year’s Asus ROG Ally X and its ROG Ally predecessor are about to get Microsoft Xbox-branded equivalents in time for the holiday season, providing a portable gaming system that can not only use the Xbox Cloud Gaming technology, but will also play other PC game stores, including Blizzard’s Battle.net and likely Steam, as well.
You can probably expect the game launcher design to be less like a Steam Deck and more like an Xbox, because these are Xbox-branded versions of the ROG Ally gaming portables. However, they’ll also arrive with a slightly different controller design, complete with similar grips to an Xbox controller, the models in both black and white.
Those controls will also include a dedicated Xbox button and Windows 11, delivering what Microsoft says is the “Xbox full screen experience”, which is likely slightly better than Windows with an overlay, the way most Windows portable gaming PCs are built.
These gaming PCs will still be similar to their ROG Ally siblings, complete with AMD Ryzen processors inside, with the Ryzen Z2 A in the Xbox Ally and the Z2 Extreme in the Ally X, the latter of which includes a AI-based neural processor to upscale games at lower resolutions and to generate short replay clips from gameplay moments you’ve done well in.
Other differences include memory and storage, with the Xbox Ally arriving in white with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage, while the Ally X comes in black with 24GB RAM and 1TB of storage.
Both get the same 7 inch Full HD 120Hz screen protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus, though differ on ports: both get USB-C and a microSD reader, but the Ally X gets Thunderbolt 4 support. The Ally X also sports a bigger battery, boasting 80Wh compared to the 20Wh on the standard Ally model.
Microsoft and Asus are also working with the hardware to improve graphics and speed in the portable consoles, and also work to include a docking system that will turn each portable console into a big-screen experience more ideal for the living room, kind of like how the Switch can be plugged in. That could take these gaming PCs from being mere portable to something for home and about.
No word on pricing just yet, but with a launch date of October 16 in Australia and New Zealand, as well as Canada, the UK, US, and several other places, you can expect there to be news on that soon.
