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ROG Xbox Ally X Impressions -- Green With Envy

Long before the Switch changed everything, I found myself more drawn to handheld gaming than the home console. I remember feeling more passionate about my Game Boy Advance library than the PlayStation 2. So it didn't come as much surprise to me when the Switch, and then the Steam Deck, captured so much of my attention and gaming time. The Steam Deck has since become my primary gaming device, due to its level of adaptability and wealth of cheap games on Steam. But even as a devoted Steam Deck acolyte, the ROG Xbox Ally X made an impression on me. There's a lot to be seen about the quasi-Xbox handheld, but it may even make a convert out of me.

I was able to try the ROG Xbox Ally X briefly at the Xbox showcase adjacent to Summer Game Fest. The presentation was mostly hands-off, with a brief period in which we were allowed to play Gears of War: Reloaded on it. So my impressions are a mixture of practical experience and big promises, but so far I like what I've both seen and heard.

For starters, the actual ergonomics of the device feel very nice by default. I've equipped both my Steam Deck and my Switch 1 with third-party grips, increasing their bulk in exchange for a better feeling of holding it. The ROG Xbox Ally X cuts out the middleman and just includes the more substantial handles from the start, making it a little larger and weightier than competing devices, but no more than I've already been doing for myself with add-ons. As someone who primarily plays handheld systems at home or while traveling, I usually have a place to rest my arms while I play, so the increased weight won't be a problem.

The controller layout is meant to emulate the familiar Xbox controller, and to that end, it looks to succeed reasonably well. The Xbox button is no longer centered--obviously, since there's a screen in the middle--but its new placement within a ROG trapezoid shape makes enough sense. Everything else, from the sticks to the face buttons to the triggers, felt to my hands just like you were holding onto an Xbox controller, albeit one that had been stretched out in the middle to accommodate a screen.

The user interface, too, looks very similar to the current Xbox UI. That means the same large square icons to represent games in your library, with a sequence of panels to reach different areas of the interface. Impressively, though, Microsoft is promising that it will bring together all of your third-party libraries in one place. That means your Xbox and Game Pass library, naturally, but also storefronts like Epic and Steam. (The presentation didn't call Steam by name, but a Steam logo was prominently displayed in its slide about third-party storefronts).

I've gotten Xbox streaming and storefronts like Epic running on my Steam Deck, but it took a bit of setup, and I still forget which games I already own in Epic because I have to launch into its own storefront to see that library. Having all of my owned games across a variety of platforms is the kind of quality-of-life feature that makes the ROG Xbox Ally X feel more like what you would expect from the console experience: It just works the way you think it should work.

Likewise, elements like system performance are foregrounded in a way that feels more approachable for gamers who may not want to delve deep into system menus. Tapping or holding the Xbox button brings up different contextual menus showing things like power, RAM usage, and more. This is similar to the "..." button on the Steam Deck, but being tied to the main Xbox button makes it feel less like an afterthought.

When the Xbox representatives handed the ROG Xbox Ally X systems for us to demo, they were being treated very delicately, and our time was fairly short. It does feel like this is a piece of in-development tech and we were warned there could be hiccups. I didn't experience any, but the warning itself goes to show that the product isn't finalized. And later in the day when I went to play an extended Gears of War: Reloaded demo, the ROG option was just there alongside the Xbox and PS5 versions, so that gave me a bit more time with it.

Gears of War: Reloaded is, at its heart, still a game from the Xbox 360 era, but it's gotten a series of visual improvements that really stand out when shown side by side to the original. Everything is cleaner, and while the world is still grim, both Ultimate Edition and Reloaded have made it less muddy and brown. So it's hard to know how this should be judged as a benchmark compared to more modern performance-pressing games like Cyberpunk 2077. But the game looked and ran beautifully, and on top of that, the fan was nice and quiet.

There are a lot of unknown elements to the ROG Xbox Ally X, not least of all being its price tag. The 2024 Rog Ally X, sans Xbox elements, starts at a whopping $900, so we can probably expect the ROG Xbox Ally X to demand a similar price tag, if not more. Still, my brief hands-on did something that I haven't experienced since falling in love with my Steam Deck in 2022. It made me feel jealous.