Microsoft has announced the release date for the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X, the new Windows-based gaming handhelds it has co-developed with Asus. The Xbox-branded Ally handhelds will arrive in stores on Oct. 16.
The announcement was made during the first of two Xbox broadcasts from Gamescom, where the pair of consoles is available for attendees to try out with a new demo of the long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong.
No pricing was announced for the two handhelds, but it’s likely to be quite high, especially for the Xbox Ally X which has quite beefy specs. The premium version of the handheld has an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme GPU, 24 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of storage, versus the vanilla Xbox Ally’s AMD Ryzen 2A, 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of storage.
Both handhelds offer a full-screen Xbox interface, run on a custom version of Windows 11, and are fully compatible with Game Pass and Xbox Play Anywhere games. You can also install and link up your libraries from other PC game launchers like Steam, GOG, and Battle.net. Microsoft’s Xbox team has been working on a Handheld Compatibility Program which will mark PC games with Handheld Optimized and Mostly Compatible badges, similar to Valve’s Steam Deck verification system.
Although it’s not, technically, in-house Xbox hardware, the Xbox Ally is the first sign of an apparent change in direction in how Microsoft engineers its Xbox consoles. In a recent announcement of Microsoft’s partnership with AMD on future Xbox hardware, Xbox president Sarah Bond indicated that future Xbox consoles would also be Windows-based and allow users to install other storefronts like Steam.