Xbox’s new portable device has been available for 24 hours, and response to both the ROG Xbox Ally and the more expensive ROG Xbox Ally X has been overwhelmingly positive from early reviews.
But as with every major release within the gaming community, Ally’s launch has raised questions regarding cost versus value, who exactly the portable console is for, and how the new laptop-like product (made in partnership with Taiwanese electronics company Asus) could impact Microsoft Gaming’s plans for larger-scale Xbox gaming consoles.
First, Xbox President Sarah Bond tells Variety that the prices of the Ally ($599.99) and Ally X ($999.99) were determined with advice from manufacturer Asus based on features.
“We looked at how do we create multiple options for people? And that was really Asus, because it’s their hardware,” Bond said Thursday at a launch event for Ally devices. “It’s all their knowledge of the market, of the feature set, of what people want, to determine the final prices of the devices.”
Despite the high price, Bond says that when pre-orders opened in September, “the response was overwhelming demand for the device.” “We sold our products on the Xbox Store. We sold out very quickly in many other places around the world,” Bond said. “I’m really happy with the value for money we’re offering players, based on how the hardware is received.”
Courtesy of Microsoft
Bond says the pre-launch results are “a real confirmation of something we’ve known and worked on for a very long time, which is that gaming should act like all entertainment: it should be something you can have with you anywhere. You should be able to play any game you want with anyone you want on any device.”
Xbox decided to partner with Asus to develop the Ally line of handhelds “to really start to transform the experience and take it to the next level in a way that we could do in partnership much faster and in a much more innovative way than we could (individually) with what we were each doing,” Bond says.
The first step in the process was to prioritize the ergonomic design of the Ally and Ally
Once the hands-on experiment was settled, Bond says the Xbox team’s next call was made to Microsoft’s PC department.
“We partnered with the Windows team to think about the Windows experience on the device and make sure it was optimized,” Bond said. “There’s no keyboard on it. We had to optimize it for the controller and the touch all the way through EU, all the way through accessing your games. So Windows is actually designed to run on a handheld and on this form factor and on something that’s specifically designed for gaming.”
Some early talk around Xbox handhelds questioned who exactly the products were for, given Asus’ primary focus on PC handhelds, and some skeptics thought the ROG Xbox Ally was going to be little more than an existing Asus product with an Xbox button and branding.
While it’s not an in-house manufactured product, Bond insists it’s an Xbox through and through, whether you’re a more casual gamer and want an Ally, or a hardcore gamer considering an Ally X.
“We want to make sure people have a choice,” Bond says. “We want to make sure there’s an option for power gamers who want the latest innovations, who want to push the boundaries of what’s possible, the most demanding gamers. And then, if someone’s looking for PC gaming on the go, if they’re a casual gamer, if they’re a gaming enthusiast, then there’s Xbox Allys for them. Providing multiple choices for people, so we can really meet people where they are.”
The announcement of ROG Xbox Allys and Xbox’s partnership with Asus also sparked some confusion over whether Xbox was being excluded from in-house manufactured console gaming. Bond confirms that the Xbox team is still hard at work on its next-gen consoles, the sequels to the Xbox Series S and X, and that there is even the possibility of manufacturing handhelds in-house.
“We’re 100 percent looking to create things for the future,” Bond said. “We have our next-gen hardware in development. We’ve been looking at prototyping and design. We’ve announced a partnership with AMD around this, so it’s happening. What we saw here was an opportunity to innovate in a new way and give gamers another choice, in addition to our next-gen hardware. We’re always listening to what gamers and creators want. When there’s a demand for innovation, we’re going to build it.”
The launch of Xbox Ally and Ally Bond notes that this frenzy of commercial releases and updates is “the start of a new rhythm that the team is running.”
“There’s still a lot of innovation to come, including things like further optimizing the experience here, expanding the handheld compatibility program, offering more benefits and enhancements to the experience and other features and adds that we’re going to give people more choices and more games,” Bond said.
