Xbox has clarified that it was hardware maker Asus, not Microsoft, who ultimately determined the controversial $1,000 price tag for the ROG Ally X handheld gaming device.
While these devices carry the Xbox brand and offer access to your Xbox library and Game Pass, the $600 ROG Ally and its $1,000 successor, the ROG Ally X, are fundamentally Asus-developed hardware. Therefore, Asus was responsible for setting their prices.
According to Xbox president Sarah Bond, Asus leveraged its deep “insight into the market, into the feature set, into what people want, to determine the ultimate prices of the devices.”
Despite the premium cost, the ROG Ally X has largely received positive feedback. IGN, for instance, praised the device as “the new handheld gaming PC to beat” in its review, though it acknowledged the “elephant in the room” — the price.
“At $999, it’s not only more expensive than the original $799 ROG Ally but also double the price of alternatives like the Nintendo Switch 2 or the Steam Deck,” IGN highlighted. However, the review also pointed out that “everything is getting more expensive lately, and while the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is certainly guilty of this — it’s actually pretty reasonably priced compared to other similar devices that’ve launched in the last year,” drawing favorable comparisons to devices like the Lenovo Legion Go 2 and MSI Claw A8.
Complicating matters further, tariffs also played a role, a factor beyond the control of either Asus or Microsoft. These additional costs on U.S. imports led to a prolonged delay before Microsoft could officially confirm the handhelds’ pricing, several months after their release date was initially announced.
Now that the handhelds are available, Bond indicated that initial sales have not suffered due to price concerns. “The reaction was overwhelming demand for the device,” Bond stated. “We sold out on the Xbox Store. We sold really quickly at a number of other places around the world. I feel really good about the value that we’re giving gamers for the price, based off the reception to the hardware.”
The impact of this success on Xbox’s potential plans for its own first-party handheld remains uncertain. While Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of gaming, has previously confirmed his interest in developing such a device, recent reports suggest the idea might have been put on hold. We questioned Jason Ronald, Microsoft’s vice president of Xbox gaming devices and ecosystem, about Microsoft’s internal plans for a first-party Xbox handheld back in August.