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When it was first revealed in 2021, the Steam Deck blew every gamer’s mind, especially mine. The idea of playing a PC game as easily as playing on a Nintendo Switch seemed implausible, but now it’s the norm. While Valve’s Steam Deck is still the go-to portable PC gaming handheld, the ROG Xbox Ally is going for the crown.
The Xbox Ally is a few days from being released on Oct. 16, and I personally can’t wait for it. I’ve loved the current trend of PC gaming on the go, and the Xbox Ally could finally get me to put down my Steam Deck with its console designed for Xbox gamers.
The $1,000 price tag for the Xbox Ally X is going to be a bitter pill to swallow, but I’m ready to jump in. Here’s why.
I love my Steam Deck. It’s a versatile machine that can do practically everything I need — except play the newest AAA games smoothly. That said, the Steam Deck is nearly 3 years old and was built when portable gaming devices weren’t in vogue (with the exception of the Nintendo Switch).
My Steam Deck has become more of an indie gaming machine for me, since those don’t require much processing power to run. This makes the idea of a proper portable PC gaming machine like the Xbox Ally so attractive. It can play graphics-intensive games without having to revert them to the lowest settings, like I currently have to do with the Steam Deck.
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I have a lot of games on my Xbox account, and many aren’t available on Xbox Game Pass, so they’re not playable on the cloud. Also, if you play on the cloud and then on the installed game, cloud saving can be a problem. It’s why I prefer playing my Xbox Series console remotely.
It’s a bit annoying to play my Xbox games on the Steam Deck. An app called XBPlay makes it easier to play remotely, but it’s still not as easy as having a proper Xbox app for the Steam Deck.
The Xbox Ally is designed to be an Xbox on the go. It allows games that are part of Xbox Anywhere to be installed directly or played remotely using the Xbox app on the Ally. There’s no longer a need for an extra app, internet browsers or another workaround. It’ll be ready to go out of the box.
The Xbox Ally is more useful than a Steam Deck because it has Windows 11. The Steam Deck runs a Linux operating system, and while some developers have made Linux versions of Windows programs, it would be much easier to just have a Windows console.
With the Xbox Ally using Windows, there will be more access to other launchers — the big one being the Epic Games Store. To play those Epic Games Store games on my Steam Deck, I would have to download a launcher, then download the games and do various updates. I would be left worrying about a new update messing everything up, or waiting for whoever made a certain app to update it so I could play a game I wanted.
The Xbox Ally will make it a breeze to jump from one platform to another.
Another aspect of my Steam Deck that seems very dated is its display. It’s an IPS LCD with a 60Hz refresh rate and 1,280×800-pixel resolution. Again, at the time it was released, it made sense to use a cost-effective display to keep the price down.
While the Xbox Ally doesn’t have an OLED screen, it still has a 120Hz full-HD display that does 1080p resolution with 500 nits of brightness. It’s not a huge jump from the Steam Deck’s display, but still noticeable.
I played Hollow Knight: Silksong briefly on the Xbox Ally last month, and the display was one of the biggest differences I noticed right away. The sharpness and brightness were such an improvement over the Steam Deck’s display, which has become less dynamic over time.
Another notable difference with the Xbox Ally is its ergonomics. The Steam Deck had to walk a fine line because the controls needed to be adequate for a wide range of games. Two touchpads, one on each side of the display, were included. But these touchpads make the Steam Deck a little awkward to hold for longer sessions.
Games that require precise timing, like Silksong, simply don’t feel right on the Steam Deck. The spacing of the analog sticks, the shoulder buttons and triggers are slightly off to me, likely because I use an Xbox controller so much. It’s the same way I feel about the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation Portal. Their control setups are off by just a hair, and it’s noticeable once you play long enough.
It’s night and day when playing on the Xbox Ally. The whole console, which is lighter than the Steam Deck, is right at home in my hands. The ROG Xbox Ally feels completely natural. I can play that for hours on end without much of an issue.
Do I think the Xbox Ally is going to be perfect? Absolutely not. There will be some growing pains as it figures itself out. Still, I’m excited for the Xbox Ally as it’ll let me put my Steam Deck to rest after years of gaming on the go.
