We're now just over a month away from the ROG Xbox Ally launching in mid-October, with excitement starting to build about the device after its strong showing at Gamescom 2025. We are still waiting on prices of course, which is dampening the hype a bit - and a fresh take on the system from the folks over at Digital Foundry is perhaps a slight warning over what to expect from the device on day one.
Multiple members of the DF team went hands on with the system during last month's mammoth gaming convention, and their experiences have been mixed so far, to say the least. Richard Leadbetter came away impressed by the hardware side of things — particularly the device's form factor — but had big issues with the software experience in its preview form. Here's what they had to say on that:
"It is a very rich and fully featured interface, it can do things that other interfaces can't... But at the same time, let's put it brutally, I found some pretty glaring bugs with the interface literally within minutes of picking it up.
The first bug I had was with DOOM: The Dark Ages [...] which just kind of 'hanged'. The second time I had issues the analog sticks stopped working within the interface which was obviously making navigation difficult; on-site, Microsoft staff had to step in to get the unit working again. The third issue I had was something quite different - I was playing Gears Reloaded, I went back to the 'Xbox full-screen experience', then loaded DOOM: The Dark Ages — it didn't ask me whether I wanted to terminate Gears Reloaded — so it went ahead and loaded DOOM while Gears was still resonant in memory which hammered performance.
This is stuff that should be taken care of by the interface but wasn't, and in that respect it felt a bit unpolished and unfinished, it felt very reminiscent of the kind of experiences I've had with pretty much every PC handheld I've tested so far using Windows. Here, that front end was doing things it shouldn't be doing - it certainly didn't have the feel of a more bespoke, curated console experience that just kind of works. Bearing in mind that this machine's coming soon, I think they've still got a lot of work to do on the interface on the front end there.
Now, before we get too disheartened by this, fellow DF member Alex Battaglia went hands on with the device as well and "didn't experience any crashes" - but he played it for a much shorter amount of time overall. It sounds a lot like the ROG Xbox Ally will still provide a very PC-like experience, just with an improved form factor for these sorts of handheld devices - which Leadbetter also warned of in his preview of the device:
"If you're going to be booting up this machine and you're expecting an Xbox, I think that you're going to be a bit disappointed. It's a launcher that's quite richly featured [...] I think right now that it isn't an 'Xbox',"
Of course, as both DF hosts mention, this was all pre-launch preview code - and it sounds like the device is very much a work in progress from now until launch, and even beyond. Microsoft is working on its 'Handheld Compatibility Program' to smoothen things out, but as is always the case with PC software, things are constantly evolving and changing - and this preview probably serves as a good reminder that the ROG Xbox Ally is not a traditional console. With that warning in place, all eyes are on the October 16th launch to see what kind of shape Microsoft can get this device in before it hits store shelves.