As the world prepares for the Nintendo Switch 2 to be revealed in full during Nintendo Direct on April 2, Microsoft and ASUS appear to be cooking something up in the handheld realm too.
After the reports the first Xbox-branded handheld were on the way this year with a third-party company building the hardware, attention soon turned to ASUS as a possible candidate.
Back in March it emerged that the PC maker was in pole position to create the Xbox portable, which made sense given the ROG Ally X is one of the premium PC gaming handheld that already offers access to the PC-based version of Xbox Game Pass.
Now, it appears those reports may have been on track with Microsoft and ASUS dropping some hints the full fat Xbox Game Pass console experience and a way to play the best Xbox games might be on the way to the portable realm
Firstly, ASUS dropped a teaser for a new ROG Ally console complete with the hashtag #PlayALLYourGames. The video trailer features the familiar Xbox ABXY buttons that already appear on other ROG Ally handhelds, so nothing really to see there. Then Microsoft added the cherry on top with its reply; which simply featured the side-eye monkey puppet meme.
That would strongly suggest Xbox has something to do with this. In turn, that would strongly suggest native Game Pass support would be available on such a device. Beyond that, the “all your games” tease suggests we’re going to get a device running on Windows that offers access to PC games, just like the current ROG Ally devices, which offer access to the Steam and Epic Games stores.
Coming soon?
As we’ve previously speculated this would probably be the easiest route to getting an Xbox handheld on the market this year, so it seems like a sensible solution.
The ROG Ally X is a great device, arguably the best in its class. An Xbox reskin with a touch of unique flair mightn’t be the the most exciting solution in the world, but it is the most logical.
