{"id":1364293,"date":"2025-10-20T14:21:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T14:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/Fv4oFt4zZTsWju9hg9kKXU"},"modified":"2025-10-20T14:21:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T14:21:35","slug":"it-really-was-asus-says-microsoft-about-the-rog-xbox-ally-xs-eye-watering-1000-price-tag-that-is-all-of-their-insight-into-the-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/it-really-was-asus-says-microsoft-about-the-rog-xbox-ally-xs-eye-watering-1000-price-tag-that-is-all-of-their-insight-into-the-market\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It really was Asus’ says Microsoft about the ROG Xbox Ally X’s eye-watering $1,000 price tag: ‘That is all of their insight into the market’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The ROG Xbox Ally X<\/a>, despite having a very awkward name, is a very impressive machine. Our Dave likes it very much, but found the major sticking point to be the massively high $1,000<\/a> price tag\u2014and it’s not like the non-X variant is particularly cheap either, at $600.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Variety<\/a>, Xbox president Sarah Bond says that you can blame Asus for that one, as the pricing was based on its feedback.<\/p>\n

“We looked at, how do we create multiple options for people? And it really was Asus, because this is their hardware,” said Bond. “That is all of their insight into the market, into the feature set, into what people want, to determine the ultimate prices of the devices.<\/p>\n

“I feel really good about the value that we’re giving gamers for the price, based off the reception to the hardware.”<\/p>\n

It’s been well-received by reviewers overall, that’s for sure. And according to Bond, the pre-order response was pretty impressive, too: “We sold out of the Xbox Store. We sold really quickly at a number of other places around the world.”<\/p>\n

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The Xbox president seems pleased as punch at the reception to its first major foray into the handheld gaming world, calling its impressive pre-order sales figures, “a real confirmation of something that we know and have been working towards for a really long time, which is gaming should act like entertainment.”<\/p>\n

“It should be something you can have with you anywhere,” they continue. “You should be able to play any game you want with anyone you want on any device.”<\/p>\n

Well yes, handheld gaming PCs<\/a> are a very good thing indeed, and as much as Microsoft likes to claim in its advertising that “this is an Xbox<\/a>“, we found the ROG Ally X to be, well… a handheld gaming PC, albeit one wearing an Xbox UI.<\/p>\n

And as for that pricing? It seems MS is keen to point the finger at Asus, likely because it’s a bit of an eye-watering figure and otherwise it’s entirely responsible for pricing up the most expensive Xbox console of all time, all on its own.<\/p>\n

And it must be said, the regular Asus ROG Ally X<\/a> (featuring the older AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU, rather than the Z2 found in the Xbox model) isn’t exactly cheap, retailing at around $800, and we found the ROG Xbox Ally X to be significantly faster in the gaming benchmarks.<\/p>\n