Microsoft’s Xbox joins the handheld race with a new console dropping this year
Microsoft announced its new handheld less than a week after Nintendo’s Switch 2 was released to the public.
Well, Microsoft gave Nintendo four days to be the newest handheld in town before announcing its own mobile console: the ROG Xbox Ally.
Xbox says this new handheld, the first of its kind for the console maker, will hit stores in time for this holiday season.
Like its latest plug-in consoles, Microsoft’s new handheld will come in two forms: a standard edition and a higher-powered version. The device is built together with Asus, which already makes a handheld PC gaming device (the ROG Ally X — hold the Xbox).
While Xbox hasn’t disclosed a retail price for the handheld yet, the ROG Ally X currently sells for $900. If the Xbox device were priced similarly, it would be $300 more expensive than its non-mobile counterpart, the Xbox Series X.
That price point would probably be a tough sell for gamers, who have groaned at Nintendo’s $450 Switch 2 — though that doesn’t seem to have stopped them from buying it. Sony’s PlayStation Portal, which is a cloud device and much simpler than Xbox’s handheld, retails for $200.
By releasing a handheld, Xbox joins the mobile gaming foray, adding pressure to Nintendo’s Switch 2, Valve’s Steam Deck, and Sony’s Portal. But with tariffs squeezing the industry (Sony’s even weighing US-built PlayStations) and multiple battle-tested rivals already on store shelves, most of the pressure may be on Xbox to prove itself in the space.
