Asus ROG Xbox Ally handheld release date announced — here’s when you can expect it

The Asus and Xbox co-developed ROG Xbox Ally will be here soon. During Gamescom 2025, Asus announced that its highly anticipated Xbox handheld launches on October 16 in the United States and markets across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. And as we previously reported, there will be two versions— the entry-level ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X.

The base ROG Xbox Ally will pack an AMD Ryzen Z2 chip, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Then there’s the ROG Xbox Ally X, which has a more powerful AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor with a 50 TOPS NPU, 24GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. The latter will sport a larger 80Wh battery compared to the former’s smaller 60Wh battery.

One interesting tidbit from today's news is that Xbox has been working with its game studio partners to test and optimize a slew of PC games for handheld compatibility. The new “Handheld Compatibility Program” exists to ensure that folks have a relatively seamless gaming experience on both ROG Xbox Ally handhelds.

Compatible games will have “Handheld Optimize” or “Mostly Compatible” badges. This is the equivalent of the Steam Deck Verified badge for Valve’s handheld.

What does Handheld Optimized mean? It means games will work with default controller inputs, feature legible text, and have appropriate resolution in full-screen mode. These games will also have “intuitive text input method” and “accurate” iconography, which could mean a virtual keyboard for inputting text, and have UI elements adjusted for the handheld. Games with the Mostly Compatible badge might require you to tweak settings in-game for a better handheld experience.

The new Xbox handhelds will also have advanced shader delivery. Basically, the Xbox app will preload a game’s shaders during download, which should drastically reduce the time you have to wait to download and install a game. Waiting for shaders to download before you can play a game is annoying, so this feature is definitely appreciated.

You might have noticed the "AI" bit in the Ryzen Z2 Extreme’s name. Thanks to this processor’s built-in NPU, the ROG Xbox Ally X can utilize upcoming AI-powered features like Auto Super Resolution (Auto SR) to improve performance and visuals. Another AI feature called Highlight Reels will capture notable gameplay moments and generate short replay clips that you can share with others.

If you thought I was waiting until the end of this article to drop the price hammer, I can assure you that’s not the case. Asus only said that “pricing and pre-order details will follow in the coming weeks.” Given how the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds are releasing in mid-October, we could potentially hear something in September, though that’s just a guess on my part.

The ROG Xbox Ally seems to have meaningful upgrades over the existing Asus ROG Ally and Asus ROG Ally X, especially with its updated processor options and game compatibility efforts. If you’re attending Gamescom this week, you can try the handhelds for yourself. Our team is currently in Germany for the event, so stay tuned for our first hands-on impressions!

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