After having finally unveiled the official Xbox handheld gaming system through a collaboration with Asus, Microsoft Gaming boss Phil Spencer has spoken about the efforts that went into adapting Windows 11 for the platform. In a recent episode of the official Xbox podcast, Spencer referred to the work between Microsoft’s gaming and Windows divisions as “the tightest collaboration” he had seen.
“This is the tightest collaboration I’ve seen between the gaming organization and the Windows team in my three decades at the company,” said Spencer when he was asked about how the version of Windows powering the ROG Xbox Ally and the Xbox Ally X. “It’s really amazing to see the teams focusing on opportunities to make the experience better, and working really as one development team to realize that.”
“Now, when you say ‘the freedom of Windows’, Windows is an open platform, and we want to support that on this device. Meaning, if you’ve got a storefront that you love, we want to make sure that’s fully supported here. If you’ve got a social place that you go, like a Discord or something you use for voice communication, text communication, we’ll make sure that’s supported. There’s not a closed platform.”
Spencer also spoke about offering a console-like experience with the upcoming handheld systems, and how the gaming division’s experience with that helped bring the same user friendliness to the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X. However, he also acknowledged that there is still work to be done on the platform for under-the-hood things like battery life.
“I’d say under the hood, we also know there’s work for us to do on battery life, on interruptions, on performance, and I love just seeing the week-to-week grind the teams are doing,” said Spencer. “The progress has been amazing between the two teams.”
The ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X, both handheld gaming systems designed by Microsoft in collaboration with Asus, were unveiled during Xbox Games Showcase 2025 over the weekend. The ROG Xbox Ally runs on an AMD Ryzen Z2A and 16 GB of LPDDR5X-6400 RAM, and includes 512 GB of storage. The ROG Xbox Ally X, on the other hand, runs on an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme and 24 GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM, and comes with 1 TB of storage. Both handhelds feature a 7-inch 1080p 120 Hz display with support for variable refresh rates.
Shortly after unveiling the handhelds, Microsoft released another video showcasing some of its features and having some of the development teams behind both the hardware and the software talk about the collaboration between Microsoft and Asus.
“This is your absolute behemoth,” said Xbox’s Roanne Sones about the ROG Xbox Ally X. “All the bells and whistles. You’ve maxed out your storage and performance of the product and the chip.”
The video also gave us a look at what is essentially an early prototype of the ROG Xbox Ally, with its cheaps and display spread out in a pizza box, allowing the developers to make changes to quickly get feedback on how the system runs.
The Asus ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X will be coming to stores later this year.
