Before Microsoft officially announced its team-up with Asus to help develop the ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X handheld systems, there were plenty of reports going around of the company working on its own Xbox-branded handheld gaming system. A new report, however, now indicates that the company cancelled its internal handheld development because of AMD’s quoting high minimum order requirements for the chips it would supply. The report, courtesy of industry insider KeplerL2 on the NeoGAF forums, indicates that AMD wanted Microsoft to commit to more than 10 million units of the chip.
Microsoft’s decision to shelve its own internal handheld system came about due to the company wanting to avoid taking the risk of such a high minimum order. As for AMD, the chip maker wanted such a high order to justify its own research and development investments in a dedicated system-on-a-chip (SoC) for Microsoft. According to KeplerL2, Microsoft, looking at industry-wide handheld sales figures – with the Steam Deck having sold around 5 million units and other companies like Asus and Lenovo having only sold around 1 to 2 million units of their devices – made Microsoft want to avoid the risk.
According to further posts by KeplerL2, the handheld device made by Microsoft on its own would have been a full-fledged portable gaming console rather than just being a handheld PC like the Steam Deck. For context, reports have indicated that Sony is looking at putting out its own handheld console in line for launch with the next generation of its PlayStation consoles.
Reports that Microsoft had cancelled its handheld Xbox came up shortly before the company unveiled the ROG Xbox Ally line-up alongside Asus. First indications of this arose in May, when the company was believed to have halted the development of its handheld in favour of focusing on the handheld experience of Windows 11 instead. These improvements will eventually be seen when the ROG Xbox Ally systems finally hit store shelves later this month.
A later report, courtesy of The Verge’s Tom Warren, indicated that plans to make the handheld were ultimately cancelled, with Microsoft instead opting to partner up with hardware companies that might already be working on their own handheld gaming PCs.
“I still think we’ll see next-gen Xbox hardware from Microsoft, but I also strongly believe we’ll see multiple devices from PC makers like Asus that will also be considered next-gen Xbox consoles,” wrote Warren.
He also noted that Microsoft might be internally working on emulation to eventually allow Xbox games to run on Windows systems. To do this, an internal team is said to have been formed focused on game preservation, with efforts to get Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games running on modern PC hardware.
In the meantime, check out details about the ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X, which are priced at $599.99 and $999.99 respectively. Rumours have indicated that the companies also tried to lower the pricing for both systems.
