{"id":233862,"date":"2025-10-18T12:16:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T12:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/233862\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T12:16:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T12:16:12","slug":"xbox-ally-handheld-release-president-sarah-bond-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/233862\/","title":{"rendered":"Xbox Ally Handheld Release: President Sarah Bond Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tXbox<\/a>\u2018s new handheld device has been out for 24 hours and the response to the ROG Xbox Ally<\/a> and pricier ROG Xbox Ally<\/a> X has been overwhelmingly positive from early reviewers.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut as with every major release within the gaming community, the Ally\u2019s launch has prompted questions surrounding cost vs. value, who exactly the handheld console is meant for, and how the new on-the-go-PC-style product (made in partnership with Taiwanese electronics company Asus) might impact Microsoft Gaming\u2019s plans for more full-scale Xbox gaming consoles.<\/p>\n

\n\tFirst up, Xbox president Sarah Bond<\/a> tells Variety that the price tags for the Ally ($599.99) and Ally X ($999.99) were determined with guidance from manufacturer Asus based on the features.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe looked at, how do we create multiple options for people? And it really was Asus, because this is their hardware,\u201d Bond said Thursday during a launch event for the Ally devices. \u201cThat is all of their insight into the market, into the feature set, into what people want, to determine the ultimate prices of the devices.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite the steep price, Bond says that when pre-orders opened in September, \u201cthe reaction was overwhelming demand for the device.\u201d \u201cWe sold out on the Xbox Store. We sold really quickly at a number of other places around the world,\u201d Bond said. \u201cI feel really good about the value that we\u2019re giving gamers for the price, based off the reception to the hardware.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Microsoft<\/p>\n

\n\tBond says the pre-launch results are \u201ca real confirmation of something that we know and have been working towards for a really long time, which is gaming should act like all entertainment: it should be something you can have with you anywhere. You should be able to play any game you want with anyone you want on any device.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tXbox decided to partner with Asus to develop the Ally line of handhelds \u201cto really begin to transform the experience and take it to that next level in a way that we could do partnered much quicker, and in a much more innovative way, than we could [individually] with what we were each doing,\u201d Bond says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first step in the process was prioritizing the ergonomic design of the Ally and Ally X: \u201cWe took everything we knew about what it took to make a controller, what it actually feels like for things to work in a variety of hand sizes, what it feels like to play for three hours and worked on the ergonomics of the device to make it super, super comfortable,\u201d the Xbox president said.<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce the hands-on experience was sorted, Bond says the Xbox team\u2019s next call was to Microsoft\u2019s PC department.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe partnered with the Windows team to think about the Windows experience on the device and to make sure it was optimized,\u201d Bond said. \u201cThere isn\u2019t a keyboard on this. We had to optimize it for controller and touch all the way through the UE, all the way through jumping into your games. So Windows is actually built to run on a handheld and on this form factor and on something that is built especially for a gaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome early discourse around the Xbox handhelds is questioning who exactly the products are meant for, seeing as Asus is first and foremost focused on PC-handheld devices, and there are skeptics who think the ROG Xbox Ally was going to be little more than an existing Asus product with an Xbox button and branding.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile not an internally made product, Bond insists it is Xbox through and through \u2014 whether you\u2019re a more causal gamer and want an Ally, or a hardcore gamer who is eyeing an Ally X.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe want to make sure that people have a choice,\u201d Bond says. \u201cWe want to make sure there\u2019s an option for the power players who want the latest innovations, that want to push the edge of what\u2019s possible, the most demanding players. And then, if someone is looking for PC gaming on the go, they\u2019re a casual gamer, they\u2019re a gaming enthusiast, then there\u2019s Xbox Allys for them. Giving multiple choices for people, so we can actually meet people where they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe announcement of the ROG Xbox Allys and Xbox\u2019s partnership with Asus also sparked some confusion over whether Xbox was out of the in-house-made console game. Bond confirms the Xbox team is still hard at work on its next-gen consoles, the follow-ups to the Xbox Series S and X, and there\u2019s even the possibility of internally made handhelds.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are 100% looking at making things in the future,\u201d Bond said. \u201cWe have our next-gen hardware in development. We\u2019ve been looking at prototyping, designing. We have a partnership we\u2019ve announced with AMD around it, so that is coming. What we saw here was an opportunity to innovate in a new way and to bring gamers another choice, in addition to our next-gen hardware. We are always listening to what players and creators want. When there is demand for innovation, we\u2019re going to build it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe launch of the Xbox Ally and Ally X comes on the heels of several price increases at Xbox (for both consoles and its Game Pass subscription service) and just before the holiday season, when Xbox has a slate of much-anticipated AAA game launches still to come, including \u201cCall of Duty: Black Ops 7\u201d and \u201cOuter Worlds 2.\u201d Bond notes this frenzy of releases and business updates are \u201cthe start of a new pace the team is executing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a ton more innovation to come, including things like further optimizing the experience here, scaling out the handheld compatibility program, offering more benefits and improvements to the experience and other features and adds that we\u2019re going to give to people and more choices and more games,\u201d Bond says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Xbox\u2018s new handheld device has been out for 24 hours and the response to the ROG Xbox Ally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[108145,127325,74,1298,107796],"class_list":{"0":"post-233862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-rog-xbox-ally","9":"tag-sarah-bond","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-xbox","12":"tag-xbox-ally"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}