ROG Ally celebrates its 1-year anniversary today, June 13, 2024. Below, we look back at how it overcame its launch problems to become a viable Steam Deck competitor, and a sign of just how open the portable PC market can be.
Considering how much the portable gaming PC market has exploded since Valve launched the Steam Deck in early 2022, it’s remarkable to remember that its closest competitor is only a year old. Just over a year after the Steam Deck hit the market, Asus followed up with the ROG Ally, a Windows-based gaming handheld that, on paper, was a big step up from Valve’s handheld. Not only was it more powerful (and possibly significantly so), it offered an experience that was lacking at the time on Valve’s Linux-based SteamOS when it came to game and launcher compatibility. It wasn’t long before the Ally’s biggest appeal was also considered its Achilles heel, but even with the initial growing pains of adapting Windows to a device it was never intended to work with smoothly, the ROG Ally has proven that there is more than There is enough consumer demand and variability to be incredibly successful.
In May 2023, Asus announced the ROG Ally, just as Valve was starting to come to grips with Steam Deck’s supply issues. For a long time, getting your hands on a Steam Deck was incredibly difficult, with a limited release in a handful of regions and demand completely outstripping supply. The ROG Ally was the antidote to that bitter pill, launching more widely around the world thanks to Asus’ much-established distribution network, and giving those with a hole the size of a Steam Deck in their hearts another option. It also competed on price, with the highest spec model costing just $50 more than the equivalent Steam Deck. For that you got a larger screen, a higher 1080p resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate and, most importantly, variable refresh rate support. The ROG Ally was similar in size and weight to the Steam Deck, albeit with slightly less favorable ergonomics, as many would discover when they got their hands on it. Still, with almost eight times the theoretical power behind it thanks to the latest Z1 Extreme chip courtesy of AMD, it seemed like a no-brainer in a world where the weaker and less viable Steam Deck currently ruled.
Another big draw was Windows, making the ROG Ally compatible with everything you might want to play on a desktop. The Steam Deck launched with SteamOS, a heavily modified version of Linux that allowed Valve to make its handheld a more console-like experience, albeit at the expense of compatibility. Many games, especially those with certain anti-cheat systems, were not compatible with the operating system (and still are not), while getting games from other launchers to work required some tinkering. SteamOS was also incredibly buggy in the months after launch, not supporting Game Pass for PC due to its Windows Store requirement. Windows support seemed like a viable solution to these problems, and one that gave the ROG Ally even more allure. Not only would Game Pass work without any issues, switching between Steam, the Epic Games Store and more would work just like on any other desktop.
However, the problem that became noticeable after launch was not that the ROG Ally was not up to the task of taking on the Steam Deck from a hardware point of view, but that the chosen operating system was simply not up to the task of taking on the to battle the Steam Deck. used in the handheld format. Windows was cumbersome to navigate on the ROG Ally, and Asus’s own attempt to package the experience with its Armory Crate software wasn’t nearly as polished and seamless as the much more advanced SteamOS. The ROG Ally couldn’t pause and pause games when you turned off the Ally, a staple in the handheld world but a logical choice when Windows on a desktop never needed this when playing games. It created a lot of friction between the freedom of choice and the user experience on the device, which quickly led to the suggestion that, despite the surprisingly small performance delta, the Steam Deck was still the device of choice.
And yet the ROG Ally found a large, vocal audience. It was praised for its compatibility with all launchers, especially for making it easy to use Game Pass on the go. The performance, while nowhere near the expected jump over the Steam Deck, was still enough to make the argument worthwhile, even if it came at the expense of battery life. The display wasn’t revolutionary, but its higher refresh rate and variable refresh rate support gave it a significant advantage over the Steam Deck, with the latter being especially important on a mobile device that can’t always maintain a consistent framerate. Despite its inability to significantly overcome the hurdles that Microsoft itself doesn’t have with Windows on this kind of hardware, the ROG Ally became a strong choice for those with specific needs, becoming exactly what it promised to be: an improvement over the Steam Deck. that would create strong competition in this booming market.
Its effect was also noticeable. Before the ROG Ally was launched, the Steam Deck was running virtually unopposed considering its price-performance ratio, but since then it has had to compete not only with Asus, but also with the likes of Lenovo, MSI, Ayaneo and new market entrants such as Zotac. Everyone tries to differentiate themselves with small iterations of the same basic formula, with varying degrees of success. Still, it’s Asus and its ROG Ally that have come within striking distance of the Steam Deck and remain the hottest competition. It’s a product that Asus also believes in, announcing a new iteration launching just over a year after the original. The Asus ROG Ally It’s not the sequel some were longing for, with both Asus and Valve waiting for the expected significant performance boost from AMD’s upcoming chips. However, when that day finally arrives, it will be fascinating to see how the second round of this battle will play out, with consumers ultimately being the biggest winners.