Xbox President Reveals Reason For ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X Handheld's Steep Price
In an interview with Variety, Bond shared that it’s ASUS that set the final price, saying, "That is all of their insight into the market, into the feature set, into what people want, to determine the ultimate prices of the devices."
This makes sense considering ASUS did most of the legwork on the hardware side while Microsoft worked on getting Windows up to snuff.
The price tag of the ROG Xbox Ally X didn’t dampen enthusiasm for the device. When preorders became available it sold out on Microsoft’s official Xbox store in short order and sales have been brisk at retailers across the globe.
Although Microsoft mostly focused on the software experience, it did play a role in the ergonomic shape of the handheld, which is different from the first generation Ally. The team at Xbox provided significant input, applying everything it had learned the last two decades designing controllers, to make the handheld “super, super comfortable.”
While many have been pointing to Microsoft’s partnership with ASUS as another sign it’s looking to exit the hardware market, Bond’s comments say otherwise.
"We have our next-gen hardware in development. We’ve been looking at prototyping, designing. We have a partnership we’ve 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," Bond told Variety.
So Xbox fans should have at least one more console to look forward to. Meanwhile, the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally is available at Amazon for $599 while the more powerful ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X is available at Best Buy for $999.99, for those looking to jump into handheld gaming.
