The ROG Ally is ASUS' Steam Deck competitor
The ROG Ally has a 1080p screen and a 120 Hz refresh rate.
The Steam Deck launched last year and is Valve’s solution for PC gamers that don’t want to be chained to their desks in order to enjoy their expansive game libraries. The device’s success has opened the door for competitors to provide their spin on a mobile PC gaming system, including one from a prominent name in that space. ASUS has revealed the ROG Ally, a handheld console that it will be pitting against Valve’s Steam Deck.
ASUS gave us our first look at the ROG Ally in a new YouTube video. Described as a “Windows gaming handheld,” the manufacturer says that users can access all of their gaming libraries on the go. The trailer shows off games like High on Life, Moving Out, and Dying Light 2 Stay Human running on the device. As for what’s under the hood, ASUS has partnered with AMD to create a Ryzen APU specifically for the ROG Ally. It also packs a dual fan design that ASUS says will keep the ROG Ally cool in the player’s hands.
The ROG Ally has a seven-inch display, putting it right on par with the Steam Deck. It also sports a 1080p resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate, which edges out Valve’s handheld. The trailer also shows off key re-mapping and a library that consolidates games from different platforms into one library. The ROG XG Mobile eGPU is a separate product that can be physically connected to the ROG Ally in order to broadcast it on a television or other large display.
There is no current release date for the ROG Ally, but ASUS has shared a Best Buy store page, where release information is expected to come sometime in the future. While the timing of the announcement originally led most to believe it was an April Fools prank, ASUS has assured that the ROG Ally is a real product and that it will have more information to share soon.
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replyDonovan Erskine posted a new article, The ROG Ally is ASUS' Steam Deck competitor
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It's happening! Asus ROG has entered the handheld PC market with the ROG Ally.
https://youtu.be/S9a3oAiN2ik
Can't release APU details, but according to Asus, at 15w it's 50% more powerful than the steam deck. At 35w it's twice as powerful. Screen is basically the same size but it can run at 120hz.-
I can't go through the video right now, but if it is running SteamOS and isn't super expensive, I kinda would be interested.
Steam Deck for me has always had an advantage due to the software, the price, and how easy it is to repair/mod. The last one is a massive issue if you are dropping over $1000.
Either way, more competition is always good-
Couple hands on vids here: https://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=41829424#item_41829424 Looks p sweet!
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Asus is entering the ring against the Steamdeck. Looks promising. I'm calling the price at no less than $800 though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drLZxyv79Oo
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MILLEH DON'T LOOK AT IT
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Milleh looked ... http://gamewith.us/shackspace/milleh-looked.gif
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Why not OLED??!
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E.G. the Ayaneo Air Pro https://www.ayaneo.com/goods/7849643081973 $699 with a 5.5 inch OLED screen and mobile Ryzen 5. Maxed out with a Ryzen 7 = $1099
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The Steam Deck actually made me use my Switch more by reminding me how much I enjoy playing in handheld. The screen on the Deck is just such trash in comparison, so yeah, like you I'm still sometimes torn on buying Switch or Steam versions just by virtue of the display.
It really comes down to performance levels that games will hit. The upper band of performance doesn't really factor into if I'll play on Deck since I'd just play those games on my desktop or HTPC anyway.
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The thing is, someone like Asus or these other never-heard-of-them companies making Steam Deck competitors is they have to make all their profit off of the hardware. I’m sure Valve is making a profit off of Steam Deck but they’re probably minimizing it because they’re hoping it spurns more Steam usage.
And it works. Their recent comments around the SD’s one year anniversary says they’ve seen a real uptick in SD owners buying more Steam games. The SD subreddit has all kinds of people saying they had like a handful of Steam games and now they have a ton. I personally re-bought CP2077 on a Steam sale since it runs better with their pre-compiled shaders than from GOG.
Nintendo sells their system at cost or a loss or at best a modest profit but you have to buy all new games direct from Nintendo, you can’t bring any of your existing games. Valve is doing a modest profit and you can bring your existing games and they’re making money off of new purchases. ASUS likely has to sell at a good profit because they’re not going to see anything from game sales or even sales of the operating systems.
That said, competition is great. SD2 will be even better if ASUS and others get in the market at a competitive price.-
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At the outset there were reports that the PS3 cost like $900 to make and they were selling it for $599, so like a $300 loss on every unit sold. Granted the launch units were monsters - hardware based PS2 compatibility, lots of stuff like SACD no one ever really used, and Blu-Ray was an expensive idea in 2006 or whatever.
I can buy into the idea that the console companies, if they’re not hurting for market share, sell the consoles for a modest profit and that as time goes on and the hardware doesn’t change that profit margin goes up, but Nintendo is still selling the mostly-the-same original Switch for $299 with a dock and they’re selling a replacement dock for like $90 and replacement joycons for like $80. They’re definitely getting you into their ecosystem with the Switch and then making most of their profit on everything else, including of course like 30% of every digital game sold (according to the Epic court docs)-
"Nintendo is still selling the mostly-the-same original Switch for $299 with a dock and they’re selling a replacement dock for like $90 and replacement joycons for like $80. They’re definitely getting you into their ecosystem with the Switch and then making most of their profit on everything else, including of course like 30% of every digital game sold (according to the Epic court docs)"
Nintendo made money on Switch hardware from day one and their profit margins have expanded over time. I don't get the argument that Nintendo is still selling hardware to get people into their software ecosystem when they make more money on their hardware every year, that doesn't make sense. The only time they really lost money on hardware is when they did the emergency price drop on the 3DS in its first summer, but by 2012 they were back in the green on them.
They're very clear about why they do this. Unlike Microsoft and Sony they aren't a gaming company that's attached to other divisions that can support loss leaders. Entertainment is literally all Nintendo has so they can't afford to lose money on hardware sold while hoping to make it back in software sales. Microsoft is still billions in the red on Xbox while Sony correctly moved away from a loss leader model for the PS4 and PS5.
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I really hate that everyone aside from Valve and Nintendo are aiming at 1080p IPS screens. 1080p has double the pixel count of 720p, a huge strain on power and computational demands for a platform that is already very strained for framerate and battery life.
A 720p OLED is really all that's needed for gaming on a 7" screen. Just do that and I'll be thrilled. -
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After my experience with an Asus gaming laptop I'd never get something like this from them. Performance wise it was fine, but it had a bunch of annoying issues with stuff like the touchpad and keyboard, and it seems like they deliberately made it as difficult as possible to replace the battery.
Also the dpad on that thing looks awful.
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The simple fact is they don't have the software engineering to solve the problems that Valve has, and likely can't even compete on the level of something like the Ayaneo.
I like Asus for a bunch of stuff, and use one of their motherboards in my current setup. But the software is absolute garbage that's barely functional on the best days; I use third party shit like openRGB rather than deal with the crap they bundle.-
Makes me wonder - how much of Steam’s modifications and improvements for the Steam Deck can they leverage? Like I assume they can’t do the thing Valve does where they use Steam to deliver precompiled shaders but all the stuff Valve did with Big Picture Mode and Proton and stuff, if they delivered something that just booted into BPM like the SD does, what % of the experience would that cover alone?
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Yeah I saw a YouTube video of someone building a SteamOS computer and there was something he was using - I can’t remember if it was a whole distribution or if it was some sort of software package/layer - but basically yeah it was some project on GitHub that essentially recreates as best as possible the SteamOS version on the SD using the stuff Valve has released and also hints from what’s currently on SD. I can’t remember what video it was though.
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Yeah I guess I’m just wondering - if ASUS screws up laptops (I’ve never had one of their laptops but a few folks in this thread are not a fan) how much of the SteamOS/SD experience could they fuck up through bad software, drivers, etc.
I have an ASUS motherboard and it’s fine but to this day every time I plug in a different thing into the headphone jack this Windows 95 UI nightmare thing pops up to ask what I just did. I’m not sure I’d want them handling more of the experience.
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lol windows, nope.
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If it runs well and has a good UI, I'm not sure it matters to be honest. Sure , the SD will have the best UI but it just needs to be able to quickly launch and run games. And I love linux and proton.
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It will have Armory Crate pre-installed and as such the games will run at half speed.
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Rumor of possible pricing, if true lower than I expected
https://insider-gaming.com/rog-ally-pricing-release-date/ -
I wonder if you could install SteamOS on this thing?
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It's been a year since SD launched and we still don't have the new SteamOS available as promised.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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