Asus confirms its ROG Ally handheld gaming PC wasn’t an April Fool’s Day prank

3 April, 2023

ROG Ally. Credit: Asus.

Tech company Asus has revealed that although the ROG Ally was revealed during April Fool’s Day, the upcoming handheld gaming PC is real.

Announced on April 1, the ROG Ally was initially dismissed as an April Fool’s Day joke.

Following the announcement, Shawn Yen – product management head of the company’s Republic Of Gamers brand – even pointed out the name was pronounced “a-lie” on LinkedIn.

However, today (April 3), Asus has confirmed that the ROG Ally is genuine. A release date or pricing for the handheld is yet to be announced, though Asus has suggested users sign up at Best Buy to be informed when pre-orders are opened.

As for what the ROG Ally will offer, Asus has confirmed that it will be a Windows-based handheld that will let users play games from multiple storefronts, including Steam and Xbox.

In the below video, Dying Light 2, Resident Evil Village and High On Life can all be spotted on the handheld.

Specifics on the ROG Ally’s technology are yet to be announced, but Asus has confirmed the handheld has a dual-fan design and features “the fastest AMD APU yet”.

Finally, the XG Mobile eGPU was also revealed as a companion device that will allow the ROG Ally to stream games to larger screens.

The handheld PC market is currently dominated by Valve‘s Steam Deck, which launched on February 2022. Though sales were initially limited to queued pre-orders due to high demand, by October Valve had cleared its backlog and opened the console for regular purchasing.

Since launching, major game releases including The Last Of Us Part 1, EA’s Dead Space remake, Marvel’s Spider-Man and Elden Ring have all been confirmed to run on the Steam Deck.

Recently, Valve shared that it will be “a few years” until it releases a next-gen version of the Steam Deck.

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