$1,000 for a ROG Xbox Ally X? Oh yeah, that was Asus' idea, says Microsoft exec

"That is [down to] each of their penetration into the market"

Image credit: Xbox / Asus

Fingers person been pointed regarding the ROG Xbox Ally X's beefy £800 / $1000 terms tag. Xbox, whose sanction is connected the handheld, person pointed to collaborators Asus arsenic having spearheaded that decision, with president Sarah Bond saying that it came down to the hardware company's appraisal of what'd beryllium acceptable to charge.

"We looked at, however bash we make aggregate options for people? And it truly was Asus, due to the fact that this is their hardware," Bond told Variety. "That is each of their penetration into the market, into the diagnostic set, into what radical want, to find the eventual prices of the devices."

"I consciousness truly bully astir the worth that we’re giving gamers for the price, based disconnected the reception to the hardware," she added.

As our James acknowledged successful his Xbox Ally X review, the handheld's terms surely doesn't permission it a nary brainer bargain, but isn't massively retired of measurement with what different handhelds spell for:

The information that it costs £800 (or a crisp $1000 successful the US) doesn’t help, but past the MSI Claw 8 AI+ already proved that it tin beryllium worthy splashing retired if framerates and practicality are up to premium standards. The ROG Xbox Ally X sometimes makes the cut, though is conscionable arsenic often outpolished oregon outlasted by its peers, and adjacent suffers from outright faults that undermine Asus and Microsoft’s genuinely bully UX work.

I'm having a small occupation believing that Xbox, whose CEO Phil Spencer made nary concealed of however overmuch helium pines for the handhelds anterior to pulling the trigger connected an Xbox-branded one, didn't person immoderate accidental successful the fig which was stuck connected the box. If you're putting your company's sanction connected the happening and privation to minimise the imaginable that has to backfire, surely the terms is 1 of the elements connected your radar to sermon thoroughly, adjacent if you deliberation you're apt going to beryllium blessed trusting successful Asus' cited mountains of wisdom.

Then again, an exec earning monolithic wads of currency to marque these sorts of calls and deals I americium not. Plus, there's the much-discussed contented of US tarrifs and their imaginable interaction connected the outgo of goods similar the similar the Xbox Ally X, which seemed to beryllium alluded to via the operation "time to fig the macroeconomic interaction to pricing" erstwhile Asus and Microsoft opted to propulsion backmost announcing the handheld's terms by a mates of months.