Phil Spencer faced quite the firing line yesterday in the light of Redfall’s release, in his interview with Kinda Funny Games. Interestingly enough, that interview did not end before Phil got to talk up the ROG Ally.
In that interview on episode 137 of the Kinda Funny XCast, Phil stated that he was disappointed with Redfall’s launch, he reassured fans that Starfield would be a much better game, and surprisingly, he stated that he doesn’t see Xbox as capable of out-consoling Sony or Nintendo in the console space.
However, there was one thing that not everyone seemed to have caught up on, but we went out of our way to highlight in our featured photo. Phil visibly had an ASUS ROG Ally displayed in his room, in the background during the interview. It was also pretty hard to miss, as the ROG Ally is so big that it gives the Steam Deck and Wii U Gamepad a run for their money.
But to dispel any doubts about this (after all, it could have been an AYANEO 2), Phil actually talked about the ROG Ally at the tail end of this interview.
As Phil said:
“One of the things I am excited about is the ROG Ally. Something I’ve got my hands on, and people have had a chance to play with that. And I just love the fact that there’s another device that people are going to get to experience.”
While ASUS has yet to officially reveal the full details of the ROG Ally, this last minute promotion from Phil certainly sounds the Xbox team has known about this device for a while already.
The ROG Ally is not the first Windows based gaming console looking to enter the space occupied by the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch. It is, however, the first to have direct support from Microsoft.
We don’t know exactly what ASUS’ partnership with Microsoft entails, but we may find out soon enough when ASUS official launch comes up this May 11, 2023.
It will certainly be interesting to see how closely involved Microsoft itself was involved, in particular the different divisions that were a part of it. We had reported that the Windows division were prototyping Gaming Mode for the OS, but only as part of a developer jam.
Not coincidentally, Microsoft has two hardware divisions already that would also have a tangential interest in the Ally. Of course gamers would look first at the Xbox division, but there is also the Surface division.
Surface’s range of laptops and tablets are not designed for gaming, so they aren’t optimized for it. However, Microsoft has used the Surface to partly steer the direction of the Windows ecosystem so that OEMs would move into tablets and convertibles. The ROG Ally is itself an untethered, somewhat portable Windows device, like Surface’s products.
It’s possible that all three divisions had their own input in the design of the ROG Ally. Combining such knowhow would be quite potent in making the Ally the best device of its kind.
If you were curious, you can watch the Kinda Funny XCast interview below. The ROG Ally comments come in at around 39: 55.
