ASUS is planning on going up against Valve’s Steam Deck with a new handheld device called the ROG Ally. The company revealed the new on-the-go PC this week right around April Fools’ Day which meant that some might’ve taken this as a joke, but ASUS is indeed making this device and has already offered a first look at it. No release window was announced for the device when it was revealed, though ASUS and Best Buy have now opened up a portal on the latter’s site where those interested in the ROG Ally can put in their contact info to know when preorders go live.
The first trailer for the ROG Ally was revealed alongside the announcement and can be seen below. It shows off the new handheld device which looks a whole lot like the Steam Deck, though given that it’s supposed to be a portable gaming PC, it’s hard to imagine it’d look anything unlike the designs standardized by the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck.
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The trailer names off a couple of features of interest. Being able to play games on the go is of course the focus of this device with users able to move games over to it from different platforms. A preview of the device itself showed a pretty standard layout of thumbsticks, a control pad, and a couple of face buttons with some light-up effects naturally adorning the face of the ROG Ally. Through the ASUS Armory Crate feature, you’ll be able to customize different game settings on a case-by-case basis among other options to be tweaked.
That’s all just a high-level look at the device, however, because the actual specs for the ROG Ally haven’t yet been revealed. All that’s up on the Best Buy site currently is a spot for people to enter in their email address to learn more once that info becomes available, so we’ll have to wait until later to learn more about what’s inside the ROG Ally and, more importantly, how much it’ll cost.
Razer and Verizon also announced a Steam Deck competitor not long ago, so this sort of trend may continue in the future with other companies following suit as well.
