The Steam Deck Is Getting Some Competition
The backlog of Steam Deck preorders at Valve has finally gone down to the point where you can order one and receive it in a relatively short amount of time. But it’s still selling. The Deck is a certified success….and with all successes come imitators. High-end PC manufacturer ASUS has just announced they’ll be introducing their own handheld PC gaming device to the market, which they call the “ROG Ally.”
ASUS actually made this announcement on April 1, but no one reported on it because they weren’t certain if it was real. That was Marketing Mistake #1. Mistake #2 is that ugly name…what is a “ROG Ally” anyway? Turns out ROG is an acronym for ASUS’ sub-brand “Republic of Gamers,” making it a real cringe name no matter how you say it.
The Steam Deck is great…sometimes. It shines as an emulation device, able to handle any past generation up to PS3 with ease. But when it comes to actually playing the library of games on Steam — the task it was built for — a lot of titles aren’t compatible with it. Many times it’s unclear why. I have no clue why Tomb Raider 2013 will run on my Deck, but Tomb Raider Underworld — the game that came before it — will chug at an unplayable 5 FPS.
The RPG Ally promises to correct the Deck’s shortcomings with a more powerful APU and an official Windows 11 OS. The Deck went with a Linux OS to save costs, but is able to run some Windows games via complicated trickery (it’s not an exact science, though, hence all the incompatible games). The Ally will no doubt be able to run more Steam games than Steam’s own device, but the real question is…at what cost?
ASUS is not saying how much they plan to charge for the ROG Ally, but the company doesn’t make anything cheap, and we expect the price to be in another league from the Deck. A four-figure sticker would not surprise us. And the past has shown how setting your price too high can cripple your market penetration. Our early prediction: the Deck has nothing to worry about for now.
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