ROG Xbox Ally Under Fire Due to it Not Being an Xbox

If you purchased the £500 ROG Xbox Ally, you may assume that you would be able to play your Xbox library on the handheld. After all, it is labelled as an Xbox system. Unfortunately, it seems that the competitor to the Steam Deck and Lenovo Legion has more limitations than many had originally anticipated.

Image by Xbox

Of course, you’ll still be able to play PC versions of Xbox games and access Xbox Game Pass offerings via the PC, your library on Xbox consoles is not made available to you on this device. The games that you own which have PC versions will be accessible but those that do not (such as older releases) will remain locked to your Xbox system itself. This is because the Ally boots via the Xbox app for PC and is not actually an Xbox itself.

If you do want to play your game via your ROG Xbox Ally, you’ll have to check if it has a PC version available or if it is an Xbox Play Anywhere title. You can check this via the Xbox store itself. There are over 1,500 games available via Play Anywhere but their performance on the Ally is in question for some. It does mean that the vast majority of Xbox games will be playable on PC but some will be stranded on the original Xbox system.

Image by Xbox

This has led to quite a bit of confusion- especially considering Xbox’s recent ‘This is an Xbox’ marketing push that implied that you’d be able to play your back catalogue of Xbox releases on any device. Of course, this isn’t quite the case as you’d need to check if its available via ‘play anywhere’. This is another blow for the Xbox brand after they recently put up prices of Game Pass by nearly 100% in some regions- causing a large amount of fans ending their subscription.

You can pick up an ROG Xbox Ally for an RRP of £499.99 or the more powerful Xbox Ally for £799.99. Whilst you won’t be able to play all Xbox games, most will still be playable alongside online storefronts like Steam and the Epic Games Store.