Asus just announced a new handheld PC to directly compete with the steam deck. Since it runs windows 11 it should be compatible with any gaming platform right out if the box. It’s also compatible with their proprietary external GPU which makes it a legit gaming p.c when docked. No price announced yet though. They released the news April 1 so most thought it was an April fool’s gag. But they’ve got working prototypes out to reviewers already
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It is a difficult market.
Good hardware is not everything. Steam has a lot of influence to persuade developers to optimize their games for Steam Deck.
Just like Switch is successful because they have the Nintendo brand behind it.
There were many good handhelds which suffered from lack of support and could not progress.
Mobile handheld gaming has to compete with smartphone gaming, where dedicated devices exist.
And Lenovo just got out of it
I think Steam can pull it off, but they have failed previously with hardware.
Asus can only market with performance and price.
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I do agree that Asus would have a better shot if they were able to create some kind of exclusive software. They missed an opportunity to partner with local game devs to make exclusive 1st party games that only work on the ASUS Ally. Could have also launched a store and put those exclusive titles on it.
But maybe that’s just too ambitious to do all at once
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I’ll buy it and immediately format the Windows 11 partition and put SteamOS on it.
Linus loves it.
Which is extremely expensive.
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Classic! Releasing on April fool’s day just shows how out of touch they are, had a good laugh. Is this Taiwan showing they don’t understand, yet again, that building and supporting software with good user experience is hard?
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But no Taiwan price yet I guess?
Will be announced in two weeks. Probably around 21k NTD for 512 GB version
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So, if it is aimed to be a mobile platform to play PC games, the issue would be the lack of the touch pads that are praised on the Steam Deck. Without those, playing many PC games designed for the mouse would be pretty tedious to play using D-pads.
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Many games are optimized for controllers. All consoles get away without it.
Personally I do find those handy on SD.
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So what do you think, you think the ally will be worth it over the steam deck? I think the ergonomics look better on steam deck but it also sounds like a pain in the dick to try to game on Linux… Also the battery life looks pretty bad on steam deck. But steam deck is cheaper.
I’m thinking about waiting for this so I can use it as a desktop replacement. I don’t really need the laptop functionality but I move around too often to make a desktop practical. Basically when I’m home I do work and when I’m commuting I like to play (currently use my switch but have a huge backlog on steam, gog, and epic).
Plus I’m trying to break into games user research. A portable gaming device might make it easier to run usability tests using convince samples (although obviously not as good as having a lab)
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Wtf why is the ally so much more expensive in Taiwan?
In Taiwan it’s 24,000 (779usd)
In America it’s 700 usd (21500 ntd)
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ROG Ally with Z1 Extreme 799 Euro (26850 ntd)
ROG Ally with Z1 [Q3 2023] 699 Euro (23490 ntd)
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Taxes are included here. It is within margin of error.
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That’s not really enough to explain. For example, in Colorado the tax rate is only 3%
The highest tax rate is around 7% which is only like 50 bucks more expensive
Since the rog ally is manufactured here and the income is much lower you’d think the price would be either lower or the same. The mark up here is huge
Yeah but we expect the European price to be higher due to tax laws and shipping
It has been like this forever with lots of electronics. Laptops from Taiwanese brands are locally more expensive than in the US.