Xbox is headed to handhelds but its gaming-first UI will also land on existing ROG Ally and ROG Ally X and ‘other Windows handhelds starting next year’

There are two Xbox handhelds on the way, the ROG Xbox Ally X and ROG Xbox Ally, except they’re not really an Xbox at all. They’re Windows PCs—respins of existing ROG Ally X and ROG Ally handhelds with new controls, processors, and a fresh, gaming-first Xbox UI enabled. If you’re feeling a little left behind on existing handheld gaming PCs, don’t be, as this Xbox experience is headed to other Windows-powered handheld devices from next year.

The fresh Xbox UI is really the Xbox PC app and Game Bar, incorporated into a new full-screen mode. If you’re thinking of Steam and ‘Big Picture Mode’, you’re likely not far off. This is absolutely Microsoft taking a leaf out of Valve’s playbook, in order to stave off competition from SteamOS and Linux in the growing handheld gaming PC market, but I’ll try and stay on message here.

The new UI looks the part. It has a large, simple interface with a menu down the left-hand side and your game library front and centre. It’s not strictly just an overlay on regular Windows 11, either. In an interview with The Verge, VP of experiences at Xbox, Jason Beaumont, claims the new UI is more than a reskin of Windows.

“When the player boots into the full-screen experience, there is a whole bunch of Windows stuff that doesn’t get loaded. We’re not loading the desktop wallpaper, the taskbar, or a bunch of processes that are really designed around productivity scenarios for Windows.”

That’s a good thing, as our own initial testing shows that Windows-powered handhelds are held back by Windows. Our Lenovo Legion Go S running Windows and then a fresh install of SteamOS showed the latter outperforming Microsoft’s OS, likely due to a lack of bloat in the background. SteamOS is light for its Arch-based Linux distro designed for gaming.

Microsoft told The Verge it saw around a 2 GB memory saving using the full-screen mode versus standard Windows in early testing. Power efficiency and idle/sleep power draw are also reportedly set to improve.

So, that’s all good news for owners of the upcoming ROG Xbox Ally X and ROG Xbox Ally. Though currently, a large proportion of handheld gaming PCs run Windows. Those updates sure sound like something we’d be interested in seeing headed to those devices, too, and the good news is that it is, eventually.

Microsoft says it’s working on getting the full-screen experience on the regular ROG Ally X and ROG Ally first off, following by further support for other Windows handhelds: “similar full-screen Xbox experiences will be rolling out to other Windows handhelds, starting next year,” Roanne Sones, corporate VP of gaming devices and ecosystem at Xbox, says.

Looks like it’ll be next year when we’ll see more of a head-to-head with Valve’s SteamOS for control of your handheld gaming PC. But Valve’s OS got off to a slow start too, largely only existing on Steam Deck devices before recently breaking free with official support on Lenovo’s Legion Go S, and unofficial support on my boss’ Framework gaming laptop and mini PC mod.