First-party Xbox handheld was canceled because of AMD, says rumor, but Microsoft promises it is “actively investing”
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If you’re interested in the handheld space, you’ve probably heard about the upcoming ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X. The two new PC handhelds are set to be released on October 16th. They’re the result of a collaboration between ASUS (the company behind the original ROG Ally and Ally X) and Microsoft, bringing along Xbox branding and some transformative features such as the Xbox full screen experience, which is one of “three big features” in this upgrade.
But before the new Xbox Ally models were announced, there was chatter of a first-party Xbox handheld – not just the ROG Ally with Xbox branding slapped on it. Last year, this was said to be “a few years out,” so it’s safe to say this would have been a device separate from the ROG Ally series. It later came out that such a device was essentially canceled, sidelined in favor of the Xbox Ally, and a prominent leaker has now suggested AMD’s demand of 10+ million sales is the main reason why.
AMD reportedly wanted 10+ million sales promised by Xbox
“[As far as I know,] the handheld was cancelled because AMD wanted a commitment of 10M+ units to justify making a dedicated SoC, but with Steam Deck only selling ~5 million units and ASUS ROG/Lenovo Legion only selling 1-2 million MS didn’t want to take the risk.”
KeplerL2 via NeoGAF forums
There’s more to this story, though, as Microsoft has been dealing with rumors of more canceled hardware – primarily its next-gen consoles. Following rumors that Xbox will be ditching some of its next generation of hardware, Microsoft has come out to say that they are “actively investing” in first-party consoles and devices built by Xbox.
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“We are actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox. For more details, the community can revisit our agreement announcement with AMD.”
Microsoft, via Windows Central
Like many popular PC handhelds on the market today – including Valve’s Steam Deck – AMD hardware is at the heart of the new ROG Ally devices. Namely, they use the latest Ryzen Z2 series chips. Xbox’s collaboration with AMD details a commitment to gaming-optimized chips from AMD for the upcoming hardware, including “consoles, handhelds, PCs, and cloud”.
As such, it’s probably still too early to say the first-party Xbox handheld has been definitively canceled. Instead, the ROG Xbox Ally simply took precedence. But if the 10+ million sales rumor lends any credence, we won’t be seeing such a device for some time based on current market trends, unless Microsoft is happy to use one of AMD’s more commercial handheld chips (like the Ryzen Z series), rather than a custom and/or dedicated SoC.
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