In its recent quarterly earnings report, Asus has said that the market reception to the ROG Xbox Ally line-up of handheld gaming PCs has been quite positive. In the earnings report (as caught by WCCFTech), Asus CFO Nick Wu spoke about the company’s line-up of ROG Ally systems, as well as the recent launch of its newest systems that were designed in collaboration with Xbox.
While discussing the launch of the ROG Ally series a few years ago, Wu acknowledged that the market has grown quite a bit since then, and even Microsoft has been taking the handheld segment more seriously with its more recent updates to Windows.
“As many of you know, we introduced the first-generation ROG Ally 2-3 years ago as a market pioneer,” said Wu during the investor call. “Over the past couple of years, this new category, especially within the Windows ecosystem and creating this particular new category, has proven itself to be highly successful. We believe that we have achieved our original goals in terms of premium positioning and creating a new growth driver in the gaming segment.”
As for its more recent launch of the ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X, Wu spoke about the collaboration with Xbox, and how the market has responded generally positively to it. Wu noted that the market seems ripe for more premium, high-end devices. He also acknowledged snags in the supply chains, and said that Asus was working with its component suppliers to ensure that the demand is adequately met.
“That is why we launched the 3rd-generation ROG Ally last month,” said Wu. “It featured deeper collaboration with Xbox. Since its launch, we see that the market response for it has been extremely positive. Particularly, there has been an appetite for the premium higher-end models exceeding our expectations.”
“In fact, these high-end variants are currently in short supply. We are working closely with key component suppliers to ramp up production and fill the demand gap that currently exists. Our goal for the ROG Ally is to remain a core pillar within the Asus gaming portfolio, while also driving tangible revenue and profit growth for the company.”
The Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X were launched worldwide just last month. The Xbox Ally is priced at $599.99, while the more powerful Xbox Ally X has a higher price tag of $999.99. In an interview from shortly after launch, Xbox president Sarah Bond spoke about the pricing of the two devices, and how Xbox worked with Asus to reach these price points.
“We looked at, how do we create multiple options for people? And it really was Asus, because this is their hardware,” Bond explained. “That is all of their insight into the market, into the feature set, into what people want, to determine the ultimate prices of the devices.”
For more details about the handhelds, here is everything you need to know. In the meantime, also check out our review of the more powerful Xbox Ally X.
