However, because of the X-ROGs is Essentially regular PCs, they’re far more versatile than Nintendo or Valve’s efforts. Not only can you play media, browse, or do anything else you can do on a PC (even office tasks, if you hate joy), but you can install any other PC gaming client—Steam, Epic, GOG, and more are available. Even better, the Xbox app consolidates all the games installed on the system into one library view, regardless of where they originated. You can even turn your ROG Xbox into an ersatz Steam deck by running Steam in Big Picture mode (although some of its controller key bindings may not work).
ROG Xbox Ally
Big win — excuse the pun — you can easily install mods While I’ve had a few mods running on my Steam deck over the years, its Linux underbelly makes things more complicated. On the X-ROGs, I was able to use mods as easily as on my main gaming desktop, without having to guess if they would actually work. This is a great feature that is facilitated by having standard Windows as a base.
Where is the tender?
But wait, there’s a third UI player in the mix: Asus’ own Armory Crate SE software. Broadly, it’s a device manager, with a dedicated button on both consoles to bring up a command center quick menu. It allows you to instantly switch power profiles, create custom control inputs, or set frame rate limits. It also offers a real-time monitor displaying useful system information such as temperature, CPU and GPU performance, battery level and power drain, and current frame rate.
However, open up the Armory Crate fully and you’ll find an array of deeper controls, from granular system settings to tweaking the color profile of the LED rings under each thumbstick. It also has its own Update Center—another one to check out—and its own unified library, separate from the Xbox app. After a week with the X-ROGs, I’m finally familiar with where the functions are, but the learning curve is steep, and having essentially three central interfaces—Xbox, Windows, Armory Crate—for a single device is ridiculous.