The ROG Xbox Ally X is getting a price hike, but only in Japan. As caught by VideoGamesChronicle, the new price tag was reported by Otaku Souken, and the handheld gaming PC is now listed at ¥169,800 (roughly $1,109), which is noted as being a ¥30,000 (roughly $196) increase over its previous price tag of ¥139,800 (roughly $913).
Interestingly, the lower-end ROG Xbox Ally will hang on to its current price of ¥89,800 (roughly $584). Neither Asus nor Microsoft have made any comments about this price hike, and while the reasons might still be unknown the current state of the memory market and RAM prices likely had a major role to play in the matter.
The ROG Xbox Ally X is noted as having faster RAM than its lower-end counterpart, which might have contributed to the price going up. Compared to the Xbox Ally X’s 24 GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM and 1 TB of storage, the Xbox Ally only has 16 GB of LPDDR5-6400 RAM and 512 GB of storage.
When it comes to pricing decisions, Microsoft hasn’t been making them on its own. Xbox president Sarah Bond confirmed back in October 2025 that it got input from Asus on how it should be pricing both the Xbox Ally and the Xbox Ally X. She noted that the experience and insight Asus has with the hardware market and the handheld system’s feature set helped in deciding the prices.
“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.”
While both the ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X are on the pricier end of the spectrum when it comes to handheld gaming PCs, Bond noted that early response and pre-order figures had been quite positive, saying that “the reaction was overwhelming demand for the [ROG Xbox Ally X].”
“We sold out on the Xbox Store. We sold really quickly at a number of other places around the world,” she said. “I feel really good about the value that we’re giving gamers for the price, based off the reception to the hardware.”
The memory shortage has also been hitting Valve’s handheld PC—the Steam Deck—quite hard. The company recently updated its Steam listing for the device, noting that some regions may see out-of-stock messages for the Steam Deck OLED. Along with this, Valve has also confirmed that production of the Steam Deck LCD 256 GB variant has ended, and once current stocks run out, there will be no more available.
Similarly, the Steam Machine has also been hit. The company confirmed that memory prices had forced it to “revisit our exact shipping schedule and prices”. While it didn’t reveal a new launch date for the Linux-based pre-built gaming PC, it confirmed that its plans to launch it, along with the Steam Frame and new Steam Controller, in the first half of 2026.
