Xbox might be going multi-platform with its titles, but it’s not exiting the hardware business. During this year’s summer gaming events, the company announced the ROG Xbox Ally, which is being designed in collaboration with ASUS. Now, Xbox has confirmed a multi-year agreement with AMD to co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices, from handhelds to the next-generation Xbox consoles. Sarah Bond, President of Xbox, made the announcement in a short video on the official Xbox YouTube channel.
In it, she confirmed the custom silicon will power a new lineup of gaming devices across consoles, handhelds, PCs, cloud gaming, and accessories. Of course, the focus will be delivering cutting-edge graphics, deeper visual quality, and immersive gameplay, with the assistance of AI as AMD Ryzen has already been pushing. Most importantly, Bond confirmed the new hardware will maintain full compatibility with existing Xbox game libraries. The messaging with the ROG Xbox Ally has been a bit confusing for general consumers, since the ROG Xbox Ally is essentially a handheld PC, and those who only own games on an Xbox console won’t be able to easily access their library—at least not yet.
Xbox’s ultimate goal is to build a more flexible gaming ecosystem, allowing players to access the games they want, with the people they want, anywhere they want. For many, though, the most important news is that Xbox is working closely with the Windows team so Windows can actually be a leading gaming platform. Right now, SteamOS has really shown the performance advantages when you’re not running Windows.
