The Asus ROG Ally launched in 2023 before being followed by a refreshed ROG Ally X this year, and while many have sung the portable gaming PC’s praises, one complaint seems to remain constant: Windows 11 sucks on handhelds. The good news is that the option to switch to SteamOS on the ROG Ally now appears to be officially here.
Our reviews of the ROG Ally and ROG Ally X both contain the same complaint: Windows 11 doesn’t feel quite right on a handheld device. While familiar, Microsoft’s operating system doesn’t feel quite as fluid as SteamOS on the Steam Deck.
So, with great interest, some folks picked up a portion of Valve’s latest SteamOS release notes, in which the company states that it has “added support for additional ROG Ally keys.” That’s a pretty sly way to mention that the ROG Ally is finally getting SteamOS support!
In reality, Sean Hollister of The Verge wasn’t sure if this meant what it seemed to imply, so he sought confirmation from Valve that SteamOS is indeed coming to ROG Ally. He received a positive response from Valve designer Lawrence Yang, who stated: “The comment about ROG Ally keys is related to third-party device support for SteamOS. The team continues to work on adding support for additional handhelds on SteamOS.”
SteamOS is coming! Coming soon…
That’s not to say we’ll wake up to the ability to install a completely new operating system in a few weeks—it’ll be a long process before we see SteamOS on the ROG Ally (or other Windows portables). However, according to Yang, Valve is making “steady progress” toward this goal.
Yang also comments on Valve’s previous promise that you’ll be able to switch between SteamOS and Windows on the Steam Deck. Known as dual-booting, Yang notes: “On the Windows side, we’re preparing to make the remaining Windows drivers available for Steam Deck OLED (you may have seen that we’re preparing firmware for the Bluetooth driver). There’s no update on timing for dual boot support – it’s still a priority, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
It’s interesting to see Valve come to the aid of a competitor in a tough position with the software side of its product, but from a business perspective it at least makes sense.
More exposure for SteamOS – which is tied to Valve’s own gaming platform – has to be a good thing eventually. And while it’s not about hardware sales, Valve is in a sense turning rival handhelds into Steam Decks – at least for the software side of the equation.