The ROG Xbox Ally X is a Wii U (Complimentary, hopefully)

PLUS: Rest in peace, Team Ninja founder Tomonobu Itagaki.

Sony Santa Monica’s God of War (2018) running on Asus and Microsoft’s ROG Xbox Ally X (2025). Photo: Game File.

The most effective marketing campaign of this console generation started last November, when Microsoft unveiled ads that showed various electronics along with the declaration: “This is an Xbox.”

The message itself was and is controversial.

Some may quibble if a smart TV can truly be called an Xbox “that goes on the wall,” as the ads stated. Or if a VR headset should be classified as “an Xbox that you wear.”

But the message was clear: Microsoft planned to expand the definition of Xbox-ness to apply to other electronics. And lots of people seemed to hear it and remember it.

(Whether a marketing campaign’s success must also be measured in actual products sold is another story, so let’s just stick with metric of “the message stuck,” okay?)

Microsoft’s message has definitely sunk in with people who now review any new gadgets that might be classified as an Xbox.

For proof, we can check the reviews of the newly released ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, the first-ever Xbox-branded portable devices, out today.

To Eurogamer we go, and, check out the subhed for their review. It states, tantalizingly: “This is a…”

The suspense!

In the actual review, reviewer Tom Orry writes:

“Microsoft would have you believe everything they say is an Xbox is an Xbox… but the reality is that this is a powerful handheld PC that is made to appear like an Xbox console.”

Let’s check the first paragraph of Polygon’s Ally review:

“It is an Xbox — like everything else, apparently — but it also isn’t.”

The Verge is so sure you know that marketing campaign that they reference it in their review’s headline:

Xbox Ally and Ally X review: this is not an Xbox

Take a gander at the IGN review:

“I would hesitate to call the Xbox Ally X an ‘Xbox’ – no matter what Microsoft’s marketing claims“

And here are the first four words of Kotaku’s take:

What is an Xbox?

Here at Game File, I do things differently.

So, to the extent that this is a review of the ROG Xbox Ally X—the $1000 Xbox-branded handheld gaming device Microsoft sent me a little over a week ago (and that I’ve been using to play an unhealthy amount of Ball x Pit and to chuckle as I download PlayStation’s God of War to it)—I am going to go in a totally different direction.

I think This Is A Wii U.

I don’t mean that in a bad way. Time may prove that to be a compliment!