Asus

Microsoft and Asus turned the ROG Xbox Ally line into the first Xbox handhelds, while Asus’s 2026 coverage also points to a smartphone pullback and new gaming hardware bets.

Who they are

Asus appears in coverage as a PC and consumer-device maker whose role increasingly centers on gaming hardware and OEM partnerships. Its stories span earlier ZenFone smartphones and Chrome OS products, newer foldable PCs and VR initiatives, and gaming devices built with Microsoft, Meta, and Xreal.

The recent arc

Coverage shifted toward gaming platforms in 2024 and 2025. Meta’s April 2024 opening of Horizon OS named Asus and Lenovo as planned headset partners, while June 2025 brought Microsoft and Asus’s unveiling of the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X, Windows handhelds able to run games from multiple storefronts including Steam. The series then moved from announcement to commercialization through planned October availability and US pre-orders in September 2025.

Early 2026 broadened that gaming-device push with Xreal’s ROG Xreal R1 glasses, specified with 1080p micro-OLED displays and a 240Hz refresh rate for an H1 launch. At the same time, reports that Chair Jonney Shih said Asus would release no new smartphones in 2026 framed its Android phone business as potentially nearing an exit; a separate February report put Asus alongside HP, Dell, and Acer in considering Chinese memory-chip sourcing.

The tension

The central tension is between Asus’s former breadth in consumer devices and its more partner-led gaming direction. Microsoft’s Xbox handheld strategy relies on Asus hardware and Windows rather than a native Microsoft device, while Meta’s Horizon OS opening places Asus alongside Lenovo in a nascent third-party headset ecosystem. The reported smartphone pause underscores the contrast: Asus is extending the ROG brand into handhelds and glasses even as its Android-market commitment is questioned.

Why it matters

If this trajectory holds, Asus could become an important hardware conduit for platform owners seeking to extend gaming beyond consoles and PCs: Microsoft supplies Xbox and Windows integration, while Asus supplies the ROG device layer. Whether that produces a durable position depends on execution of the Ally rollout and Xreal collaboration, and on whether the reported smartphone retrenchment frees focus or instead reduces Asus’s consumer-device reach.

Related: Microsoft · Xbox · ROG Xbox Ally · Meta opens its VR OS, now called Horizon OS, to third parties, and say · Microsoft and Asus unveil the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X, two P · Microsoft and Asus open preorders for the first Xbox handhelds, the RO