Caught in between the releases of the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch 2, Microsoft's first gaming handheld will likely only appeal to the most hardcore of PC gamers.

Xbox and Asus haven’t exactly kept their intentions to create a handheld secret. The device the two brothers-in-arms finally showed off at Microsoft’s weekend games showcase diverges from the flat-panel design established by the Nintendo Switch back in 2017.

All that said, there’s a lot about the Xbox Ally that’s very impressive. Unlike the Steam Deck, it uses Windows, and the Linux users reading this aren’t going to want to hear what I’m about to say, but that’s going to be a preferable operating system for most people because it’s so much more familiar.

In today's Tech Bytes, ABC's Andrew Dymburt shares, Microsoft and Taiwanese electronics company Asus are teaming up on two Xbox-branded handheld devices.

Ayaneo is a Chinese brand that released its first Windows-based handheld system a year before Valve's Steam Deck. Since then, it has launched successively more capable devices with more powerful internal hardware.