Microsoft's new ROG handheld may come with an eye-watering price tag

The new Xbox gaming handheld might be even more of a premium product than initially expected.

That's the fear emanating from a new leak that originated in a Spanish online Asus marketplace (via Tom's Guide), anyway. If you type "xbox ally" into the search field, it will actually show supposed prices for both the base ROG Xbox Ally console and the more powerful Xbox Ally X. The "cheaper" one is the equivalent of $699 USD, while the Ally X comes out to around $1,050 after currency conversion. I tried this and can confirm that it still works at the time of publication.

Whoops. Credit: Screenshot: Alex Perry

Of course, there are some caveats here. One is that this could simply be a technical error on the part of this one specific Spanish Asus store. Perhaps those numbers are just placeholder figures that were never meant to be seen by the public. After all, they haven't appeared anywhere else yet, as far we know. Another is that a leaker named eXtas1s claimed on YouTube that the two devices would cost $499 and $799, respectively. Those would be far more in line with competing gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch 2.

Still, if the leaked figures in the Spanish Asus store are even close to true, it would be another in a long line of negative recent headlines for Microsoft and its Xbox division in particular. In just the past few months, Xbox has been added to the official Boycott, Divest, and Sanction list due to Microsoft's partnership with the Israeli military, while a recent round of layoffs saw 9,000 people put out of work on top of 6,000 others who lost their jobs just a couple of months prior.