The Xbox Ally is here, and it's pretty good (especially the Xbox Ally X).
Microsoft's cross-device gaming ecosystem is still technically in its nascency, although it has taken us years to get even here. The Xbox PC store has long been the subject of criticism (and ridicule), but things have gradually improved. Microsoft's efforts in gaming handhelds went from almost non existent to all-hands-on-deck, with a range of improvements that have appeared first in the new Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X handhelds.
The thing that connects all of these efforts, between Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and the Xbox Ally handhelds, is Xbox Play Anywhere. Xbox Play Anywhere is a feature that synchronizes your purchase entitlements between Xbox consoles and PC, also cloud where available. This is a heavily underrated feature that is often overlooked by critics who have no interest in the Xbox ecosystem, given that well over a thousand games on Xbox Series X|S can also be played on any PC, and vice versa, with the same save state.
A big gap in this functionality is how cloud saves actually work, though.
Steam has a cloud save sync indicator, rapidly uploading your save file to its cloud system for synchronicity between devices like the Steam Deck and your main PC. Xbox, however, has no such indicator.
Microsoft says that it is working to bring a cloud save state upload indicator in early 2026, in a rare bit of roadmap transparency. In the current Xbox Insider Program, we might now have the first glimpse of how this works. Although, it doesn't yet work very well.
I've been trying to diagnose and work around a Death Stranding Director's Cut save file bug as of writing. Death Stranding on PC Game Pass, sadly, straight up doesn't work on the Xbox Ally right now. Save files roll back inexplicably, and part of me is wondering if there's some kind of issue with local saves conflicting with Xbox Cloud Saves on the fly, and vice versa. Although, it does seem like the save bug is also impacting the Epic Game Store version of Death Stranding Director's Cut, so perhaps it's just a case of 505 and Kojima Productions abandoning this likely under-used version of the game.
Either way, the weird save bug with Death Stranding helped me catch a glimpse of the way Xbox Series X|S will display cloud save synchronicity when conflicts arise. This has actually been live for a while when save files haven't synced, but it's the first time I've seen it come with a progress bar as well.
Unfortunately, my Death Stranding Director's Cut save file is, for whatever reason, not uploading from the Xbox Ally — stuck at 50% for the past 30 minutes. But hey, at least we're getting somewhere, right?
The problem with Microsoft's current "Everything is an Xbox" strategy is that it highlights everything competitors do better at its own game. Steam has decades of polish under its belt, but it's hardly Valve's fault Microsoft decided to join the PC gaming party so late in the game.
Steam's cloud save indicator works flawlessly and has never given me an issue moving save files between a Steam Deck, my main PC, or NVIDIA GeForce Now. Microsoft and Windows 11 naturally offer a more open and accessible experience over Steam OS on handhelds (complete with native anti-cheat and so on), but many aspects of the overall execution are years behind the curve. If it's not the Xbox PC store itself throwing out bugs, it's the games, as developers abandon their own titles on the Microsoft Store likely due to low use.
Microsoft is in a chicken and egg situation here, much like it was with Windows Phone, where low users means apathetic developers, and apathetic developers means low users. The underlying platform itself needs to be at least on par with Steam, otherwise why would anyone use it?
At least we're heading in the right direction, gradually, and slowly. Much like this Death Stranding save file that seemingly refuses to sync up. (Update: It finally finished syncing after about an hour!)
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