Xbox Executive Discusses Quick Resume and Cloud Saves for Handheld PCs at ASUS ROG Ally Launch Event

During an interview at the ASUS ROG Ally introduction, an Xbox executive talked about features such as Xbox Quick Resume, which would allow sessions to be taken from a desktop to a handheld PC, for example.

Roanne Sones, corporate VP from Xbox, says that in a group conversation with two leading figures from ASUS and one from AMD during the launch event of the ROG Ally, the handheld PC from ASUS. She states that the Ally makes Microsoft “think differently” about mobile gaming on Windows. Mainly she speaks of you ‘starting gaming on your PC, [de Ally] and want to pick right back up where you were,” and close that story with, “How do we feel about bringing that to the Windows platform?”

What Sones describes are two functions. One is support for a system to go to sleep without crashing a running game. In principle, this is already possible in Windows, although it will differ from game to game whether a game will ‘survive’. This is also a feature of the Steam Deck, but again it is not foolproof; a game can crash. It is conceivable that game makers, together with the OS maker, are responsible for combating these types of crashes.

The second feature involves more “aggressive” use of cloud saves. Sones describes an almost seamless experience when switching from PC to, for example, this handheld. For this, the save data must be easily and quickly transferred to the cloud, so that the Ally can pick it up and the player can continue from the point where he or she was, or at least a point close to it.

Here too, the Steam Deck shows how that can work. If the Deck is put to sleep during gameplay, savedata uploaded to the Steam cloud first, so that the player could continue on a desktop, for example. If he does, he will first be asked on the PC whether he would rather close the game on the Deck completely first, in order to get a more recent save in the cloud if possible. The Xbox has a similar systemalbeit without a handheld in the game.

These aren’t firm promises from Microsoft, but the fact that the company is talking about them shows that it has some confidence and intent in this area. In addition, it appeared earlier that Microsoft is working on how to make Windows 11 more suitable for handhelds; in April a presentation leaked about possible changes to the OS for this. Microsoft seems to be more interested in handheld PCs due to the popularity of the Steam Deck, which came out in February.