Between the Switch 2, the Steam Deck, and even the PlayStation Portal, handheld gaming is bigger than ever. Despite having some amazing games on the Xbox Series X and S, console sales this generation have been lackluster at best. Xbox has made a lot of gambles to try to stay competitive, such as Game Pass and making the biggest acquisition in gaming history with Activision Blizzard, but the question still remains how it will manage to regain its foothold in the industry after falling so far behind. One idea that has been teased many times concerns a dedicated Xbox handheld device that has many fans intrigued. Phil Spencer and the Xbox team are still playing coy with many details, but we do know a bit about what a likely Xbox handheld could be.
This is just one of many upcoming video game consoles you should be in the know about.
Release speculation
In an interview with Bloomberg, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer gave a few interesting tidbits about Xbox’s plans for a handheld. He said that the “expectation is that we would do something” regarding handhelds and that the company is currently investigating what that would exactly be through prototypes. However, the immediate goals for the team involve improving the Xbox app for existing devices. “Longer term,” Spencer said, “I love us building devices. And I think our team could do some real innovative work, but we want to be informed by learning and what’s happening now.”
The latest report from Windows Central has sources claiming that the Xbox handheld might arrive as early as 2025 if all goes to plan.
Xbox handheld rumors and news
Windows Central’s Jez Cordon claims to have insider information about a possible Xbox handheld announcement, though it does somewhat contradict what Spencer said later. According to Cordon on the Xbox Two podcast, “I don’t think you’re gonna see hardware at The Game Awards, but, I do think next year is a good year for revealing new hardware. Especially hardware you could hold in the palm of your hand.”
The Verge, reporting from CES 2025, published a story on a roundtable interview titled “The Future of Gaming Handhelds,” that included some interesting quotes from Jason Ronald, Microsoft’s VP of “Next Generation.”
“We’ve been really innovating for a long time in the console space, and as we partner across the industry it’s really about how do we bring those innovations that we’ve incubated and developed in the console space and bring them to PC and bring them to the handheld gaming space,” said Ronald.
Microsoft has made efforts to move Xbox apps to PC and handhelds over the past year — something Roland says we should expect more of over the next year as the company plugs away at its own handheld.
Windows Central once again gets the scoop with a lot of details on the handheld from a direct source. Apparently, the project is working under the codename Keenan and will most likely run Windows to allow access to the Microsoft Store and PC Game Pass, but also Steam. Microsoft is partnering with a PC gaming OEM, such as ASUS, Lenovo, or MSI, to build this Xbox-branded handheld rather than creating it entirely on its own. It is said to be more of an experiment for Microsoft for things like Windows 11 “device aware” capabilities. By building this handheld more closely to Windows than any other console, the hope is that it will cut down on the effort needed from development teams to port games from PC to the handheld.
Price, hardware, and design
In terms of design, the Windows Central report only states that the system will be “unmistakably Xbox” and have a dedicated Xbox guide button and a general design theme that is consistent with Xbox. While we don’t know the internals, the report also implies that the system will use a widget system to allow users to adjust various options like fan speed and TDP.
There’s no information to go off for the real meat of what an Xbox handheld could be. That makes it impossible to even guess at things like price without first knowing how powerful the device itself will be. In terms of design, most handheld consoles have fallen into a fairly uniform form factor since the Switch, and Xbox would probably not stray too far from that. Until we see otherwise, we imagine it will look very similar to something like Steam Deck.
