In a recent interview at the Bloomberg offices in New York, Xbox head Phil Spencer answered questions about Microsoft’s plans for its gaming division, including the prospects of buying another mobile game company and the future of Xbox hardware. Specifically regarding the latter Spencer said, “Longer term, I love us building devices,” hinting that future generations of Xbox consoles are still in the works despite some believing Xbox’s “Play Anywhere” strategy in recent years could point towards a console-less future. That being said, he would end the interview by stating, “We’re not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles,” which was a not-so-subtle jab at PlayStation and their recent release of the $700 PlayStation 5 Pro. It’s clear that player access continues to be a key business strategy for Xbox, so whatever hardware is built by the engineering team will not be for the niche enthusiast but rather to cast the widest net; hence why the Series S exists and why the team is currently conducting market research for a new type of device: an Xbox handheld.
On one hand, Spencer and Co.’s decision to be patient and “…be informed by learning and what’s happening now” [sic] during this research phase is the right call, seeing as how the current landscape of mobile chipsets – particularly those by AMD that have been powering the current generation of PC handhelds – have hit a wall in regards to power output and efficiency. As such, rushing a handheld to market that still has the performance bottlenecks and battery issues that plague current devices may not be the smart thing to do. On the other hand, the fact that Spencer said in the interview that this supposed handheld is years out, suggests it may be too late.
While 2024 has been relatively quiet with handheld releases, 2025 is looking to bring a barrage of new devices to market. From the Nintendo Switch 2, the release of AMD’s Z2 Extreme chip in the spring that will undoubtedly bring refreshes to flagship handhelds from Asus, Lenovo, Ayaneo, and many others, to a potential release of a Steam Deck 2 later in the fall, it’s going to be a packed year for the handheld gaming market. If this Xbox handheld releases in 2026 or even 2027, then its necessity would frankly come into question. No matter how good it’s specs are, or how Microsoft can cut manufacturing costs, this device would need to be on the level of a Series S if not Series X (especially if it comes out later than 2026) in terms of performance. To achieve that, Xbox would need to go with at least the upcoming Z2 Extreme chip from AMD, which will be based on AMD’s current Strix Point generation of chipsets that are reportedly far more expensive to manufacture than the previous Z1. Unless Nvidia or Intel are able to come out with a similarly performing (and less expensive) APU, Xbox is stuck with AMD and their exorbitant prices.
This means Spencer and his engineering team will be finding it incredibly difficult to keep a handheld console of the caliber of a Series X under the $500 mark. At that price point, in 2026 or later, you will most likely be able to snag a Steam Deck 2 or one of the many other powerful PC handhelds that will be equipped with the Z2 Extreme chip for a little bit more. PC handhelds that can not only play PC games and emulate thousands more but play all the games on Xbox as well via Game Pass. In 2026 or later you could probably even snag a used Rog Ally X, which in many ways is comparable to the Series S in performance and twice as performant than the current Steam Deck, for around $400.
Of course, all of this is highly speculative. But it’s all to drive the point that if Team Xbox spend all this time on R&D – which in and of itself is never a bad thing – then they risk falling behind the never-ending cavalcade of high-quality handheld gaming devices from established manufacturers who’ve been at the game far longer. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Logitech G Cloud should have been Xbox’s handheld. With how much emphasis the team has put into Game Pass, being ostensibly the pioneers of cloud gaming via the now colloquially termed Xcloud, and their insistence on giving players access to their Xbox library wherever and however, the G Cloud is the perfect device that embodies that philosophy; it costs significantly less than current PC handhelds, too. Now, if this did happen, it’d mean we wouldn’t have gotten the actual G Cloud. Which would mean I wouldn’t have been able to play Cyberpunk 2077 with full path-tracing via Nvidia GeForce NOW, and that’s an alternate universe I don’t want to live in. Nevertheless, it’s a device that I almost can’t believe Microsoft didn’t partner with Logitech on. We’ll have to wait and see how this Xbox handheld pans out (if it ever does), I just hope Phil Spencer and Microsoft are ready for some stiff competition.
