For some time now, Phil Spencer has been talking about the possibility of an Xbox handheld. Recently, rumors suggested that the new device would be revealed in 2025, but Spencer himself has now debunked that possibility. Speaking to Bloomberg, the Xbox boss says that the “expectation is that we would do something,” but the company is in the early stages of planning. Right now, that means market analysis and looking at potential prototypes, and nothing concrete has been decided. Should Xbox definitively decide to get into handheld gaming, it’s going to be years before it actually happens.
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That news is sure to disappoint some Xbox fans, but it makes quite a bit of sense. Nintendo is set to announce a successor to Switch sometime before the end of March 2025. While the company has not announced a release window for the handheld, it has previously said that there will be a shorter window between announcement and release, and it’s generally expected that the “Switch 2” will come out sometime in 2025. If Microsoft is serious about breaking into handheld gaming, the last thing the company wants to do is directly compete with the successor to a system that has sold over 146 million units.
While Spencer has openly discussed his interest in handheld gaming, there are still a lot of questions about what form an Xbox handheld might take. The company has made huge investments in Cloud gaming this generation, and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can stream games to their consoles, mobile devices, and even Fire Sticks. It’s possible Xbox could just be looking at a Cloud gaming device, similar to PlayStation Portal. However, the company could also be looking into a device that can download games from Xbox Game Pass; it could also be looking into cartridge software like Nintendo! We simply have no idea what form this platform might take, and Spencer’s comments suggest that Xbox might not know yet either.
Regardless, it’s going to be interesting to see how all of this plays out. A decade ago, analysts predicted that handheld gaming was dying out, following the explosion of mobile games on iOS and Android. The success of Nintendo Switch completely upended that theory, and now the industry seems more invested in handheld gaming than ever before, with options like Steam Deck, Analogue Pocket, and PlayStation Portal all appealing to different segments of the gaming community. Switch remains dominant, but how things will play out with Nintendo’s new system is anyone’s guess.
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For now, Xbox fans will have to wait patiently. At the end of the day, it’s better that Microsoft takes its time, rather than rushing out something that the market can’t support. Hopefully when Xbox does reveal the company’s handheld plans, the wait will prove worth it.
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