Between the Switch 2, Steam Deck, and even PlayStation Portal, mobile gaming is bigger than ever. Despite having some amazing games on the Xbox Series X and S, sales of this generation of consoles have been lackluster at best. Xbox has taken many risks in an attempt to stay competitive, such as Game Pass and the biggest acquisition in gaming history with Activision Blizzard, but the question still remains how it will manage to regain its position in the industry after falling so far behind. One idea that has been teased many times involves a dedicated Xbox handheld device, which has many fans intrigued. Phil Spencer and the Xbox team are still not revealing many details, but we already know a little about what the likely Xbox handheld could be.
Unleash the speculation
In interview with BloombergMicrosoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer shared some engaging tidbits about Xbox’s plans for the mobile device. He said there is “an expectation that we will do something” on handhelds and that the company is currently exploring what exactly that would be, based on prototypes. However, the team’s immediate goals include improving the Xbox app for existing devices. “In the long run,” Spencer said, “I love it when we build devices. I think our team could do some really innovative work, but we want to be informed based on what we know and what’s happening right now.”
If Xbox is still in the prototype phase, it will take many years for the fresh handheld hardware to hit the market.
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Xbox mobile rumors and news
The only concrete news we have about the Xbox handheld is the previously mentioned Bloomberg report.
Windows Central’s Jez Cordon claims to have insider information on a possible Xbox handheld announcement, though this is somewhat inconsistent with what Spencer later said. According to Cordon on Xbox Two Podcast“I don’t think you’ll see hardware at The Game Awards, but I think next year will be a good year to reveal fresh hardware. Especially equipment that you can hold in your hand.
The Verge’s coverage of CES 2025 has been published story from a roundtable interview titled “The Future of Mobile Gaming”, which included some engaging quotes from Jason Ronald, Microsoft’s VP of “Next Generation.”
“We have been innovating in the console space for a long time, and as we work with the entire industry, it’s really about how do we take those innovations that we have nurtured and developed in the console space and then take them to PC and bring them to the portable space for games,” Ronald said.
Over the past year, Microsoft has made efforts to bring Xbox apps to PC and mobile devices – something Roland says we should expect to see more of next year as the company moves to its own mobile device.
Price, equipment and design
There is no information available to determine what the Xbox Handheld might actually be. This makes it impossible to even guess at things like price without first knowing how powerful the device itself will be. Design-wise, most handhelds have had a fairly uniform form factor since the Switch, and Xbox probably won’t stray too far from that. Until we see otherwise, we imagine it will look very similar to something like a Steam Deck.
