Microsoft’s Thinking About An XBox Handheld

If there’s a pattern to Microsoft’s behavior as of late, it seems to suggest they’re leaning toward abandoning the console race. If that seems like quite a leap, well, aside from the mega-purchases like Activision Blizzard, they’re not trying very hard to compete in the traditional market. The XBox has few “exclusives,” and things that were originally announced as exclusive have shown up on other platforms. They’ve even shut down studios that gave them hits (thankfully, Tango Gameworks will live on elsewhere).

If I had to guess, I would assume Microsoft is anticipating an all-digital future and positioning themselves to turn into an app. So given all that, it’s quite left-field that they’re thinking about expanding their hardware lineup with an XBox handheld device. But Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, confirmed it in an interview with Bloomberg.

“Expectation is that we would do something,” Spencer said. He meant eventually — MS isn’t ready to unveil a handheld device just yet and may not be for a few years. These things need research and development, and Spencer revealed they are currently tinkering with prototypes. “Longer term, I love us building devices,” Spencer said. “And I think our team could do some real innovative work, but we want to be informed by learning and what’s happening now.”

So what is Spencer thinking of — a dedicated handheld that runs by itself, like the Switch, or a cloud-based device that simply streams from the console, like that controller with a screen Sony recently put out for the PS5? It would be the former, he says.”I think being able to play games locally is really important” — “locally” meaning localized to one device.

Call us traditionalists, but we like having consoles around, and if this statement regarding handhelds means Microsoft has no real plans to leave the console market, that’s fine with us.