An Xbox-ish Handheld Is Reportedly Coming Later This Year

Microsoft could also be pivoting to a multiplatform strategy for its greatest video games, however that doesn’t imply it’s abandoning {hardware} simply but. The corporate reportedly has an Xbox accomplice handheld deliberate for 2025 as it really works on its next-gen consoles aiming for launch in 2027. It seems just like the Swap 2 gained’t be the one handheld console hybrid gamers have to select from this 12 months.

That’s based on a brand new report by Home windows Central. It claims the brand new gadget can be an Xbox-branded PC gaming handheld from an present OEM and that it’s codenamed “Keenan.” It’ll have an official Xbox information button and is at present deliberate to launch later this 12 months, with the successor to the Xbox Sequence X/S technology of consoles greenlit for a deliberate launch as early as 2027. Notably, it sounds prefer it’ll be a single next-gen console, with the present Sequence S doubtlessly subsumed by the hand held if it’s profitable.

The report additionally claims that the subsequent technology of controllers may function “direct-to-cloud connectivity.” It’s believed the Microsoft’s work with generative AI and the prevailing Home windows platform for PC will each play a better position in Xbox’s future as properly. This dovetails with current alerts from the corporate’s prime management.

Final 12 months, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer mentioned the corporate was exploring a gaming handheld however that a completed product was nonetheless a few years out. It’s doable that’s nonetheless the case, and that this 2025 “Xbox-branded” handheld is taken into account extra of a half-step in that course. Earlier this 12 months at CES 2025, Jason Ronald, Microsoft’s VP of “Subsequent Technology,” informed The Verge the corporate was the aiming to convey the “better of Xbox and Home windows collectively” for future PC gaming handhelds, seemingly by way of a brand new gaming-centric OS or OS layer that might compete extra instantly with SteamOS.

Replace; 3/10/25 5:30 p.m. ET: As clarified in an alternate between The Verge’s Tom Warren and Home windows Central’s Jez Corden, Keenan can be one thing of a reskinned “accomplice” PC Gaming handheld working this new software program layer, not a full-blown Xbox gadget developed in-house.

These strikes come as rumors swirl about Sony engaged on bringing again its personal line of gaming handhelds and with Nintendo’s Swap 2 simply on the horizon. This time round, nevertheless, it doesn’t look like Microsoft plans to battle the competitors with exclusives. The corporate began bringing its video games to PlayStation 5 and the prevailing Swap final 12 months, and its extra highly effective specs recommend we’ll see much more Xbox video games on Swap 2. Microsoft additionally beforehand dedicated to begin bringing Name of Obligation again to Nintendo’s platform in a single kind or one other.

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