The way forward for Microsoft’s handheld gaming plans features a marriage between one of the best of Xbox and Home windows.
That is in accordance with Microsoft’s Xbox {hardware} veteran Jason Ronald, who additionally teased that the corporate would have “much more to share later this yr” on what precisely its Home windows-powered handheld imaginative and prescient would possibly appear like.
“We have been actually innovating for a very long time within the console area,” Ronald advised The Verge throughout an interview this week at CES 2025, “and as we accomplice throughout the business it is actually about how can we deliver these improvements that we have incubated and developed within the console area and convey them to PC and convey them to the hand held gaming area.”
Ronald is talking particularly right here about Microsoft’s plans for handheld gaming on Home windows gadgets, which feels like one thing we’ll see bear fruit earlier than Xbox’s much-mooted gaming-specific handheld.
Certainly, Xbox boss Phil Spencer – who has spoken repeatedly of his desire for Microsoft to launch an Xbox handheld – stated in November that such a device was likely still a few years away.
“It is bringing one of the best of Xbox and Home windows collectively, as a result of we’ve spent the final 20 years constructing a world-class working system, but it surely’s actually locked to the console,” Ronald continued, discussing the Xbox console interface. “What we’re doing is we’re actually targeted on how can we deliver these experiences for each gamers and builders to the broader Home windows ecosystem.
“We’re targeted on actually simplifying that and making it way more like a console expertise. Our aim is to place the participant and their library on the heart of the expertise and never all of the [Windows] work that it’s important to do in the present day.”
Examples of this embody eradicating the necessity for PC-centric inputs comparable to a keyboard and mouse, and transferring away from Home windows counting on the usage of traditional person interface options such because the taskbar and Begin menu.
Whereas we await extra on Microsoft’s handheld plans, further Switch 2 leaks have continued to paint what looks to be a pretty accurate picture of Nintendo’s next handheld console.
