Xbox Might be Releasing a Handheld this Year, but it Might Not be What You Think

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The source for this article was an exclusive from Windows Central

Microsoft confirmed some time ago that an Xbox handheld is in the works. But over the past couple of days, we've heard new rumors that an "Xbox" handheld would be released later this year. These, however, appear to be 2 separate devices entirely.

Whereas Microsoft's handheld appears to be launching later down the line as part of Xbox's "next-gen" line-up along with whatever the successor to the Xbox Series consoles is, this rumored console seems to be more of a partnership with an existing manufacturer (such as Asus, Lenovo).

Because of this, we can probably assume that rather than being an "Xbox", this device might well be more akin to something like an ASUS ROG Ally, but with Xbox branding and control schemes. In fact, Windows Central confirmed that they had been told that the new handheld would feature an Xbox Guide button.

We can pretty much guarantee then, that this handheld will be running Windows 11, and not some form of custom Xbox OS, that has positive and negative connotations. On the positive side, it won't be a locked ecosystem, and you'll be able to use whatever launchers you want on an open system. On the negative side, the Windows OS isn't well-suited to handheld devices, and it can be a bit of a pain to navigate at times, meaning a custom Xbox OS for handhelds would have been interesting to see.

But, with an Xbox-branded handheld coming out, there could well be a further push on the Windows side of things to improve the OS experience for handhelds, which would be something I'd like to see because as much as I love my ROG Ally, it just isn't as easy and convenient to use as my Steam Deck right now.

Beyond that, we know very little, no technical specifications have been mentioned, so we don't know if this thing will run AMD or Intel, nor do we know whether it would target Xbox Cloud Streaming as its main way of playing games, or aim for more performance as most handhelds do.

What do you think of this news? Could it bode well for improvements to Windows for handheld devices?

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