Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft Gaming, has affirmed the company’s intention to create an Xbox portable, although he has emphasized that it will be years before it happens.
According to Spencer, Microsoft is now producing prototypes and thinking about its options. The company’s team is creating its portable vision based on market research.
According to Spencer, Microsoft will concentrate on enhancing the Xbox app in the near future to make it more compatible with current portable gaming devices. In the long run, Spencer stated, “I love us building devices.” “And I think our team could do some real innovative work, but we want to be informed by learning and what’s happening now.”
Spencer has never concealed his intention to use Xbox technology to go into the handheld console market. In June, after the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase, he essentially confirmed the plan to IGN.
At the time, Spencer declared, “The future for us in hardware is pretty awesome,” “The work that the team is doing around different form factors, different ways to play, I’m incredibly excited about.
“Today was about the games… but we will have a time to come out and talk more about platform, and we can’t wait to bring it to you.”
When asked if a hypothetical Xbox handheld would be a cloud-based handheld or a dedicated gaming platform with local game play capabilities, Spencer said, “I think being able to play games locally is really important.”
In March, Spencer gave a list of characteristics that would make a portable console “feel like an Xbox,” such as having access to all of your games and the save data that go with them, in an interview with Polygon. At that time, he asked, “What should we build that will find new players?” “That will allow people to play at times when they couldn’t go play [in the past]?”
Last October, a series of leaked Microsoft documents that showed plans for an Xbox portable stoked rumors. Later on, though, Spencer would publicly declare that the plans were out of date.
With Microsoft revealing a multi-year vision in February that includes a next-generation Xbox system, Xbox had alluded to new hardware in the near future.
