Handhelds have had a long and illustrious history in the gaming world. Though several consoles technically came before it, Nintendo’s Game Boy broke new ground for handheld gaming, delivering almost NES-level experiences on the go. Nintendo continued to prove itself in the handheld space with the subsequent Game Boy iterations, and the company set a new bar for the entire industry with the launch of the Nintendo DS in 2006. But while PlayStation has tried its hand at competing with Nintendo in the handheld space, Xbox has stayed clear. But that’s about to change.
After over a year of speculation and rumors, Phil Spencer confirmed in a recent interview with Bloomberg that Xbox is indeed in the process of developing a handheld device. Admittedly, Spencer also claimed that it would still be a few years before fans saw it on the market. But when the Xbox handheld does eventually appear, there’s one obvious feature that’s sure to set it apart from the competition.
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The Xbox Handheld Will Have an Ace Up Its Sleeve
Xbox’s Handheld Might Have Some Stiff Competition
The handheld market is arguably busier than it’s ever been before. The Nintendo Switch is now in its seventh year of life, and along with its Lite and OLED models, it’s sold over 140 million units. Though its hardware is objectively inferior to even the last generation of PlayStation and Xbox consoles, the Switch’s handheld nature, high level of brand-recognition, and family-friendly skew have kept it at the top of the gaming world for the best of a decade.
Back in 2022, Valve thought it would try its hand at creating a handheld console. In the two years since its release, the Steam Deck has been widely praised as one of the best handheld devices ever made, being capable of playing some of the most demanding modern games with very few restrictions.
The handheld console market might look a little different by the time Xbox’s device makes it onto store shelves, but it might not be by much. The Nintendo Switch’s successor is due to be revealed next year, and Valve has already confirmed that a second generation of Steam Deck is in development. So the Xbox handheld‘s competition might not be all that different from if it launched now.
Additionally, a recent Bloomberg report suggests that PlayStation is also in the early stages of developing a new handheld console. If that’s true, then Xbox’s handheld is going to have some stiff competition when it eventually launches.
Xbox Game Pass Could Be The Xbox Handheld’s Secret Weapon
This last year, Xbox has been trying to market the concept that Xbox isn’t just the console, it’s anything that can run the Xbox app. Xbox Game Pass has been at the forefront of this recent marketing push, with ads often showing players enjoying their subscription via Xbox, PC, mobile, and a variety of other devices via Cloud streaming.
When Xbox’s handheld is officially revealed, it’s extremely likely that Xbox Game Pass will be a major selling point for it, and for good reason. Putting Xbox Game Pass front and center of the upcoming handheld would be a huge boon in both the short and long-term.
In the short-term, Xbox handheld players will be able to access a vast library of hundreds of games, all for no additional cost. And with Xbox Game Pass’ library running the gamut of gameplay experiences, players will be able to immediately test the power of the handheld console, with countless AAA and Indie games being ready and waiting on day one.
In the long-term, Xbox Game Pass would ensure that handheld players have an ever-changing library of games to keep coming back to. Further, while PlayStation’s handheld could bring over its library of PS Plus titles, Game Pass would still have the edge, as PS Plus doesn’t add first-party games to the service on day one. And this edge will only get sharper with time, as Xbox’s first-party offerings now include Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda, and Activision-Blizzard.