The future of Microsoft’s handheld gaming plans includes a marriage between the best of Xbox and Windows.
That’s according to Microsoft’s Xbox hardware veteran Jason Ronald, who also teased that the company would have “a lot more to share later this year” on what exactly its Windows-powered handheld vision might look like.
“We’ve been really innovating for a long time in the console space,” Ronald told The Verge during an interview this week at CES 2025, “and as we partner across the industry it’s really about how do we bring those innovations that we’ve incubated and developed in the console space and bring them to PC and bring them to the handheld gaming space.”
Ronald is speaking specifically here about Microsoft’s plans for handheld gaming on Windows devices, which sounds like something we’ll see bear fruit sooner than Xbox’s much-mooted gaming-specific handheld.
Indeed, Xbox boss Phil Spencer – who has spoken repeatedly of his desire for Microsoft to launch an Xbox handheld – said in November that such a device was likely still a few years away.
“It’s bringing the best of Xbox and Windows together, because we have spent the last 20 years building a world-class operating system, but it’s really locked to the console,” Ronald continued, discussing the Xbox console interface. “What we’re doing is we’re really focused on how do we bring those experiences for both players and developers to the broader Windows ecosystem.
“We’re focused on really simplifying that and making it much more like a console experience. Our goal is to put the player and their library at the center of the experience and not all the [Windows] work that you have to do today.”
Examples of this include removing the need for PC-centric inputs such as a keyboard and mouse, and moving away from Windows relying on the use of classic user interface features such as the taskbar and Start menu.
While we wait for more 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.
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