Microsoft could also be pivoting to a multiplatform strategy for its largest video games, however that doesn’t imply it’s abandoning {hardware} simply but. The corporate reportedly has an Xbox companion handheld deliberate for 2025 as it really works on its next-gen consoles aiming for launch in 2027. It appears to be like just like the Change 2 received’t be the one handheld console hybrid gamers have to select from this 12 months.
That’s in response to a brand new report by Home windows Central. It claims the brand new gadget can be an Xbox-branded PC gaming handheld from an present OEM and that it’s codenamed “Keenan.” It’ll have an official Xbox information button and is at the moment deliberate to launch later this 12 months, with the successor to the Xbox Sequence X/S technology of consoles greenlit for a deliberate launch as early as 2027. Notably, it sounds prefer it’ll be a single next-gen console, with the present Sequence S doubtlessly subsumed by the hand-held if it’s profitable.
The report additionally claims that the subsequent technology of controllers would possibly function “direct-to-cloud connectivity.” It’s believed the Microsoft’s work with generative AI and the present Home windows platform for PC will each play a larger position in Xbox’s future as properly. This dovetails with latest indicators from the corporate’s high management.
Final 12 months, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer stated the corporate was exploring a gaming handheld however that a completed product was nonetheless a few years out. It’s doable that’s nonetheless the case, and that this 2025 “Xbox-branded” handheld is taken into account extra of a half-step in that course. Earlier this 12 months at CES 2025, Jason Ronald, Microsoft’s VP of “Subsequent Era,” advised The Verge the corporate was the aiming to deliver the “better of Xbox and Home windows collectively” for future PC gaming handhelds, seemingly by a brand new gaming-centric OS or OS layer that would compete extra straight with SteamOS.
Replace; 3/10/25 5:30 p.m. ET: As clarified in an trade between The Verge’s Tom Warren and Home windows Central’s Jez Corden, Keenan can be one thing of a reskinned “companion” PC Gaming handheld operating this new software program layer, not a full-blown Xbox gadget developed in-house.
These strikes come as rumors swirl about Sony engaged on bringing again its personal line of gaming handhelds and with Nintendo’s Change 2 simply on the horizon. This time round, nevertheless, it doesn’t appear to be Microsoft plans to combat the competitors with exclusives. The corporate began bringing its video games to PlayStation 5 and the present Change final 12 months, and its extra highly effective specs counsel we’ll see much more Xbox video games on Change 2. Microsoft additionally beforehand dedicated to begin bringing Name of Responsibility again to Nintendo’s platform in a single kind or one other.
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