28
votes
Rumor: Insider claims Xbox handheld under development
Link information
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- Title
- Xbox is Prototyping a Native Xbox Handheld, it's Claimed - Insider Gaming
- Authors
- Tom Henderson
- Published
- Mar 22 2024
- Word count
- 358 words
So an Xbox handheld raises a few questions. Either it's a walled garden portable Xbox console, or it's a handheld PC.
If it's a walled garden, it'd likely get those games that come to Console Game Pass but not to PC Game Pass, and have a UI that's actually designed for a controller. But, it wouldn't have access to the PC game launchers like Steam and Epic, or do all the other things you can do with a full-blown PC, which would give its competitors a massive advantage.
If it's a handheld PC, it'd be another one to add onto the growing pile, and have to do something to stand out, like being competitively priced. And if they were gonna ship this thing and want it to feel like a proper Xbox console, Microsoft would probably want to fix the issues with handheld Windows, like using the UI with a controller. Which would... help their competitors.
Either they have a big gap in functionality with devices like the ROG Ally, but improved UI, or they match the functionality, take on the same challenges, and potentially improve their competitors.
My guess is it's going to be designed and intended to be a companion to game pass and their cloud streaming they have been developing. In that sense it will be a walled garden for sure.
The XBOX is already basically a PC that's been locked down, I picture an XBOX handheld as being something like a Steam Deck that is locked down.
I wonder what people at Sony think in retrospect about abandoning the PS Vita. I had two Vitas and replaced the joysticks multiple times on them, you know you're a fanatic when you think the best thing about your console is that it's field repairable. I don't know if the Vita was a commercial success but it was sure a technical and artistic success. Not making a successor let Nintendo take the whole handheld market, but being so slow to update the Switch is creating a huge opportunity for the Steam Deck and similar devices.
I love mine, but it makes sense. Smartphones took the casual market, western gamers prefer the console/PC market, and Eastern gamers were still punched out by Nintendo, who themselves had to pivot. If Nintendo can't pull it off, you know it's a time to bail.
The only reason portable PC's can succeed is because it doesn't need to rebuild a library like a Switch does. You're just buying a PC focused on games, and can even be a PC on the side. Sony can't rebuild that easily; maybe if they had a portable that played PS1/2/3/p/v games from PSN it'd be a good start, but that'd truly be an engineering marvel without leveraging emulators. But the legacy PSN with PS1/PSP games is on the downturn, so doubtful.
Probably "What's a PS Vita?"
Yeah, Sony is not what it used to be. I mean, progress and all, but I was a little shocked when I saw a Techmoan video where he said Sony had quit making CD players.
Yep, I hate to think about it this way but the market is saturated. The Xbox handheld would likely be more feature rich than the PSPortal but it would be competing with the Switch if it was "just" a console. The PC handheld space is already rich with "It just runs windows" so... Would Microsoft create a stopgap, the mythical Windows Gamer Edition or just ship with the Xbox game bar set to take over your screen on boot?
Just like the ROG, MSI, and AYA counterparts - it'll probably be a pass for me but I see Microsoft as having a bigger marketing budget that it could be something either way.
My only wonder is why Xbox wasn't doing this 10 years ago. The vita dropped off and Microsoft was working on hybrids like the Surface around this time. It seemed obvious to try and make a Windows portable PC. It didn't necessarily have to be marketed for AAA gaming either; take advantadge of the thousands of indie titles only on PC.
Ten years ago Xbox launched the Xbox One, the console they were trying to make the always online, always Kinect-ed console.
Can you imagine what the Microsoft of ten years ago thought of a handheld computer? They couldn't feasibly make a handheld with an always online feature, so they probably didn't think about it at all. Plus, the Vita already had two years of existence to scare them off. They left the handheld space to Sony v Nintendo and Nintendo won the field.
Also, 10-15 years ago was the time when everyone thought phones would kill dedicated devices. Everyone already owned one, including the casual market, and they could run games. There was a lot of speculation that devices like the Gameboy or PSP would disappear like all the other handheld devices the smart phone replaced, like cameras. The failure of the PS Vita and the rough launch of the 3DS didn't help. People might forget now, but the 3DS took a bit to build its reputation. Even in the height of the 3DS, it didn't feel like there was room in that market for another handheld console.
It wasn't until after the Switch launched that we realized, dedicated hardware was fun, and that we wanted dedicated handhelds so we wouldn't have phone notifications constantly while gaming. The Switch also showed that handhelds were strong enough now to run lower rez versions of modern AAA games, which changed the calculus for developers a lot. Then we got the current renaissance in handheld PCs like the Steam Deck, those bootleg emulator handheld consoles, cloud streaming handhelds like the G Cloud and Portal, micro consoles like the Playdate, etc.
The Xbox Series S board could easily fit into a portable enclosure, Phawx does the math here, and Microsoft's portable PC solution seems to be let others take the first crack at it. I'm not saying Microsoft isn't working on a Surface comparable handheld PC, but the priority would most likely be to get Windows working in that form factor.
There’s a third route they could take which would be to create a mobile UI version of the Xbox OS and make Windows games run on it with a compatibility layer. This would let them avoid helping competitors and control which marketplaces are allowed on it.
If they did this I think that it would probably limit its popularity though, because as much as people like Gamepass and the Xbox brand, Steam is still the PC gaming community’s favorite by a long shot. No Steam compatibility would rule it out for a lot of people.
I think that raises an interesting option... If they create a walled garden, but allow Steam/Epic/GOG in that walled garden, that's really enough for most people, and lowers the desire for a jailbreak. The people who want their PC libraries have it, and the people who wanna emulate SNES games have the Steam version of Retroarch. They could even add the Playstation streaming to it if they wanted... If Sony agreed to it. Only the "put Linux on everything!" crowd and pirates would care about a jailbreak.
So what would be the advantage of running Xbox compatible with running Windows executives, vs running Windows with an Xbox like UI?
2 big ones:
Ah yes, piracy, the great boogeyman that justifies millions of dollars of wasted development time and cpu cycles.
You'll notice there's never been a major spike in games buying when any major anti-piracy measure came out. Not even the famed Denuvo made a tangible dent. Just from looking at that graph, can you tell when any of these antipiracy measures came out? It's all just been what it has always been: a continually expanding market affected by typical market crashes.
It's snake oil that demonstrates brief drops in piracy for titles that use it, but does not result in tangibly more sales. The titles with the most effective DRM didn't sell more because of the DRM, they sold more because they were hotly anticipated titles.
It gives the companies their moral victory that pirates aren't playing their games, but little else. Is that worth all the money they spend and the customer frustration that accompanies it? I'm doubtful.
It can help Microsoft lower the price of the handheld compared to other Windows handhelds with similar hardware. Being able to encourage users to spend money in Microsoft owned game shops will bring revenue that will let them subsidize the cost of the hardware.
I think there's a strong possibility of it being both. The Xbox's OS is already segregates the games and dashboard. I don't see why they wouldn't expand on that and copy valve's approach where you basically have 2 operating systems.
I really can't read an Xbox handheld as anything other than "The Xbox Dead on Arrival" because it's been a long, long time since there was any new Microsoft hardware offerings that didn't have a Caveat Compromise about them somewhere. And while I've and plenty of others have at some point thought the compromises on any random Surface product were acceptable for intended use, the alternative here is a $399 from new Steam Deck that is deliberately targeted by developers hardware and indefinitely community supported already.
With the famous tender loving care Microsoft gave the ZUN and Windows Phone. "The alternative is 399." just seems infeasible for Microsoft to compete with to me.
Just pointing out it's Zune because my eyes glazed over this and I did a double-take thinking Microsoft had some storied fling with the Touhou series...
Yeah, Xbox pretty much just needs to improve their game library. That is their first, second, and third biggest issue right now. I guess their fourth would be to fix their console naming conventions.
Okay, you made a handheld. Great. If it's open to different store fronts, I'll get a steam deck. If it's basically just a portable Xbox, I'll get a steam deck, gaming PC, PlayStation, and/or a Nintendo switch. Why in God's name would I get an Xbox right now? To play what exactly?
I prefer using Windows. though. That's a big advantage for a potential microsoft handheld. And if we're being honest, the Steam Deck had to compromise on so many specs to hit 400. I'd pay a bit more to get a better screen, potentially smaller form factor, other neat surface features like pen support, etc (and if you suggest Steam OLED, we're not talking $399 anymore, but $549. Much less impulsive price).
Polygon put up an interview with Phil Spencer talking about the existing handheld gaming experience and how it could be better from the Windows side. He also talked about what a next gen Xbox hardware experience would look like, and these two points of conversation were not related in the slightest.
Switch has effectively the handheld market unless you count all the old Vita and PSP copies floating around. Imho unless it's at a competitive price point cant see it making much of a dent unless super exclusive great games.
And there is that linux based wanna be something Playtron..
You're not even mentioning the Steam Deck? Does that not have a significant position in the handheld market?
Steam Deck is undoubtedly the current second-place contender in this market, but the gap between the Switch and the Steam Deck is admittedly not small at all -- it's at least an order of magnitude of difference if not two. A well-designed Xbox handheld could definitely capture more of the casual market than the Steam Deck, which I think is a big part of where the Switch shines.
I wonder if/when we will see a portable with eGPU support. There's a tendency to build more powerful devices, but high fidelity graphics are wasted on a 7" screen; you really only notice the artifacts when they're blown-up on a television. So why not build a portable that targets 720p/60 fps at med/low settings in handheld mode but 1080p+/60+ fps at med/high settings when docked, with the extra juice coming from the dock itself?
You'd probably have to change your graphics settings every time you dock/undock, but this sort of set up does already exist with the Asus ROG Ally. They have a few eGPU you can plug into the ROG XG port or whatever it is and add a mobile RTX 4090 if you like.
Theoretically, you could also do something similar with upcoming handhelds running Intel internals that I suspect will expose a thunderbolt port.
Downside though, at least for the Asus solution, is it is ludicrously expensive. I've made whole PCs to game on for the same cost as their eGPU.