Microsoft is gearing up for a giant vacation season on the finish of this yr. During yesterday’s much-hyped Official Xbox Podcast, Xbox president Sarah Bond teased information concerning the corporate’s {hardware}, in addition to its plans for its next-gen gaming gadgets. “What we’re really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation,” she mentioned.
The largest query about Microsoft’s subsequent wager, then, isn’t whether or not or not it’s going to proceed to make conventional consoles that plug into your tv. It’s if Microsoft will comply with within the footsteps of corporations like Nintendo and Valve to make a console you may carry round. Gaming has lengthy superior previous the purpose of handhelds solely offering a separate, smaller expertise; you may play every part from battle royale megahits like Fortnite to expansive, open worlds like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom with no full TV setup.
Other Microsoft rivals like Sony have already dipped into handhelds. In addition to the corporate’s efforts just like the PlayStation Vita, which it stopped producing in 2019, it launched PlayStation Portal—which lets you stream video games out of your PS5—final yr.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has expressed admiration for his rivals’ methods. During a latest interview with The Verge, he says Microsoft has been “kind of learning from what Nintendo has done over the years with Switch … When I look at Steam Deck and the ROG [handheld] and my [Lenovo handheld] Legion Go, I’m a big fan of that space.” What retains gamers from gaming extra, he says, is extra than simply sleep or the common obligations of life. “Some of it is just access,” he advised The Verge. “Do I have access to the games that I want to play right now?”
Even when requested immediately about whether or not Microsoft can be making a handheld, Spencer refuted the concept. “I’m a big fan, but nothing to announce.”
Doubling down on conventional consoles this vacation season isn’t surprising. In September, Microsoft by accident leaked details about its launch plans, together with a take a look at its mid-gen console refresh and a brand new controller, via unredacted paperwork. If nonetheless correct, the paperwork additionally included data on its next-gen Xbox console, pegged to 2028, as a “hybrid game platform” that might use the cloud.
Although cloud gaming provides a sexy resolution for some gamers trying to keep away from the effort of a console on the shelf of their dwelling leisure middle, Xbox execs have all the time been agency that conventional consoles are vital to the enterprise. “When we look at our hardware … it’s where you get the most flagship, seminal experience of Xbox,” Bond mentioned throughout the podcast. “And it also represents a developer target. Our developers can build the specs of our hardware, and we invest to make sure when they do, that the games are going to run great on our hardware, but they’re also going to be able to be accessed across any screen because of all the other investments we make.”
As Microsoft opens up its video games to extra platforms, it must make its signature {hardware} extra interesting past a neighborhood loyal to the model itself. Spencer himself might agree; eagle-eyed followers have seen him liking tweets calling a handheld “inevitable.” Microsoft doesn’t need to make a technological leap to make nice video games accessible; only one that allows you to go exterior every so often.