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CES 2025 is in full stride, as the Las Vegas show brings the latest and greatest in the tech world. Of course, Microsoft is at the show and spoke about its Xbox handheld ambitions.
Microsoft’s VP of Next Generation, Jason Ronald was speaking at “The Future of Gaming Handhelds” roundtable. This comes just weeks after Phil Spencer’s Bloomberg interview, where he said that the Xbox handheld was still years away.
Ronald said that the company has been “innovating for a long time in the console space”. The company intends to bring these innovations to PC and “bring them to the handheld gaming space”.
Speaking to The Verge, Ronald said, “I would say 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 explains that despite its appearance, the Xbox operating system is still essentially built on Windows: “The reality is the Xbox operating system is built on top of Windows.”
By leveraging this, Microsoft intends to combine the best bits of Xbox with its work on Windows for a “premium gaming experience on any device”.
https://t.co/OWiw0f2k2v pic.twitter.com/RdSGMmhgBd
— WalkingCat (@_h0x0d_) April 13, 2023
In 2022, a Microsoft developer created an internal concept for what could be a handheld user interface. However, this was just for a Hackathon and never intended for release.
SteamOS dominates Windows 11 in the handheld space
Outside of the Steam Deck, Windows is currently the preferred platform for most handheld manufacturers. The issue is that Windows 11 isn’t designed for that type of hardware, leading to issues with general use.
Valve’s Steam Deck runs a custom version of Arch Linux, SteamOS. The company is now moving to bring the OS outside of its immediate circle, with documents pointing to an expansion plan already rolling out. Of course, Linux developers being what they are, have already created a decent alternative for Windows handhelds, Bazzite, while Valve works out the kinks on SteamOS.
At CES, Lenovo not only announced its successor to the Lenovo Legion Go but also two cheaper alternatives running on AMD’s new Z2 Go chip. One will be Windows and the other SteamOS.
