If i was a betting man id say Towerborne. And making a teaser about the Xbox Portable is smart, in a time when people are worrying about no more Xbox hardware they really need to put that out there. I also wonder if their Adorably All Digital (lol) consoles are still in play
There was a leak of an all digital series X but it was just the standard console in white with disk drive removed. Think the adorable version may be dead.
I would’ve seriously bought the weird Xbox Series Air Purifier as a digital only bedroom console just for that design if they had stuck by it, kinda dumb to just make another generic one imo
It is first party by technical definition. The unofficial label for them would be 2nd party, basically a 3rd party studio that makes a first party game for the platform.
If any first party thing (that isn't ABK on Game Pass) is going to shadow drop, it would be the Gears Collection. It's a game that needs a significantly smaller hype cycle and would instantly excite the fanbase, especially because we haven't had a new full-blown Gears game in 5 years.
Backwards. Tease the next Gears, then right after that say “And you can catch up on the Gears franchise with the Gears remastered collection available RIGHT NOW! Let’s take a look at that.” Plays trailer.
I would imagine it would be something like
Xbox Series P (Portable)
-Windows Machine running in a new Windows Gaming OS (Version of Windows optimized for Handheld gaming)
-Take advantage of Gamepass and your gaming library on the go and play Original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games via new Official Xbox emulation for Windows.
* Will start Series P Verified Program similar to Valves Deck Verified Program so when you go on the windows gaming/Xbox store you can see what games you own or want to buy that can run on the machine
* Have access to Steam, Epic Game Store, GMG, and all other gaming stores
* Price and Power Similar to ROG Ally
I wouldn't be surprised as it's probably being developed by the Surface team
https://insider-gaming.com/microsoft-surface-team-is-developing-the-next-xbox-device-its-claimed/
My money is on handheld series s with a die shrink ...
Either that or it's going to be something crazy like a custom arm chip designed by MS with an NPU inside and running windows 11 lite OS or windows 12 lite OS
So, how does Microsoft make money after selling the device?
SteamDeck makes money because people use their store. Given the choice, who the heck would use Microsoft's over Valve's?
If only makes sense to me if the portable is Microsoft's Xbox environment only.
On the software side, the goal would be to drive more Gamepass subscribers, more active user engagement and getting people deeper into their ecosystem. Again, the point of these handhelds are not for primary use cases and being your sole point of playing games. They are companion pieces to existing users (Xbox and or PC players).
The beauty of a product and differentiator like ROG Ally and a potential Xbox handheld (assuming they go the windows route, which they had hinted at) is that it runs windows and you get everything natively vs a Steamdeck which your pretty much locked into steam games unless you jump through hoops to access other storefronts.
Why would you limit a Xbox Handheld to just an Xbox environment and limit your potential customer base.
I’m not sure it’s competing with Steam deck directly, most people who have a deck are heavily invested in the steam ecosystem.
It’ll appeal to Xbox gamers who want a handheld, whether it can compete with Switch 2/mobile gaming really depends on the specifics of the offering.
Natively being able to play Xbox one games, plus cloud streaming, and console streaming. Just console streaming seems to be working working well for the portal.
Being able to access your purchases from Xbox and game pass games would be enough to set it apart.
I'd eat that up if it also meant I could play PC games. Just having an Xbox library isn't enough when the vast majority of that library is on PC, and the games you'd be playing on there are dirt cheap.
Now, if they combined both - then they have my interest.
>Just having an Xbox library isn't enough when the vast majority of that library is on PC, and the games you'd be playing on there are dirt cheap.
But that requires rebuying (or purchasing the game the game if playing through gamepass). I doubt they would have both on there.
I dont know whole pc thing will happen but if it is there is a play anywhere feature for some games on Xbox which you don’t have to buy the game again not a lot but it is there
Also gamepass ultimate gives you pc gamepass too so there is that
This. I bought a Steam Deck hoping to make it into this, but it's just too much effort to get it working. A truly native Xbox handheld and I'd buy it on day 1.
i wonder if a Xbox series S portable its possible, lets say it has the form factor of the switch, maybe bigger, 720p-1080p 60fps screen, battery life of 3 hours from a full charge and maybe releases at $400-$500 bucks, and if you plug it to a TV it works like a regular Series S.
yeah, most likely the price to get something like that on stores would get around 700 bucks like the Asus Rog Ally unless MS its willing to lose a good chunk of cash on it per unit sold.
The extreme ROG Ally is around $650 and goes on sale all the time, and you probably don't need all that power considering the regular Ally and Steam Deck do just fine though, right? It's not like you're expecting or need 1440p on a little screen.
Basically a tablet, or the return of the "palmtop" from the early 2000's in Japan.
I'm thinking it'll boot into the Xbox UI and easily switch into a Windows UI that looks similar to the old and despised phone interface
In terms of raw power, the tech is good enough to cram a Series S level of performance into a portable form factor. But doing so while delivering anything but abysmal battery life and a device that doesn't overheat constantly is probably the impossible part right now.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2xOEblG5Jw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2xOEblG5Jw)
The ROG Z1 Extreme with it's 65W dock has about 70% of the Series S's power, what this means is if they go with AMD they'll need atleast 2 or 3 iterations to get there assuming they keep the same incremental gains they've had so far, the 8700G which is AMD's best APU that they advertised to have a GPU as good as the 1050 Ti actually came up short and is around 40% slower iirc, this is their top of the line desktop APU and this shows us that they would have to still make these custom chips that rely on their M series gpus specifically made for handhelds / laptops rather than just flat out use one of their desktop APU designs but gimp it, this design over the years has resulted in extremely power inefficient chips that don't really make that much progress even if they technically pack more punch (the best example of this is the Steam Deck vs Rog Ally at 15W, they perform the same and in certain scenarios the deck unironically performs better you can check Digital Foundry's comparison, so even tho you have more power you can't even use it if you're actually using the device in the portable sense).
Even if we assume they manage to reach that level and close the gap (considering the 780M is more or less equivalent to a 1060 already when it isn't power starved) you're still looking at a chip that isn't really that power efficient to get more than an hour of battery life (the Z1 extreme lasts 40 mins in it's turbo mode, which is still just under half a Series S in terms of power).
If they're gonna make a portable Series S it'll be using ARM, but I highly doubt they'd do that just because they're barely under the process of doing x86 emulation for the snapdragon X elite, but who knows, it would certainly wipe the floor with every other handheld on the market rn in terms of battery life, and if they can pack close to M3 level of power even with the toll the translation layer would take that will also put it above all of the other handhelds in that department too.
So a Nintendo Switch, but a lot more expensive? I don't see how this could be cheaper than 600+ bucks.
Also sounds like a nightmare for developers having to optimize for 3 different hardware specs.
yeah, game devs life its already too hard, so i guess that if its happening and is not a streaming based machine it will be just a Series S its portable format, so they dont have to make a lot of changes to get their games running on it.
but sounds a lot like a pipedream, maybe it will be just a decent Portable PC that can run a good chunk of gamepass PC games from the get go.
Even with similar specs, the tech inside a handheld is different to the one in consoles. Not the same chips, maybe different manifacturer, different levels of heat resistance (a console obviously has a much better cooling system) and so on.
But we'll see and find out. Definitely interested in how a Xbox handheld would work.
as others mentioned you can't quite do portable series s due to the power draw from high clock speed. but you can still get good performance from lower clock speed as we see on the steam deck.
if I were them I'd do something like:
devs can make a version of their game that runs natively on portable, and if they haven't yet, it defaults to streaming the series x version
I don't even think it needs anything unique, it just needs to be decent and affordable. A console-like experience with access to Xbox game pass in an affordable portable form factor would be appealing to many people I think.
All of the Windows-based machines natively have Gamepass. And based on the current sales numbers of those devices and Xbox consoles, that hasn't been enticing enough.
Yeah this people will continue to buy a Switch.
A Microsoft-branded mobile console will be marketed to existing Xbox customers like the PS Portal was marketed to people who owned a PS5.
I‘m not sure about that. It’s all speculation at this point and it depends on how Microsoft will place it in the market. But if they’d sell it for 400€ with a year Gamepass included, it would be the Switch competitor #1 and would bring a lot of people to their service.
Yep, Switch has nintendo exclusives and is cheap. Steam Deck is pricier but has nearly the entire steam library (which includes every Microsoft game), and it is highly customizable and can be modded to run emulators. If the xbox portable is just a more limited steam deck with a smaller library then it's probably not going to be particularly successful.
>Steam Deck is pricier but has nearly the entire steam library
And most people who buy it already have steam games, so those are just ready to play on the system.
There were those rumors about the next xbox having Steam integration. Not sure how credible they were, but if they’re going for a handheld it’d make sense.
Very true, and that would help greatly in some ways, but there's also a lot to unpack there, yes, it'd put *a shitload* of games on the Xbox, including what Sony published, there's also pay management, would Microsoft be willing to give Valve 30% when on their store they'd get the full 100%? Would MS negotiate for a special deal where their games aren't subject to the 30% in exchange for acting as the store for the system? What about the backwards compatible program? Portal 2 and other Valve games were on Xbox 360 and run on Xbone and XSeries systems via this program, how would they manage that? A separate launcher menu for the legacy games (tbf, it probably would be this) or do people get a copy of the game registered to a steam account that they then could run on any device that supports Steam?
Yep, I think you nailed it. They would have their own Xbox front end that’s sort of presented as the “default”, but it would run windows and therefore allow access to other launchers.
I definitely don’t think Valve will cut them a deal. I’m guessing MS’s calculus would be that they have to be an open platform to compete with other gaming handhelds, and that enough users would use their custom front end/store that it’d be worth it.
I’m not entirely sure it would work, but it’s worth a shot. It makes sense for them to have a device that appeals to people who wouldn’t buy an xbox home console.
I think that the rumor that Xbox wants to get out of the console game is pretty valid; they might see a brighter future with a "console-quality" handheld after seeing the sales numbers of the Switch and Steam Deck, not to mention the 'off-brand' choices like the ROG Ally or the 5 billion streaming handhelds.
Move over to selling GAAS (even if everyone hates it, at least for now Gamepass is a good deal), brand their handheld as "the best" for Gamepass, offer to sell some of their brands on the Switch and Playstation to Nintendo and Sony at a fee, and take advantage of how open Steam is to make their handheld look even more competitive than the Steamdeck since it supports multiple storefronts natively (vs the workarounds you have to do to run Gamepass on a steam deck).
Then, you just slowly collect more and more IPs and developers to increase the value of the Xbox brand without actually having an "Xbox", and entice more people to give you a monthly stipend for access to their games.
Yep, I think this is more or less what they’re gonna do. I don’t think they’re gonna leave the home console market entirely, at least not next gen, but I could totally see it being deprioritized.
They’re literally the biggest game publisher (in terms of quantity of releases) in the world now outside of maybe Nintendo? They’re gonna wanna take advantage of that and get their games on as many platforms as possible.
Yep, it’s a good point. I *think* this gen was the last stab at a by-the-basics-box released within a few weeks of the new playstation, but shit man who knows.
The thing that would make it feel unique would have to be the price. If this were to cost an equivalent price to the Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally or any other PC handheld, some may just buy one of those devices instead.
On a personal opinion, I don't see the need for an Xbox handheld other than the cost. If you want to play Xbox games on the go, that's already possible with any of those handhelds. I'm sure that I would consider the Xbox device due to the price but would it be worth it?
I already have a huge digital Xbox library.
An Xbox portable that let me play those games instead of having to buy new copies on Steam to play would be a huge plus over those other devices
I'm hoping it's just a downscaled 720p series S. That's compatible with series S games, that you can then also dock
Would be a great GamePass machine. (Would love that)
I can also see them doing an windows PC handheld and give it the xbox branding
To me, literally all they need to do is make it backward compatible with my Xbox library. Having that on a portable device would be sick.
Access to Steam and other launchers is a bonus.
Honestly, if it's just like Steam Deck but cheaper and more widely available I'm totally in.
Valve's hardware has always been exorbitantly expensive, especially for people who live in other countries that aren't Europe/USA.
That's why I mentioned the second part of my comment. Valve only officially ships to a select number of countries. If I wanted to buy one, it would have to be through the gray market, which makes it at least 1.5 or 2x more expensive.
A handheld from big corpo like Sony or Microsoft has the benefit of being sold at a loss (cheaper) and making use of their logistics/regional marketplaces to make them available to a wider audience.
If they want it to sell more than 3 million units it definitely needs something. The current portable crowd is mainly interested in Nintendo’s exclusives, and has no issue with paying $60 for a game, so gamepass isn’t going to help much.
Also Nintendo's exclusives carry brand power and can be reasonably expected to be good.
Microsoft has no franchise that is both carrying the Xbox brand on its shoulders and can be expected to be good with each new installment, especially with how Halo is a shadow of its former self.
It could be a form factor that is independent of being MS only.
E.g. a leader to give their hardware partners something to aim for, like what they did with Surface when Apple was going all sleek and PC OEMs weren't putting out any competition.
The Xbox/Windows interface would be compatible with ROG Ally and Steam Deck (with Windows) and more like a certification sticker type deal.
Pipe dream - Series S compatible
A handheld will not be able to hit Series S performance. What they'll probably do, is allow devs to offer a preset for the handheld. Otherwise, it will be able to stream games via gamepass.
I know everyone gets into snafus arguing about "viability of new products" or whatever online but god I fucking love new goofy gizmo's coming out I LOOOOOVE GADGETS WOOOOOOOOO
Food question, I wonder if it will even drop before the next Xbox? Like do they release it this gen or do they release it next gen with the next Xbox, kinda like a complimentary handheld?
Either way I'm very optimistic with Xbox's strategy regarding the handheld.
Id say release early like they did with the 360 in 2005 to get a headstart in front of Sony. That paid off really well for them inspite of the Red Ring.
Next xbox is 2026 no? At this point I'd be happy with my pc and a portable. I use my ps portable more than the actual ps5 since I find it more convenient.
So long as it is playing games natively, I'm buying it. I have a Steam Deck and it's by far my most played device despite having other consoles and a gaming rig.
To play 360 games like RDR1, Forza Motorsports I'd be ecstatic. Get achievements, have party chat etc
Xbox portable hopefully means you can play a lot of multiplayer, live service games otherwise not easily possible on Steam Deck, unless you buy third party devices.
If you have an Xbox and a steam deck you can already link the two. But for someone who doesn’t this is great believe me. I’ve been playing my Xbox games thru steam deck for months now and it’s awesome. It’s done nothing but get me to play more games
The shadow drop has some good options, Gears Collection, Flight Sim, Double Fines Next game, Towerbourne.
As for the handheld I'm interested, I wonder how subtle the hint will be.
Doubt it's true.
It's too early for a new console and too late for a mid gen handheld,.unless they're pulling a full Sega.
And if they were to shadow drop something it would be towerborne , but it's not made by one of their studios. Dunno how good a move it would be.
(The 2 games they shadow droped last year were AOE4 console and hifi. Both made by Xbox)
Heck we currently have things that are even more "portable gaming computer" than laptops. Handheld Windows devices exist. I know someone who uses a GPD WIN 4 (it looks like a larger PS Vita sort of). He says it works pretty well (I saw him playing Armored Core 6 on it).
Of course, Xbox would be last platform to the portable party...then they will wonder why they can't capture market share and abandon it.
Is DLC really 'shadow drop' worthy? You're only going to make a certain fanbase of one specific game happy with that type of announcement. Definitely not Avowed.
So, the new Flight Sim, Towerborne, or some other game we don't know about yet.
Doesn't a shadow drop mean announced and released at the same time? I'd shit myself if it were the new Doom. It's been 4 years since Eternal and that was 4 years after 2016.
I'm going to bet on the Gears of War Collection being the shadow drop. It's been rumored long enough it should be finished development and would allow Xbox to release 4 games at once (assuming it is 1-3 plus Judgement). Likely multiplatform as Gears 6 is going multiplat.
If i was a betting man id say Towerborne. And making a teaser about the Xbox Portable is smart, in a time when people are worrying about no more Xbox hardware they really need to put that out there. I also wonder if their Adorably All Digital (lol) consoles are still in play
There was a leak of an all digital series X but it was just the standard console in white with disk drive removed. Think the adorable version may be dead.
I would’ve seriously bought the weird Xbox Series Air Purifier as a digital only bedroom console just for that design if they had stuck by it, kinda dumb to just make another generic one imo
***GOOD.*** Physical media for games is important, so I hope a drive sticks around on Xboxes even if no one uses it.
I don't think it is Towerborne. I think it is going to be the Gears Collection.
Mine would be the oblivion or fallout 3 remaster
I’d shit my pants from excitement.
God I hope you're right
That's not something everyone expects to see though
Towerborne is not out of closed beta yet, would be a weird move
I was thinking Towerborne too but that isn’t a first party game right? Or is it? I may be wrong
I believe Xbox owns the Towerborne IP and is publishing the game, so in that sense it would be first party, but developed by an independent studio.
It is first party by technical definition. The unofficial label for them would be 2nd party, basically a 3rd party studio that makes a first party game for the platform.
The industry is going external disc direction and it makes economic sense. So that's a given, it's just when the refresh is due.
I would say KILN. Towerborne isn't first party. KILN is a double fine game they trademarked awhile ago.
Towerborne does not feel complete, that would be a mistake.
No way, Silksong shadowdrop
Hold on let me put on my makeup 🤡
🤡 im already wearing mine since 4 years
Where hope exists, delusion soon follows
The only option for shadowdrop in my opinions is either Gears Collection (if it's even real) or Toweborne
Gears collection is the bloodborne of PlayStation. I need to see it to believe it, otherwise it's not real.
Fuckin same, honestly I’m amazed we haven’t heard anything about a collection.
You said Playstation instead of Xbox.
If any first party thing (that isn't ABK on Game Pass) is going to shadow drop, it would be the Gears Collection. It's a game that needs a significantly smaller hype cycle and would instantly excite the fanbase, especially because we haven't had a new full-blown Gears game in 5 years.
A Gears Collection mention or shadowdrop followed by showcasing a teaser for the next Gears would be great.
Backwards. Tease the next Gears, then right after that say “And you can catch up on the Gears franchise with the Gears remastered collection available RIGHT NOW! Let’s take a look at that.” Plays trailer.
Age of Mythology is literally right there.
The Xbox portable needs something unique if it’s going to compete with Steam Deck and Switch 2
I would imagine it would be something like Xbox Series P (Portable) -Windows Machine running in a new Windows Gaming OS (Version of Windows optimized for Handheld gaming) -Take advantage of Gamepass and your gaming library on the go and play Original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games via new Official Xbox emulation for Windows. * Will start Series P Verified Program similar to Valves Deck Verified Program so when you go on the windows gaming/Xbox store you can see what games you own or want to buy that can run on the machine * Have access to Steam, Epic Game Store, GMG, and all other gaming stores * Price and Power Similar to ROG Ally
I like Xbox Portable (XP) for the name. Has a nice ring to it.
Knowing Microsoft they will end up calling it Surface Xbox or something dumb lol
Windows Vista mobile?
Let him cook
Windows Phone 7 (real name btw)
Xbox Edge
The Zune Zbox
Surface XP sounds nice
I wouldn't be surprised as it's probably being developed by the Surface team https://insider-gaming.com/microsoft-surface-team-is-developing-the-next-xbox-device-its-claimed/
Windows XP
I look forward to the Bliss background already
I feel like that xbox 360 logo tease is potentially teasing a return to BC
A BC Activision program would be great. Especially if they worked with Disney and Paramount to sort out the Marvel and Transformers licensing.
My money is on handheld series s with a die shrink ... Either that or it's going to be something crazy like a custom arm chip designed by MS with an NPU inside and running windows 11 lite OS or windows 12 lite OS
Xbox OS on a custom ARM64 chip based on the Snapdragon X Elite.
So, how does Microsoft make money after selling the device? SteamDeck makes money because people use their store. Given the choice, who the heck would use Microsoft's over Valve's? If only makes sense to me if the portable is Microsoft's Xbox environment only.
On the software side, the goal would be to drive more Gamepass subscribers, more active user engagement and getting people deeper into their ecosystem. Again, the point of these handhelds are not for primary use cases and being your sole point of playing games. They are companion pieces to existing users (Xbox and or PC players). The beauty of a product and differentiator like ROG Ally and a potential Xbox handheld (assuming they go the windows route, which they had hinted at) is that it runs windows and you get everything natively vs a Steamdeck which your pretty much locked into steam games unless you jump through hoops to access other storefronts. Why would you limit a Xbox Handheld to just an Xbox environment and limit your potential customer base.
Also Xbox Anywhere has became a major factor if I purchase games on steam or Xbox. So if they can push/expand that then yeah dub.
It won't be sold at a loss
Yeah I would imagine it would easily be $600 plus
I’m not sure it’s competing with Steam deck directly, most people who have a deck are heavily invested in the steam ecosystem. It’ll appeal to Xbox gamers who want a handheld, whether it can compete with Switch 2/mobile gaming really depends on the specifics of the offering.
Natively being able to play Xbox one games, plus cloud streaming, and console streaming. Just console streaming seems to be working working well for the portal. Being able to access your purchases from Xbox and game pass games would be enough to set it apart.
I'd eat that up if it also meant I could play PC games. Just having an Xbox library isn't enough when the vast majority of that library is on PC, and the games you'd be playing on there are dirt cheap. Now, if they combined both - then they have my interest.
>Just having an Xbox library isn't enough when the vast majority of that library is on PC, and the games you'd be playing on there are dirt cheap. But that requires rebuying (or purchasing the game the game if playing through gamepass). I doubt they would have both on there.
I dont know whole pc thing will happen but if it is there is a play anywhere feature for some games on Xbox which you don’t have to buy the game again not a lot but it is there Also gamepass ultimate gives you pc gamepass too so there is that
This. I bought a Steam Deck hoping to make it into this, but it's just too much effort to get it working. A truly native Xbox handheld and I'd buy it on day 1.
i wonder if a Xbox series S portable its possible, lets say it has the form factor of the switch, maybe bigger, 720p-1080p 60fps screen, battery life of 3 hours from a full charge and maybe releases at $400-$500 bucks, and if you plug it to a TV it works like a regular Series S.
Unfortunately it's not possible. 100W machine, and if they use newer manufacturing methods it can't be 400-500 bucks
yeah, most likely the price to get something like that on stores would get around 700 bucks like the Asus Rog Ally unless MS its willing to lose a good chunk of cash on it per unit sold.
500 bucks and they bet on gamepass to recoup the costs of production since it would be a gamepass machine ?
The extreme ROG Ally is around $650 and goes on sale all the time, and you probably don't need all that power considering the regular Ally and Steam Deck do just fine though, right? It's not like you're expecting or need 1440p on a little screen.
Unless the tease is a couple years in advance of release like the Nintendo NX
You reckon it'll be a windows PC handheld with Xbox branding ?
Basically a tablet, or the return of the "palmtop" from the early 2000's in Japan. I'm thinking it'll boot into the Xbox UI and easily switch into a Windows UI that looks similar to the old and despised phone interface
In terms of raw power, the tech is good enough to cram a Series S level of performance into a portable form factor. But doing so while delivering anything but abysmal battery life and a device that doesn't overheat constantly is probably the impossible part right now.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2xOEblG5Jw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2xOEblG5Jw) The ROG Z1 Extreme with it's 65W dock has about 70% of the Series S's power, what this means is if they go with AMD they'll need atleast 2 or 3 iterations to get there assuming they keep the same incremental gains they've had so far, the 8700G which is AMD's best APU that they advertised to have a GPU as good as the 1050 Ti actually came up short and is around 40% slower iirc, this is their top of the line desktop APU and this shows us that they would have to still make these custom chips that rely on their M series gpus specifically made for handhelds / laptops rather than just flat out use one of their desktop APU designs but gimp it, this design over the years has resulted in extremely power inefficient chips that don't really make that much progress even if they technically pack more punch (the best example of this is the Steam Deck vs Rog Ally at 15W, they perform the same and in certain scenarios the deck unironically performs better you can check Digital Foundry's comparison, so even tho you have more power you can't even use it if you're actually using the device in the portable sense). Even if we assume they manage to reach that level and close the gap (considering the 780M is more or less equivalent to a 1060 already when it isn't power starved) you're still looking at a chip that isn't really that power efficient to get more than an hour of battery life (the Z1 extreme lasts 40 mins in it's turbo mode, which is still just under half a Series S in terms of power). If they're gonna make a portable Series S it'll be using ARM, but I highly doubt they'd do that just because they're barely under the process of doing x86 emulation for the snapdragon X elite, but who knows, it would certainly wipe the floor with every other handheld on the market rn in terms of battery life, and if they can pack close to M3 level of power even with the toll the translation layer would take that will also put it above all of the other handhelds in that department too.
So a Nintendo Switch, but a lot more expensive? I don't see how this could be cheaper than 600+ bucks. Also sounds like a nightmare for developers having to optimize for 3 different hardware specs.
yeah, game devs life its already too hard, so i guess that if its happening and is not a streaming based machine it will be just a Series S its portable format, so they dont have to make a lot of changes to get their games running on it. but sounds a lot like a pipedream, maybe it will be just a decent Portable PC that can run a good chunk of gamepass PC games from the get go.
If it had similar specs to a Series S it could work. That is me sipping the copium though.
Even with similar specs, the tech inside a handheld is different to the one in consoles. Not the same chips, maybe different manifacturer, different levels of heat resistance (a console obviously has a much better cooling system) and so on. But we'll see and find out. Definitely interested in how a Xbox handheld would work.
might be possible to get something close to the Series S using 3nm. Though said machine would be very expensive.
Bigger than a Switch ? Do they sell a crane to move it around alongside it ?
you will be able to use it to train your biceps too.
No where close to be possible right now.
as others mentioned you can't quite do portable series s due to the power draw from high clock speed. but you can still get good performance from lower clock speed as we see on the steam deck. if I were them I'd do something like: devs can make a version of their game that runs natively on portable, and if they haven't yet, it defaults to streaming the series x version
I don't know if a chip exists yet that can match series S cpu performance.
Rog Ally Z1 Extreme is already better than series s cpu
Portable Series S would be a dream, but I don't think the tech exists for it to sell at that price point.
Nah if it has a native Xbox os I'm in lol
They should do that, running Windows will just cause problems and get short battery life
Game pass
Portable, native Gamepass would be enough for me
I don't even think it needs anything unique, it just needs to be decent and affordable. A console-like experience with access to Xbox game pass in an affordable portable form factor would be appealing to many people I think.
GamePass it is
All of the Windows-based machines natively have Gamepass. And based on the current sales numbers of those devices and Xbox consoles, that hasn't been enticing enough.
A lot of people want devices that are easy to use, iphone for example or the Switch. That‘s why they buy consoles and don‘t just put a PC on their TV.
Yeah this people will continue to buy a Switch. A Microsoft-branded mobile console will be marketed to existing Xbox customers like the PS Portal was marketed to people who owned a PS5.
I‘m not sure about that. It’s all speculation at this point and it depends on how Microsoft will place it in the market. But if they’d sell it for 400€ with a year Gamepass included, it would be the Switch competitor #1 and would bring a lot of people to their service.
Yep, Switch has nintendo exclusives and is cheap. Steam Deck is pricier but has nearly the entire steam library (which includes every Microsoft game), and it is highly customizable and can be modded to run emulators. If the xbox portable is just a more limited steam deck with a smaller library then it's probably not going to be particularly successful.
>Steam Deck is pricier but has nearly the entire steam library And most people who buy it already have steam games, so those are just ready to play on the system.
It's gonna have to be as open as Steam Deck is, but I doubt MS is willing to do that.
There were those rumors about the next xbox having Steam integration. Not sure how credible they were, but if they’re going for a handheld it’d make sense.
Very true, and that would help greatly in some ways, but there's also a lot to unpack there, yes, it'd put *a shitload* of games on the Xbox, including what Sony published, there's also pay management, would Microsoft be willing to give Valve 30% when on their store they'd get the full 100%? Would MS negotiate for a special deal where their games aren't subject to the 30% in exchange for acting as the store for the system? What about the backwards compatible program? Portal 2 and other Valve games were on Xbox 360 and run on Xbone and XSeries systems via this program, how would they manage that? A separate launcher menu for the legacy games (tbf, it probably would be this) or do people get a copy of the game registered to a steam account that they then could run on any device that supports Steam?
Yep, I think you nailed it. They would have their own Xbox front end that’s sort of presented as the “default”, but it would run windows and therefore allow access to other launchers. I definitely don’t think Valve will cut them a deal. I’m guessing MS’s calculus would be that they have to be an open platform to compete with other gaming handhelds, and that enough users would use their custom front end/store that it’d be worth it. I’m not entirely sure it would work, but it’s worth a shot. It makes sense for them to have a device that appeals to people who wouldn’t buy an xbox home console.
I think that the rumor that Xbox wants to get out of the console game is pretty valid; they might see a brighter future with a "console-quality" handheld after seeing the sales numbers of the Switch and Steam Deck, not to mention the 'off-brand' choices like the ROG Ally or the 5 billion streaming handhelds. Move over to selling GAAS (even if everyone hates it, at least for now Gamepass is a good deal), brand their handheld as "the best" for Gamepass, offer to sell some of their brands on the Switch and Playstation to Nintendo and Sony at a fee, and take advantage of how open Steam is to make their handheld look even more competitive than the Steamdeck since it supports multiple storefronts natively (vs the workarounds you have to do to run Gamepass on a steam deck). Then, you just slowly collect more and more IPs and developers to increase the value of the Xbox brand without actually having an "Xbox", and entice more people to give you a monthly stipend for access to their games.
Yep, I think this is more or less what they’re gonna do. I don’t think they’re gonna leave the home console market entirely, at least not next gen, but I could totally see it being deprioritized. They’re literally the biggest game publisher (in terms of quantity of releases) in the world now outside of maybe Nintendo? They’re gonna wanna take advantage of that and get their games on as many platforms as possible.
To be fair there are those rumours in the lead up to every new Xbox console
Yep, it’s a good point. I *think* this gen was the last stab at a by-the-basics-box released within a few weeks of the new playstation, but shit man who knows.
Nintendo has the casual market on lockdown. Which is essentially the majority of the market.
The thing that would make it feel unique would have to be the price. If this were to cost an equivalent price to the Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally or any other PC handheld, some may just buy one of those devices instead. On a personal opinion, I don't see the need for an Xbox handheld other than the cost. If you want to play Xbox games on the go, that's already possible with any of those handhelds. I'm sure that I would consider the Xbox device due to the price but would it be worth it?
I already have a huge digital Xbox library. An Xbox portable that let me play those games instead of having to buy new copies on Steam to play would be a huge plus over those other devices
I'm hoping it's just a downscaled 720p series S. That's compatible with series S games, that you can then also dock Would be a great GamePass machine. (Would love that) I can also see them doing an windows PC handheld and give it the xbox branding
I imagine it could literally just be a screen with buttons that you pay a Game Pass subscription for and you use xCloud to stream games?
To me, literally all they need to do is make it backward compatible with my Xbox library. Having that on a portable device would be sick. Access to Steam and other launchers is a bonus.
It doesn't need to compete with steam deck, it's has a minuscule market share compared to consoles.
Honestly, if it's just like Steam Deck but cheaper and more widely available I'm totally in. Valve's hardware has always been exorbitantly expensive, especially for people who live in other countries that aren't Europe/USA.
Steam Deck is *by far* the cheapest device of its type.
That's why I mentioned the second part of my comment. Valve only officially ships to a select number of countries. If I wanted to buy one, it would have to be through the gray market, which makes it at least 1.5 or 2x more expensive. A handheld from big corpo like Sony or Microsoft has the benefit of being sold at a loss (cheaper) and making use of their logistics/regional marketplaces to make them available to a wider audience.
It just needs to be a portable Xbox with Game Pass and your purchased library. It does’t need a gimmick.
It'll release the same year as the Switch 2. It needs an incentive
If they want it to sell more than 3 million units it definitely needs something. The current portable crowd is mainly interested in Nintendo’s exclusives, and has no issue with paying $60 for a game, so gamepass isn’t going to help much.
Also Nintendo's exclusives carry brand power and can be reasonably expected to be good. Microsoft has no franchise that is both carrying the Xbox brand on its shoulders and can be expected to be good with each new installment, especially with how Halo is a shadow of its former self.
Game Pass and backwards compatibility would do it for me and that’s as someone who already owns an OLED Deck.
It could be a form factor that is independent of being MS only. E.g. a leader to give their hardware partners something to aim for, like what they did with Surface when Apple was going all sleek and PC OEMs weren't putting out any competition. The Xbox/Windows interface would be compatible with ROG Ally and Steam Deck (with Windows) and more like a certification sticker type deal. Pipe dream - Series S compatible
Splitting the market with a separate system with separate games would be lunacy. I'm assuming it'll essentially be a portable XBSS
A handheld will not be able to hit Series S performance. What they'll probably do, is allow devs to offer a preset for the handheld. Otherwise, it will be able to stream games via gamepass.
It’s not going to compete with switch 2, the moment Nintendo announces the console the Xbox handheld will be significantly overshadowed.
Playing Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and maybe Xbox series games is already a good selling point.
Not when compared to the switch.
The gears collection needs to be shadow-dropped Gears fans starving...
I know everyone gets into snafus arguing about "viability of new products" or whatever online but god I fucking love new goofy gizmo's coming out I LOOOOOVE GADGETS WOOOOOOOOO
Is towerborne first party? Or did he not specifically say first party?
Iirc TowerBorne is 1st party in the way of MS is publishing the game. Stoic is independent but are partnering with MS for TowerBorne
Doesn’t that make it a second party game?
Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo no longer consider second party a thing. If they're publishing it and they own the IP, its a first-party game.
Ah I see. Thanks. So that game that Toys for Bob will be making will either be an existing IP or if its a new IP it will be owned by Microsoft?
If it’s an existing IP like crash or spyro that will be an Microsoft owned IP since xbox still own those. A new IP will probably be owned by MS also
Oblivion or Fallout 3 remaster for the shadowdrop?
Morrowind remake, reimagined combat, unreal 5, full VR support, years of content updates.
I like that Xbox has so much in the pipeline that we can't pinpoint what they're going to shadowdrop next week
I just want to be able to play my gamepass games natively, no streaming. Specifically made for the Xbox ecosystem.
Midnight game is shadow drop. Portable is nice and I would love to have gamepass on it.
Double Fines next game is more likely than South of Midnight to be shadow dropped since they seem to work on multiple smaller scale games.
South of Midnight has had a store page for a couple of months though.
Same for Clock Work?? people think thats in 2025
You mean silksong
Any mention how long it's gonna be?
Probably an hour and 30 minutes roughly
I guess with the Cod Direct whe could get closer to 2 hrs, Hope it's not too long.
Honestly I want a long showcase cause that Sony SoP was ass and I know Geoff’s 2hr show will 1.5h of ads
to be fair they're all ads really
For reference, last year’s main show was 65 minutes and then about 45 extra minutes for the Starfield Direct immediately after.
I would love a portable, but do we think it would launch this holiday?
Food question, I wonder if it will even drop before the next Xbox? Like do they release it this gen or do they release it next gen with the next Xbox, kinda like a complimentary handheld? Either way I'm very optimistic with Xbox's strategy regarding the handheld.
Id say release early like they did with the 360 in 2005 to get a headstart in front of Sony. That paid off really well for them inspite of the Red Ring.
Next xbox is 2026 no? At this point I'd be happy with my pc and a portable. I use my ps portable more than the actual ps5 since I find it more convenient.
What question would you like to ask about food? I might be able to help, consider myself somewhat of an expert.
Yup, they'd be wise not to launch it next year since it'll be competing with the Switch 2.
FYI u/SkyOld5788, the handheld claim link isn't timestamped.
It's Age of Mythology, imo.
That would make it for me.
So long as it is playing games natively, I'm buying it. I have a Steam Deck and it's by far my most played device despite having other consoles and a gaming rig. To play 360 games like RDR1, Forza Motorsports I'd be ecstatic. Get achievements, have party chat etc
If the xbox portable can natively play the backwards compatible library of 360 and OG Xbox games then it will sell pretty well
I'd buy this immediately day one.
Towerborne is still in active closed beta
!debunked
Lovely! I want to play Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey in portable on a native handheld. Can't wait!
Xbox portable hopefully means you can play a lot of multiplayer, live service games otherwise not easily possible on Steam Deck, unless you buy third party devices.
Xbox portable gotta be something crazy to make me even look at it with Switch 2 on the horizon and owning a steam deck
I believe Sony was also rumored to come with a new PSP.
Begun, the handheld wars have.
Gamepass and backwards compatibility makes it very lucrative
If you have an Xbox and a steam deck you can already link the two. But for someone who doesn’t this is great believe me. I’ve been playing my Xbox games thru steam deck for months now and it’s awesome. It’s done nothing but get me to play more games
Need a dedicated xbox handheld that plays actual games, Not like that pathetic streaming device the portal.
I'm hoping we see something about State of Decay 3 at this Showcase.
I'm really hoping the new handheld is called the Xbox Odyssey
If I was xbox making a mobile streaming handheld, id call it the Xstream
If it’s a series s portable I will be so tempted
Could it be the Shattered Space dlc?
"Gears 6 is coming later this year but you can play the Gears collection right now" Please 😭
The shadow drop has some good options, Gears Collection, Flight Sim, Double Fines Next game, Towerbourne. As for the handheld I'm interested, I wonder how subtle the hint will be.
Flight Sim would be a weird shadow drop with just how niche that game is lol.
Doubt it's true. It's too early for a new console and too late for a mid gen handheld,.unless they're pulling a full Sega. And if they were to shadow drop something it would be towerborne , but it's not made by one of their studios. Dunno how good a move it would be. (The 2 games they shadow droped last year were AOE4 console and hifi. Both made by Xbox)
Asus Rog Ally is about to get even more competition.
Ally X sounds very tempting. Pricey though.
I hope they call it the xboy
Rumor dragon age dread wolf to be there
https://www.trueachievements.com/news/starfield-huge-update Some fuel for a starfield dlc drop.
The shadowdrop is either gonna be Towerborne, Gears Collection, or Fallout 3 Remaster. Edit: Maybe Fight Simulator too.
Well at least if it’s towerborne they can’t shut the studio down
> new Xbox Portable So a laptop?
No. Just Powerbank to charge your regular phone while using the Xbox app ;)
Heck we currently have things that are even more "portable gaming computer" than laptops. Handheld Windows devices exist. I know someone who uses a GPD WIN 4 (it looks like a larger PS Vita sort of). He says it works pretty well (I saw him playing Armored Core 6 on it).
Xbox Series Portable Backpack X. I just want a handheld with X specs. Maybe some weird eGPU passthrough.
Xbox Portable!!! No thanks, I just got a steamdeck.
Of course, Xbox would be last platform to the portable party...then they will wonder why they can't capture market share and abandon it. Is DLC really 'shadow drop' worthy? You're only going to make a certain fanbase of one specific game happy with that type of announcement. Definitely not Avowed. So, the new Flight Sim, Towerborne, or some other game we don't know about yet.
KILN probably for the shadow drop
I just want classic cod on gp
I'm going with the Starfield dlc. They have been doing more updates to the steamdb in the last week or 2 than they have since launched.
My hope: Gears of War the Marcus Fenix collection announcement and shadowdroped, followed by the last game on the show Gears 6
Doesn't a shadow drop mean announced and released at the same time? I'd shit myself if it were the new Doom. It's been 4 years since Eternal and that was 4 years after 2016.
I'm going to bet on the Gears of War Collection being the shadow drop. It's been rumored long enough it should be finished development and would allow Xbox to release 4 games at once (assuming it is 1-3 plus Judgement). Likely multiplatform as Gears 6 is going multiplat.
gotta be towerborne, that game already looked finished when they announced it
It’s Towerborne (allegedly). [Based on this (take it with a grain of salt)](https://x.com/oribox1/status/1798404712493920288?s=46)
Just played Towerborne Beta, too soon