Production on a first-party handheld Xbox device has reportedly been put on hold. Jez Corden from Windows Central claims that Microsoft is sidelining the handheld in order to work on improving Windows 11 gaming performance, particularly for third-party handheld devices.
Though nothing was ever announced by Microsoft, it has long been rumored that the company was working on their own handheld gaming device. An official Xbox branded handheld was rumored to target a 2027 release alongside a new "standard" Xbox console. It's this handheld device that Microsoft has temporarily put on the backburner.
Microsoft is shifting teams to instead work on improving gaming performance on third-party devices running Windows 11.
Indeed, Microsoft still wants to build its own Xbox handheld in the future, but Microsoft has decided to prioritize its teams to improve Windows 11 gaming performance, specifically for devices like the ASUS partner device "Project Kennan."
This shift from working on their own device to working on improving gaming performance comes after benchmarks showed SteamOS lightly destroying Windows 11 on identical hardware.
We understand that Kennan is still targeting a launch for later this year. The hardware side is essentially finished. Tentatively, we believe this device to be among the first using the AMD Z2 Extreme, but we are still working on solid confirmation for that.
There's a significantly boosted effort between the Xbox and Windows teams to improve the experience on the software side. Devices like the ASUS ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go already run on regular Windows 11, and the Xbox layers and apps have gotten better, but there's still a lot of improvements that could be made.
There's a significantly boosted effort between the Xbox and Windows teams to improve the experience on the software side. Devices like the ASUS ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go already run on regular Windows 11, and the Xbox layers and apps have gotten better, but there's still a lot of improvements that could be made.
(Mockup of what ASUS' Project Kennan could look like via Windows Central)
