The state of handheld gaming PCs is lots completely different right now than again when the Steam Deck was initially launched. Except for all of the {hardware} and specs drama, your decisions primarily come right down to one in every of two segments.
Your machine is both power-efficient and performant sufficient to really allow you to get a couple of hours of gameplay on the go, nevertheless it runs SteamOS or some Linux variant, making it solely usable with a subset of video games, and locking you out of a few of the greatest titles. Or, you get what’s primarily a mini Home windows laptop computer that pretends to be made for gaming, however you miss out on the transformative options of SteamOS and Linux, and the battery life they permit.
At CES 2025, we’re beginning to see the 2 realms merge, however Microsoft has its eye on what may very well be the subsequent evolution of that marriage.
Microsoft has made a number of feedback up to now about its intent to construct a handheld console. However is that going to be a pocket-size Xbox, a handheld Home windows machine or one thing altogether completely different? Properly, it appears like the reply isn’t clearcut.
Microsoft’s VP of subsequent era, Jason Ronald, spoke to The Verge following an AMD and Lenovo occasion at this week’s CES 2025. Ronald revealed what most of the individuals who comply with the hand-held area have suspected for some time; that Microsoft needs to carry the seamless, console expertise of Xbox to Home windows, not bloat the previous with programmes designed for desktop and workplace use.
“We’ve been actually innovating for a very long time within the console area, and as we companion throughout the trade it’s actually about how can we carry these improvements that we’ve incubated and developed within the console area and convey them to PC and convey them to the hand-held gaming area,” stated Ronald.
How that’s going to manifest stays the true query, nonetheless, and Ronald actually wasn’t wanting to share specifics, which is kind of comprehensible contemplating the event timeline of the mysterious Xbox handheld.
“I might say it’s bringing the perfect of Xbox and Home windows collectively, as a result of now we have spent the final 20 years constructing a world-class working system, nevertheless it’s actually locked to the console,” he added.
There’s nice significance to this specific occasion, too, that’s price holding in thoughts. That is the place the Lenovo Legion Go S was introduced, which is the corporate’s second-generation handheld that runs SteamOS, positioning it as a direct competitor to the Steam Deck, and the primary third-party a kind of to make use of Valve’s modified Linux working system.
It’s unlikely that the Xbox handheld will run SteamOS, or dualboot between Home windows and Linux. What’s extra prone to occur is that Microsoft could have, hopefully, fine-tuned the Home windows expertise sufficient for it to make sense on a handheld. That’s actually what Ronald instructed.
“We’re centered on actually simplifying that and making it far more like a console expertise,” Ronald stated of the Home windows expertise on handhelds. “Our aim is to place the participant and their library on the heart of the expertise and never all of the [Windows] work that you must do right now.”
Ronald rightly identified that the Xbox OS is, on the finish of the day, a variant of Home windows, so the thought of constructing that console expertise work on a special machine isn’t outlandish and even impractical. The excellent news is that we’re going to begin seeing a few of these efforts later this yr, doubtless effectively earlier than we get a have a look at Xbox’s mysterious handheld.
