Xbox Handheld Console is an Xbox family device that may be announced very soon

Portable consoles have always been considered a relatively niche device, which, however, all players in the console market have tried and are releasing, with the exception of Microsoft. But this trend may change very soon. At least this is reported by a popular insider specializing in Xbox under the nickname eXtas1s. We'll talk about this today.

In this article, you will learn about when and where the Xbox Handheld Console will be announced, what are the motives for the release of such a portable device, who Microsoft’s consoles will have to compete with, and what fans should generally expect from a potential new solution from Xbox.

Possible announcement date and place of the Xbox Handheld Console

According to eXtas1s, an insider who is mainly known for various leaks on Xbox and Activision Blizzard, fans of the green brand should expect an announcement or a short teaser of a new device from Microsoft on June 9th. It is not yet known whether this will be a full-fledged presentation of the new console, or whether this device will simply be announced to us.

On Sunday, June 9th, the annual Xbox Games Showcase 2024 will take place, which will last over two hours, and Microsoft is rumored to show more than 30 games from internal studios and third-party developers. The Xbox Handheld Console may be presented at the same event, since this is the main presentation of the American publisher. This event will probably be planned either at the very beginning of the broadcast, or at the end of the show.

Motives of Microsoft Management

The head of Microsoft's gaming division, Phil Spencer, first spoke about the idea of releasing a portable Xbox in early spring of this year. At the annual Game Developers Conference, Phil said that he had tried every handheld PC on the market and had a desire to make them more like the Xbox.

In the understanding of the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, on such a portable device, he would like to run the Xbox application or dashboard and have all his favorite games at hand. There should also be social features that are available to all members of the Xbox ecosystem. And he calls the main problem that on all such devices everything revolves around software, not hardware, that is, they are literally closer to PCs than to consoles.

Potential competitors and market positioning

Although at first glance it may seem that the main competitors of the Xbox Handheld Console may be devices such as Steam Deck, Lenovo Legion Go and Ally, this is probably not entirely true. At least with the current approach to its game consoles, Microsoft is unlikely to make exactly that a portable PC, where the user can both use the Xbox dashboard and Windows, installing various applications.

The most likely competitor for Microsoft's portable console will be the Nintendo Switch, which is a game console in the usual sense. The place in the portable gaming market for the Xbox Handheld Console may largely depend on the price that Microsoft sets. If a relatively inexpensive but sufficiently productive solution awaits us, then it will find its player.

Expectations from the Xbox Portable

In general, the Xbox Handheld Console, with the proper combination of performance and autonomy, will certainly be an excellent solution and alternative to the Nintendo Switch. Yes, you won't have Mario and The Legends of Zelda, but you will have access to Xbox Game Pass, which has all Microsoft games released on release day, as well as many projects from third-party developers.

Xbox is going to offer players another way to play their games, expanding their own ecosystem. And considering that the system will most likely support a large list of applications such as YouTube, Twitch, DAZN and many others, the portable console from Microsoft has every chance of becoming a convenient multimedia device.

The only potential disadvantage of the Xbox Handheld Console may be the fact that if the device does not sell in sufficient quantities, then developers will pay less attention to optimizing their games for the characteristics of the console. Then the question will arise of the quality of graphics and the stability of the number of frames that the new product from Xbox will demonstrate.

The market for portable gaming devices has recently experienced an unprecedented boom, and the emergence of the Xbox Handheld Console will add even more competition to it, from which absolutely everyone will benefit in the end. Will Microsoft succeed, and is the insider right? Time will show.