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Microsoft is gearing up for an enormous vacation season on the finish of this yr. Throughout yesterday’s much-hyped Official Xbox Podcast, Xbox president Sarah Bond teased news relating to the corporate’s {hardware}, in addition to its plans for its next-gen gaming gadgets. “What we’re actually targeted on there’s delivering the biggest technical leap you’ll have ever seen in a {hardware} era,” she stated.
The largest query about Microsoft’s subsequent guess, then, isn’t whether or not or not it can proceed to make conventional consoles that plug into your tv. It’s if Microsoft will comply with within the footsteps of corporations like Nintendo and Valve to make a console you may carry round. Gaming has lengthy superior previous the purpose of handhelds solely offering a separate, smaller expertise; you may play all the things from battle royal megahits like Fortnite to expansive, open worlds like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom with no full TV setup.
Different Microsoft rivals like Sony have already dipped into handhelds. Along with the corporate’s efforts just like the PlayStation Vita, which it stopped producing in 2019, it launched PlayStation Portal—which lets you stream video games out of your PS5—final yr.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has expressed admiration for his rivals’ methods. Throughout a current interview with The Verge, he says Microsoft has been “type of studying from what Nintendo has accomplished through the years with Swap … once I take a look at Steam Deck and the ROG [handheld] and my [Lenovo handheld] Legion Go, I’m an enormous fan of that house.” What retains gamers from gaming extra, he says, is extra than simply sleep or the common obligations of life. “A few of it’s simply entry,” he advised The Verge. “Do I’ve entry to the video games that I need to play proper now?”
Even when requested instantly about whether or not Microsoft could be making a handheld, Spencer refuted the concept. “I’m an enormous fan, however nothing to announce.”
Doubling down on conventional consoles this vacation season isn’t surprising. In September, Microsoft accidentally leaked details about its launch plans, together with a take a look at its mid-gen console refresh and a brand new controller, via unredacted paperwork. If nonetheless correct, the paperwork additionally included data on its next-gen Xbox console, pegged to 2028, as a “hybrid recreation platform” that may use the cloud.
Though cloud gaming presents a gorgeous answer for some gamers seeking to keep away from the effort of a console on the shelf of their residence leisure middle, Xbox execs have always been firm that conventional consoles are necessary to the enterprise. “Once we take a look at our {hardware} … it is the place you get essentially the most flagship, seminal expertise of Xbox,” Bond stated in the course of the podcast. “And it additionally represents a developer goal. Our builders can construct the specs of our {hardware}, and we make investments to verify after they try this the video games are going to run nice on our {hardware}, however they’re additionally going to have the ability to be accessed throughout any display due to all the opposite investments we make.”
As Microsoft opens up its video games to more platforms, it must make its signature {hardware} extra interesting past a group loyal to the brand itself. Spencer himself might agree; eagle-eyed followers have observed him liking tweets calling a handheld “inevitable.” Microsoft doesn’t must make a technological leap to make nice video games accessible; only one that allows you to go exterior on occasion.
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