Phil Spencer Talks About Why There’s No Need for an Xbox Handheld
The handheld space has seen massive growth in recent years. Driven primarily by the success of the Nintendo Switch, it has seen other major players enter the space as well, with the likes of the Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally providing well-rounded portable PC gaming experiences. Soon, Sony will be throwing its hat in the ring with the Remote Play device PlayStation Portal– so can we expect Microsoft to eventually join the fray as well?
It doesn’t seem like that’s part of the plan. Speaking recently with Eurogamer, Xbox boss Phil Spencer touched on the topic, saying that thanks to almost every Xbox game being playable on handheld devices like Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally, and often also supporting cross-save functionality, Microsoft doesn’t see a space that needs to be filled with a device that’ll deliver something that can’t already be found on the market.
“We have a lot of games in Steam, so I can kind of see and in fact, I think we just saw in the Steam charts that Linux is now ahead of Mac OS as a runtime platform, and I have to believe the Steam Deck had a ton to do with that,” Spencer said. ” I know for me, my ROG Ally is my Xbox on the go. Because almost every game supports cross-save so I can sit down and I can pick up my progress there. My friends are there if I’m playing a multiplayer game. And then when I go home, and I pick up from my console, it’s very continuous. So I’m picking a little bit on the niche experience. I think if it was something totally dedicated to being extension of the console. But these are standalone platforms unto themselves.”
He went on to add that specifically where the ROG Ally is concerned, other than the fact that it wasn’t actually made by Microsoft itself, it functions like a
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