Handhelds have had a long and brilliant history in the gaming world. Although several consoles had technically preceded it, Nintendo's Game Boy broke new ground for handheld gaming, offering near-NES-level experiences on the go. Nintendo continued to prove itself in the handheld space with subsequent iterations of the Game Boy, and the company set a new bar for the entire industry with the release of the Nintendo DS in 2006. But while PlayStation is trying to compete with Nintendo in the handheld space, xbox It remains lit, but that is changing.
After more than a year of speculation and rumors, Phil Spencer confirmed in a recent interview with Bloomberg that Xbox is indeed developing a handheld device. Granted, Spencer also claimed that it will still be a few years before fans see it on the market. But when the Xbox handheld finally arrived, there was one clear feature that surely set it apart from the competition.
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The Xbox Handheld will have a top sleeve
The Xbox handheld may have some tough competition
The handheld market is probably busier than ever. The Nintendo Switch is now in its seventh year and has sold over 140 million units alongside its Lite and OLED models. Although its hardware is objectively inferior to even the latest generation of PlayStation and Xbox consoles, the Switch's handheld nature, high level of brand recognition, and family-friendly tilt have kept it at the top of the gaming world for the best part of decades. .
In 2022, Valve thought it would try its hand at creating a handheld console. In the two years since its release, the Steam Deck has been hailed as one of the best handhelds ever made, capable of running some of the most demanding modern hardware games with very few limitations.
The handheld console market may look a little different by the time the Xbox hits store shelves, but it may not be that different. A successor to the Nintendo Switch is due to be announced next year, and Valve has already confirmed that a second generation Steam Deck is in development. So the Xbox handheld competition may not be that different now than it was when it launched.
Additionally, a recent Bloomberg report suggests that PlayStation is also in the early stages of developing a new handheld console. If this is true, the Xbox handheld will have some tough competition once it launches.
Xbox Game Pass could be Xbox Handheld's secret weapon
For the past year, Xbox has been trying to market the concept that Xbox is not just a console, but anything that can run Xbox software. Xbox Game Pass has been at the forefront of this recent marketing, with ads often showing players enjoying their subscription via cloud streaming across Xbox, PC, mobile and various other devices.
When the Xbox handheld is officially announced, it's highly likely that Xbox Game Pass will be a major selling point for it, and for good reason. Putting Xbox Game Pass front and center on the upcoming handheld will be a huge plus in the short and long term.
In the short term, Xbox handheld players will have access to a vast library of hundreds of games, all at no additional cost. And with a wide range of gameplay experiences running in the Xbox Game Pass library, players can instantly test the power of the handheld console, with countless AAA and indie games ready and waiting on day one.
In the long run, Xbox Game Pass ensures that handheld players have an ever-changing library of games. Additionally, while the PlayStation handheld can bring its own collection of PS Plus titles, Game Pass will still have the upper hand, as PS Plus won't add first-party games to the service on day one. And that advantage will only become clearer over time, as Xbox's first-party offerings now include Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda, and Activision-Blizzard.
