Let’s be honest, there’s only one thing most of the tech world is interested in today: Apple’s most important Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in years, at which it will reveal its possibly make-or-break AI strategy. But Tim Cook’s crucial keynote is taking place as this newsletter comes out, and we already gave you some previews a couple days ago, so right now let’s talk about gaming.
It’s increasingly looking like Microsoft will reveal a proper Xbox handheld. Yesterday, after the annual Xbox Games Showcase, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer made an appearance at IGN Live, and one of the things he was asked about was the possibility of making a version of the legendary console that users can carry around with them.
Now, Spencer has previously declared his enthusiasm for the concept of handhelds, but this time he wouldn’t even let his interviewer finish the question. “We should have a handheld!” he exclaimed. Spencer wouldn’t go so far as to confirm it was coming, but he did say “the future for us in hardware is pretty awesome” and professed excitement about the work his team was doing on “different form factors.”
Spencer also said he finds the ability to play games locally “very important” in a handheld, which should make sense to anyone who ever finds themselves out of range of an internet connection. That would be a major distinction between the hypothetical Xbox handheld and Sony’s PlayStation Portal, which came out late last year and which only streams games from the PlayStation 5 via the cloud. “I like my ROG Ally, my Lenovo Legion Go, my Steam Deck,” Spencer said, referring to handhelds that take the on-device gaming approach.
It should also be noted that Sony is rumored to be working on a new PlayStation handheld that also runs games locally—a successor to the classic PlayStation Portable or PSP, which ran games off a little optical disc called the Universal Media Disc, and was available between 2004 and 2014. But again, that’s just a rumor, and even the Xbox handheld remains in the realm of the theoretical for now.
As for stuff that’s actually been announced, Microsoft used its showcase yesterday to reveal new, disc-free versions of its Xbox Series X and S consoles, which it hopes will catch on with buyers when available for the upcoming holiday season 2024 (and no, I also can’t believe I’m already writing that phrase). Sony is widely expected to release a PlayStation 5 Pro around the same time; both companies will be hoping these launches pull them out of an industry-wide sales slump for consoles and games alike.
So there you go—non-Apple news is still happening! More of which below.
David Meyer
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