Microsoft may be pivoting to a multiplatform approach for its biggest games, but that doesn’t mean it’s abandoning hardware just yet. The company reportedly has an Xbox partner handheld planned for 2025 as it works on its next-gen consoles aiming for release in 2027. It looks like the Switch 2 won’t be the only handheld console hybrid players have to choose from this year.
That’s according to a new report by Windows Central. It claims the new device will be an Xbox-branded PC gaming handheld from an existing OEM and that it’s codenamed “Kennan.” It’ll have an official Xbox guide button and is currently planned to launch later this year, with the successor to the Xbox Series X/S generation of consoles greenlit for a planned launch as early as 2027. Notably, it sounds like it’ll be a single next-gen console, with the current Series S potentially subsumed by the handheld if it’s successful.
The report also claims that the next generation of controllers might feature “direct-to-cloud connectivity.” It’s believed the Microsoft’s work with generative AI and the existing Windows platform for PC will both play a greater role in Xbox’s future as well. This dovetails with recent signals from the company’s top leadership.
Last year, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said the company was exploring a gaming handheld but that a finished product was still a couple of years out. It’s possible that’s still the case, and that this 2025 “Xbox-branded” handheld is considered more of a half-step in that direction. Earlier this year at CES 2025, Jason Ronald, Microsoft’s VP of “Next Generation,” told The Verge the company was the aiming to bring the “best of Xbox and Windows together” for future PC gaming handhelds, seemingly through a new gaming-centric OS or OS layer that could compete more directly with SteamOS.
Update 3/10/25 5:30 p.m. ET: As clarified in an exchange between The Verge’s Tom Warren and Windows Central’s Jez Corden, Kennan will be something of a reskinned “partner” PC Gaming handheld running this new software layer, not a full-blown Xbox device developed in-house.
These moves come as rumors swirl about Sony working on bringing back its own line of gaming handhelds and with Nintendo’s Switch 2 just on the horizon. This time around, however, it doesn’t seem like Microsoft plans to fight the competition with exclusives. The company started bringing its games to PlayStation 5 and the existing Switch last year, and its more powerful specs suggest we’ll see even more Xbox games on Switch 2. Microsoft also previously committed to start bringing Call of Duty back to Nintendo’s platform in one form or another.
Update 3/12/25 2:01 p.m. ET: Warren reports in a follow-up newsletter at The Verge that the rumored handheld is being made by ASUS (codenamed “Kennan” not “Keenan”) and will run Windows with a more Xbox-looking layer overtop. He adds that Microsoft is currently working to dissolve the barriers between its console and Windows game stores so that purchase and data work seamlessly across both. This effort is codenamed Project Bayside.
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