It seems that Microsoft’s dedicated handheld gaming device won’t see the light of day anytime soon. According to a new report, the hardware, and the entire project as it stands, has been put on hold internally at the company.
Windows Central reports that the hardware, which was leaked late last year already, and supposedly being worked on by a dedicated team, has been put on pause. It is reported that Microsoft has shifted its focus on improving the gaming experience in Windows 11 and its integration across other handheld devices.
The report suggests that the company wants to further polish the gaming experience in Windows 11 across current hardware before working on its own dedicated device.
We don’t know how far Microsoft’s handheld is in development. The project hasn’t been confirmed yet at the company, but Xbox head Phil Spencer has openly commented about the possibility of an Xbox handheld experience. So much so that Spencer has even said that he “can’t stop thinking about it“.
With that much enthusiasm, it is likely that Microsoft has been in deep R&D for the handheld since late 2024. However, the company isn’t backing out of the handheld race just yet. The upcoming ASUS ROG Ally 2 is expected to release in a special “Xbox Edition” form as a collaboration between Microsoft and ASUS.
We got a glimpse at this leaked handheld earlier this month. The device is one of two versions of the new ROG Ally 2 and will ship in a black design with a dedicated Xbox button. The hardware has also seemingly adopted the Xbox Wireless Controller grips.
According to the leaked specs, the Xbox Edition of the ROG Ally 2 will have vastly superior performance, RAM, and storage compared to the standard Ally 2. However, ASUS has yet to confirm the existence of the device. We thought the company would have announced it during Computex, but it was seemingly missing from the event.
This new ROG Ally 2 is what Microsoft wants to focus on first before getting too deep in development with its own dedicated hardware. So it will be interesting to see how the integration with Xbox works on this device. We’ll likely see the ASUS ROG Ally 2 release later this year.
If you can’t wait for that, Nintendo’s Switch 2 console is out next week, Sony is also reportedly working on a PlayStation handheld product, and there are new MSI Claw devices with the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme on the way too. So it isn’t like the handheld market is dead.
Source: Windows Central
