Microsoft finally wants to make gaming on handhelds less of a chore

By Willow Roberts Published January 8, 2025

Whispers about an Xbox handheld have been circulating for a while now, but it looks like the project is still in the very early stages. At an AMD and Lenovo event this week at CES, however, Xbox chief Phil Spencer spoke to The Verge and dropped hints about Microsoft’s plans to combine the Xbox and Windows gaming experiences together.

It seems this phrasing refers to bringing the strengths of the Xbox operating system to existing and future Windows gaming handhelds. Working on a handheld version of the XboxOS is part of the work the company will need to do to create an Xbox handheld, but it looks like we’ll get to see ongoing developments way before that hardware is ready to come out. Spencer said that we should expect to see changes to the Windows handheld gaming experience at some point this year.

This should be welcome news to anyone with a Windows gaming handheld because it’s no secret that Windows in its current form is not ideal for handheld gaming. Over the years, the OS has received just about every complaint you could think of: It pushes Microsoft products and data sharing too much; it’s not optimized for gamepad controls; the onscreen keyboard is no good; and it can’t handle the “sleep and resume” functionality that is essential for any gaming handheld. Many say it’s a lot less intuitive than Valve’s SteamOS.

The problem with Microsoft’s sudden plans to improve, however, is the timing. Just as everyone knows that Windows is not great on gaming handhelds, they also know that SteamOS is the current gold standard. Until now, it’s been firmly locked to the first-party Steam Deck handheld — but all of that changed this week. Lenovo revealed its third-party handheld running SteamOS, and Valve confirmed its plans to partner with many more manufacturers.

In other words, if Microsoft doesn’t hurry up and get these promised improvements out the door, Valve could start convincing handheld manufacturers to switch from Windows to the Linux-based SteamOS. If Valve makes it easy enough to switch, it should be a tempting offer for plenty of manufacturers.