Xbox CEO Phil Spencer confirmed that the company is working on a handheld device, which has been heavily rumored for quite some time. However, don’t expect it any time soon.
In a Bloomberg interview, Spencer said Microsoft said that a potential device is only in the prototyping stage at this time. Even if the team was set to bring a product to market, it would still be a few years out.
“Longer term, I love us building devices,” Spencer told Bloomberg. “And I think our team could do some real innovative work, but we want to be informed by learning and what’s happening now.”
A lot of handheld consoles and cloud streaming devices have entered the market over the past few years. The space is arguably led by the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck right now, but there are plenty of other competitors, including the Logitech G Cloud and the Asus ROG Ally. Xbox’s main competitor PlayStation also released a handheld late last year called the PlayStation Portal that just allows players to remotely stream games from their PlayStation 5.
Microsoft executives have been teasing the possibility of a handheld for a while, but Spencer has done a lot of the anticipation-building himself. He’s talked a lot about handhelds in the past, and in June, he told IGN that Xbox is looking to expand its hardware options.
“The future for us in hardware is pretty awesome. The work that the team is doing around different form factors and different ways to play, I’m incredibly excited about,” he said.
However, a roadmap that leaked as part of a recent FTC trial showed Xbox’s plans through 2030, with a dedicated handheld “not in scope for first party.”
In September, Xbox vice president Sarah Bond told Bloomberg that she wants to reach players wherever they play. Xbox Game Pass has expanded to a number of platforms, even allowing Amazon Fire TV users to stream Xbox games.
“I want people to think no matter who you are, you can come to Xbox and find a game,” she said.
Spencer also said in the Bloomberg interview that the company is interested in more acquisitions to break into new markets like Asia, and to tap into mobile gaming. Xbox has already begun its investment into mobile, with the Activision Blizzard acquisition netting them Candy Crush Saga maker King.
“We definitely want to be in the market, and when we can find teams and technology and capability that add to what we’re trying to do in gaming at Microsoft, absolutely we will keep our heads up,” he said.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.