Microsoft is reportedly looking to enter a market that is now essentially dominated by the Nintendo Switch alone, as Sony hasn’t made a dedicated handheld platform since the PlayStation Vita (and since the PlayStation Portal can’t be used standalone and run anything locally, it doesn’t count as one).

Jez Corden, an editor at Windows Central, talked more about Microsoft’s yet-to-be-announced portable Xbox during a podcast. He alluded to this Switch-rivaling device on Twitter back in February, when he responded positively to the question “Is Xbox working on a handheld console? This is significant not only because after the demise of the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita, only the Nintendo Switch can be considered a dedicated console that is not a portable PC, but also because Microsoft has yet to make any inroads into this market.

On the Xbox Two podcast, Corden shared new information about the handheld Xbox. A new Xbox developer kit (devkit) has been registered in South Korea, and Corden says the company already has prototypes of the handheld Xbox. And these are new prototypes, not the old ones that have been rumored, but he admitted that even though they are testing such hardware, it’s still no guarantee that they will actually appear.

According to Corden, based on hard analysis, Microsoft is absolutely aiming to have a handheld product that would be more powerful than PlayStation Portal, because it would be able to run games in the cloud (PS Portal can currently only be played remotely from our PlayStation 5, while it should also be able to play PlayStation Plus titles from the cloud…).

The renaissance of portable devices was brought about by the Nintendo Switch and Valve’s Steam Deck. The latter launched the portable PC market, with the Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and dozens of other handheld PCs released over the past few years. So Microsoft’s idea seems logical.

Source: GameRant