Rumor: XBox Planning To Launch Its Own Handheld Console In 2025

Amidst the buzz surrounding Nintendo’s Switch 2, another gaming giant is rumored to be planning its own debut in the handheld space this year.

According to Windows Central, Microsoft is planning to release an XBox branded handheld gaming console sometime in 2025. This console is claimed to be codenamed “Keenan”, and is being worked on in collaboration with an unspecified “PC gaming OEM”. This collaboration device will look  “unmistakably ‘Xbox'”, and will feature familiar design aesthetics and buttons.

In addition, Windows Central also claims that there is a second handheld in the works at Microsoft. This unnamed second device is being produced fully in-house by Microsoft, and will release in 2027 alongside the XBox Series X/S “Premium” successor. This successor is reportedly “fully in production”, greenlit “all the way up to [Microsoft] CEO Satya Nadella”.

XBox head Phil Spencer has voiced enthusiasm for a handheld XBox in the past, and the higher ups at Microsoft evidently felt the same. Whether or not these plans come to fruition, and whether the resulting machines will be worthy rivals to the Switch 2 remain to be seen.

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