This is when the Xbox handheld and next-gen console could be released

11 March, 2025

Xbox wireless controller

It’s been reported that Xbox is gearing up to release a new handheld console ahead of a successor to the Xbox Series X/S.

Last year, Xbox teased it was working on a handheld console to rival the Nintendo Switch.  In June, boss Phil Spencer told IGN that, “the future for us in hardware is pretty awesome. The work that the team is doing around different form factors, different ways to play, I’m incredibly excited about.” A few months later he said that the “expectation is that we would do something” in the handheld gaming space, with a team already working on prototypes.

Now, a new report from Windows Central suggests the Xbox handheld will be released later this year.

The report says that the project, codename Keenan, will look “unmistakably Xbox” and is being developed alongside an unnamed PC manufacturer. The Microsoft Store and PC Game Pass will both feature heavily but the device will also be able to run platforms like Steam.

Windows Central also claims a successor to the Xbox Series X/S has been “fully greenlit all the way up to CEO Satya Nadella.”

“For now, I understand that Microsoft’s next-gen hardware plans include a premium successor to the powerful Xbox Series X, alongside its own Xbox gaming handheld, and several new controller options. Tentatively, these new console devices are slated for 2027,” the report adds.

Last year Spencer said a new Xbox was “years” away. The successor to the PlayStation 5 is also rumoured to be launching in 2027 while the Nintendo Switch 2 is due out later this year.

It’s also been reported that a number of Xbox-exclusive titles could be coming to rival platforms.

In other news, one Nintendo fan has travelled 68 miles around Paris to recreate the moustachioed-mascot’s face in exercise app Strava to celebrate Mario Day.

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