Could the Xbox Series S be MS entry into a Handheld Device

[curl-6]

Kyuu said:

curl-6 said:

I'm not saying it's impossible, but it comes back to the fact you'd be adding yet more and likely lower performance targets for games to hit, where the Series S is already struggling, plus potentially breaking compatibility for games that just can't run when portable. That's a rather messy proposition.

Plus, $500 is too steep for a handheld, at that price it will only sell to a niche audience of enthusiasts like Steam Deck.

Even if it sells as few as 5 million units, I'd consider that successful enough to more than warrants its existence. The cool thing about these "SteamDeck style" handhelds is that they don't need to sell much in order to get supported. A Series S handheld would be a much better system than the Vita even if it sells a fraction of what the Vita sold. And since it's not competing over resources with its home console counterpart, there is no serious downside to it as long as it's not mandated for more demanding games.

An additional userbase of 5 million may translate to a 7-10% increase in software sales and subscriptions.

I can't see Microsoft going to all the effort of a handheld Xbox Series just for another 5 million sales.

I don't think that would lead to 10% more software sales or subscriptions either as there would be overlap of some people who already own a Series S/X getting one to play their existing library and subscription on, plus some of the buyers would be people who would've otherwise just gotten an X or an S anyway so it's a sale they would already have gotten instead of an addition.