I watch this youtube video of this guy giving a pretty good presentation on why he believes MS strategy for the Xbox Series S could also be MS looking to come out with their own handheld device.  What do people think.

What's the point? They would make it a digital-only cloud device. Meh. You can do that on your phone. Also no not with SXS specs, battery life would be shit. Game Gear and SEGA Nomad would have good battery life by comparison. Isn't the most reasonable chip for Switch 2 somewhere in the middle of the base Xbox One and PS4 Pro power? The time for an Xbox Handheld was probably in 2005. Look how big Steam Deck is and still well below SXS in power.

This would certainly solve the problem of needing to make separate games for console and handheld that both Sony and Nintendo ran up against last gen.
Plus, with Series S already providing a lower power baseline, it might only be a couple more years until a Series P that can run the same games at lower settings is viable.

There are still some obstacles though; Series S is already having difficulty keeping up with the demands of 9th gen gaming, and we're still largely in the crossgen period. Adding a third, perhaps even lower, performance profile would be even more troublesome, especially given that the bar for graphics will be higher by the time it happens.

Another problem is that by the time it is viable, it will have missed out on a big chunk of the generation and its lifespan will be shortened by the arrival of the 10th gen.

not every company need to enter the handheld market, especially not Microsoft since they are selling subscriptions instead of games, and they could just use Steamdeck to sell that subscription. also remember that Microsoft lose money on every console they sell and imagine that would be the case with a handheld device too

If I can download my Xbox, Xbox360, Xbox One and Xbox Series games without having to be on the internet or a Cloud connection - I can see myself getting this.

If Sony makes a Playstation version of a handheld that plays everything that the PS5 can play, I'll get that too.

Sony's approach seems to be going for a remote play streaming device:

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/247301/report-sony-developing-a-new-handheld-console-codenamed-q-lite/1/

It's harder for them to make a portable SKU as they don't have a low spec model already targeted so the baseline is higher, plus they've built their image around uncompromising graphics, while portables are by necessity graphically compromised.

Bleh.

I'm not too interested in a streaming device.

I'll just stick to my Switch and iPhone for gaming.

Yes this is definitely one way to breathe life into the Series S and justify the low specs for a larger demographic. But I still think they would have to find a middle ground and only mandate it for games that aren't super demanding.

The XBox Series S with a 1080P G-Story display attached will chug on about 85w.



Mobile technology is already at the point where you can get Almost-Series S levels of capability in a handheld, especially once Pheonix and Dragon Range drop this year at TSMC 4nm.

It's not about the raw spec sheet numbers either, but the efficiency gains brought forth thanks to improvements found in Zen 3/4 and RDNA 3/4 that the Series S misses out on.

In the scenario posted in the video, this would not be a cloud device, but rather something more akin to a steam deck: a handheld using a die shrunk series S chip (he speculated TSMC 3 nanometer) with an output resolution capped at 720p in handheld mode and a power target of 15 watts.