It's actually a horrible experience.

Windows 11 is not designed for small portable touch screens.
Windows 8 was... But ironically enough they tried to force it on mouse/keyboard users.

Any handheld needs it's own OS and UI, which is why the Steamdeck is so good.

A portable handheld gaming device would need to use the Xbox OS, it's efficient and ideal for touch... And if it can run current Series S and older console games natively, then even better.

Not so off topic but even if I'm not a fan of MS' games, I loved Gears 5 (despite not liking the previous one). So if it's out on your platform one day, don't hesitate !
Kait being the main character is the best thing that has happened to this saga.

Windows based Handheld PCs have existed for almost a decade now. The first GPD Win was launched on October 2016, and certainly there must be a market for it as they are currently on their 4th interaction. And this is a 3rd party we are talking about; don't you think the owner of the OS would be able to optimize it better?

They can, they probably won't. And they certainly won't add all their games to PlayStation. Sony has recently put more and more games on PC but not much of their back catalog.
We'll have to see how the Xbox Series X/S finishes out and how the next system is before they quit hardware or at the very least drop console exclusives and put a lot on PlayStation.

The games could still be on Gamepass on Xbox only. So one could see it as a sort of marketing tactic while making money with the downside of increasing the competing console's library.

Not the strongest argument if market trends hold but they could definitely try at least one more console focusing on that premise.

I think they're in a period where they're figuring out what's best for them. If the brand doesnt catch on more I do think they'll be pressured to dissolve or at least start porting over things by the higher ups

There is a market for all sorts in the PC space, the company GDP is relatively tiny with a revenue of about 30~ million.
It's a small market, but a successful one that is also growing.

Can Microsoft optimize for a handheld? See my previous post about porting the Xbox OS for that exact reason.

Phil answeared that Starfield was not amoung the first 4..... but he wouldn't say that they would never come to playstation.
They *could* very well come to playstation, I think most are expecting them to now at some point.

I think MS/Xbox themselves arn't really sure themselves.
They are probably testing the waters, seeing what reaction people have to it and how these first 4 games do.
After that, they will judge if its worth doing more games.

However I will say.....  that porting games takes time, like half a year to a year usually.
That means back in early 2023, they where already porting games to Playstation 5, likely even before the ABK buy.

So even back then, before buying these big studios.... they had planned to try this out.
Ei. this was around the time where Phil was on that xbox podcast apologising to fans for how Redfall turned out.
Saying "theres no way xbox outconsoles playstation and nintendo".  

He knew back then, that the solution might be to put games on nintendo and playstation.
(i think this was part of why Phil was so depressed looking in the interview. He knew, the future of xbox might be as a publisher instead of a hardware platform maker. He probably had a "talking to" from higher up's at MS.)

The question is hard to answer because it only assesses possibility, not likeliness and under no time frame. Xbox cannot, and nor any other entity for that matter, commit any of their franchises, now or at any point, for perpetuity. And if they do, it would only be disingenuous because they simply can't, the statement would only be true until it is not. Context change and flexibility to adapt is key.
That's why MS would not commit CoD to PS forever like Ryan tried to make them to.

I would say though, I see Halo, Gears, Fable, Forza on PS as very unlikely this gen and Starfield as unlikely. The next 2 games I see as most likely are:
State Of Decay 2: (Same reasons as Grounded + with State of decay 3 coming I can see ms releasing SoD 2 on ps5 early in 2025 and then releasing SoD 3 exclusive to Xbox at the end of the same year)
Redfall: After fixing all issues, this game needs a soft reboot, what better way than to release on new hardware?

They do indeed know how to make money.  In this case it may not be from making money in gaming so much as protecting their core business.

I think their bigger goal is to normalize all games (or almost all) coming to both Nintendo systems and PC.  The more third party games on a Nintendo system, the less special Playstation is.  Currently the Switch's best third party support arguably comes from Microsoft (Minecraft, Cuphead, etc...).  However, it's even more important for Microsoft to get all games to come to PC, because the PC is their platform.  At this point even Sony first party games are coming to PC, so their strategy seems to be working.