I was scribbling notes the other day about Microsoft and their whole gaming handheld saga—guess it’s a saga now—and something weird struck me. So, Microsoft, you know, the big tech giant that always has a hand in everything, seems to have shifted gears. Or maybe just slammed the brake. Who knows? It’s like they’re saying, “Hey, let’s chill on our Xbox handheld for a bit and just dive into Windows 11 stuff.” Yeah, sure, makes sense, but also doesn’t? I mean, wait, let me backtrack.
Apparently—might have read this while munching on cold pizza—this whole pivot is coz everyone’s going bonkers over SteamOS working smoothly on Windows 11 handhelds. I think I read that on Windows Central? Anyway, Lenovo even jumped on this bandwagon with their Legion Go S. And yeah, you lose Game Pass support if you run SteamOS. Does anyone care about that? Not sure. Some folks do, I guess?
Anyway, back to Microsoft. They were supposedly cooking up this internal Xbox handheld, if you believe the buzz on the street—or was it the internet? Moving on. Then there’s this Asus partnership, “Project Kennan.” Cool name, right? Sounds like a sci-fi hero. So, there’s talk of it hitting the shelves later this year. Apparently, the hardware’s all but done. Pretty neat if you ask me.
What got left out in the rain? Microsoft’s own Xbox handheld dream. It was supposed to be this pure Xbox experience, full games and all. But, uh, not happening right now. It’s sitting in the “maybe one day” pile.
Oh! Almost forgot. Windows 11 is still the main squeeze for many of these handhelds. That is until SteamOS came strutting onto the stage, stealing some of the spotlight. Like, yeah, SteamOS isn’t perfect—bye-bye Game Pass again—but killer performance? Check. It’s that rough kind of charm, I guess.
So, if you’re a news junkie, maybe crack open Google News and give Tom’s Hardware a follow. Keep those feeds lively. Right, where was I? Ah, never mind. Time for another coffee.
