Microsoft has sent out a new survey asking their customers about gaming handhelds.
Now, as we had reported before, the growing market for PC gaming handhelds after the successes of the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck has driven interest into the once very niche market. It has been rumored that Nvidia is interested in making a PC gaming handheld of their own, as a separate product with Nintendo, to compete with AMD and Intel, who already make chips for these platforms. Sony and Microsoft are also rumored to be studying making gaming handhelds of their own, that will run PlayStation 4 and Xbox One games natively.
We know that Microsoft actually worked ASUS in their development of the ROG Ally, though we don’t know to what capacity. Microsoft Gaming head Phil Spencer has invariably shared that he had been playing the Ally, as well as the Lenovo Legion Go, and of course, the Steam Deck and the Switch. But now we look at the survey.
As reported on Windows Central, the survey is clearly asking probing questions to gauge what things their users are looking for in a hypothetical Xbox handheld device. It’s not clear if they got this survey because the respondent had a Game Pass subscription, an Xbox account, or a Microsoft account, but it’s more likely than not that they focused on existing Xbox account owners, who may or may not have a console.
The first general questions are about the respondent’s demographics, what devices they have, what operating systems they have, game consoles and PC gaming handhelds they own.
The survey then asked if they used Game Pass on their handhelds, how often they use the handheld instead of other devices, and if they would want to stream games on the cloud.
Other questions are specific and clear about what Microsoft wanted to know. They asked if the handheld was their primary gaming device, and if their habits would change if they had a dedicated Xbox handheld.
But what’s more curious are what isn’t asked in the survey. For example, there’s no mention if gamers would prefer to only play a console for their Xbox library, or if they would want Microsoft to fix the gaming handheld experience on Windows for all platforms.
Those are different needs and could lead to different devices, but here’s another one; the survey doesn’t ask if gamers would want Microsoft to make a handheld that incorporates gaming with Windows and gaming on Xbox. It doesn’t ask if gamers would want to switch between an Xbox mode or Xbox OS and Windows, either.
It sounds like Microsoft wants to make this device specifically for Xbox owners, and possibly get some new gamers to sign up for Xbox. While that limits their ambitions, maybe it would be better for them to focus on this so they can execute on it better.
We don’t know how successful such a product would be if it came out, but imagine such a device releasing at the same price as a PlayStation Portal. Microsoft could also have it designed to work with Xbox Series X|S’s bespoke storage expansion cards, creating a new market to sell more of those as well.
If Microsoft creates a system in such a way that you could use the saves, and maybe even games, on both handheld and console using those cards, that would be an ace they have over every other handheld gaming experience. These are 1 TB and 2TB drives that fit in the palm of your hand, so even gigantic titles like Gears of War 4 or Elder Scrolls Online could be playable on the go.
There’s definitely a lot of potential with such a device, but we will probably have to wait awhile before Microsoft manages to bring all this research all the way into a product.
