The next “phase” of the gaming industry is upon us. No, all three big publishers aren’t getting to drop all-new consoles, but all three are getting ready for the “next phases” of their lives, regardless of how big of a jump that “next phase” might be. For example, we know that Nintendo is the only one of the Big Three prepping to release a brand-new console in 2025. We even got an update on things yesterday from Shuntaro Furukawa himself that helped highlight this. Sony is releasing the PS5 Pro tomorrow, and Xbox…well, Microsoft is possibly doing another “copycat” maneuver that involves making a handheld device.
This happened on The Xbox Two Podcast, where co-host Jez Corden teased that something with the publisher could happen soon. However, he didn’t think the announcement would come this year:
“I don’t think you’re gonna see hardware at The Game Awards, but, um, I do think next year is a good year for revealing new hardware. Especially hardware you could hold in the palm of your hand.”
As for why Microsoft would go this route, especially since the X/S systems aren’t even five years old, the answer is really rather simple: the current line of consoles that they have aren’t selling well. We mean that not just in the monthly or even the yearly metric but the lifetime one. They aren’t even at the levels of the last generation, and they’re consistently at the bottom of the sales charts. It doesn’t help the brand has also been losing exclusives and is more focused on different variations of the X/S and accessories than trying to provide more games for gamers.
The other reason that this is likely happening is because Microsoft has watched for the last seven years as the Nintendo Switch became the most popular video game console of the last few generations, with it being over 145 million units sold. For context, that’s pretty much five times what the Xbox Series X/S is selling, and the Switch is outselling the X/S to this day in monthly sales.
So, if they think that making a handheld could help, the heads of Microsoft may try to make it work for them.
However, it should be noted that this isn’t the first time that they’ve copied Nintendo, and it did not exactly work. Does anyone here remember the Kinect? Yeah, that didn’t go so well, did it? We’ll have to see if they have better luck with this idea.
