Xbox is making a handheld and more multiformat games admits Phil Spencer-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Phil Spencer couldn’t have been more blatant (YouTube)

The head of Xbox has talked about making a Xbox handheld, while admitting that, ‘You are going to see more of our games on more platforms.’

There’s no doubting that the Xbox Games Showcase was another triumph for Microsoft, especially compared to the lacklustre PlayStation State of Play, but it still avoided talking about the two key issues for Xbox at the moment: to what degree they’re going multiformat and what their next generation hardware plans are.

They also didn’t talk about the industry crisis, that has seen 10,000 layoffs in the last 12 months, and the rising cost of making games, which is reshaping the industry around us and yet is occurring almost without comment from most major publishers.

At some point Microsoft has got to stand up and talk about these issues but while it didn’t do so on Sunday night, Xbox boss Phil Spencer did discuss the first two in very clear terms in a subsequent interview.

Spencer was most explicit about Microsoft next gen plans, essentially confirming that at least one version of the new console would be handheld, similar to the Steam Deck and other devices such as the Asus ROG Ally.

‘So, we should have handhelds. I think we should have a handheld too,’ said Spencer bluntly, when asked by IGN, in front of an audience, about the ongoing rumours.

For over a year now Spencer has been talking about his love for PC-based handheld devices, repeatedly liking tweets talking about them and Xbox, and dropping other unsubtle hints.

‘The future for us in hardware is pretty awesome and the work that the team is doing around different form factors, different ways to play…. I’m incredibly excited about it. Today was about the games. We showed some of our Gen 9 consoles – Series S, Series X – the work that we are doing, but we will have a time to come out talk more about platform.’

He even confirmed that the device would run games natively, and not just via the cloud, stating: ‘I think being able to play games locally is really important.’

It may not technically be an official announcement, but you don’t get any more explicit than that outside of a full hardware reveal, and it is in line with rumours before the show that Microsoft would hint about a handheld this month.

When discussing Microsoft’s multiformat plans, Spencer was not quite as straightforward, but he did make it very clear that: ‘You are going to see more of our games on more platforms, and we just see that as a benefit to the franchises that we’re building.’

He didn’t say which ones, or when they’d be announced, and now that the Xbox Games Showcase is over it’s much more difficult to guess when that might be.

On the issue of industry layoffs, Spencer defaulted to politician mode, when asked why he closed Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks, despite its last game performing well critically and the studio being Microsoft’s only Japanese developer.

‘I haven’t been talking publicly about this, because right now is time for us to focus on the team and individuals. It’s obviously a decision that’s very hard on them and I want to make sure, through severance and other things, that we’re doing the right thing for the individuals on the team. It’s not about my PR, it’s not about Xbox PR. It’s about those team.’

Trying the old ‘now is not the time’ trick seems cynical, considering there’s a good chance the decision will never be properly explained, but this is all he’s saying at the moment.

‘In the end, I’ve said over and over, I have to run a sustainable business inside the company and grow. And that means sometimes I have to make hard decisions that frankly are not decisions I love, but decisions that somebody needs to go make.’

Is this what the next gen Xbox will look like? (Valve/Metro)

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