Xbox chief Phil Spencer Prompting about Xbox handheld For months, but what about a Windows handheld gaming PC? Jason Ronald, Microsoft's VP of “Next Generation” explains The Verge We should expect to see changes to the Windows handheld gaming experience within this calendar year.
Ronald was a roundtable panelist this evening An AMD and Lenovo event Entitled “The Future of Gaming Handhelds”, it was mostly a coming-out party for Lenovo's new Legion Go SBut he hinted on stage that Microsoft plans to bring the Xbox experience to Windows PCs, not the other way around – and he expanded on this significantly when we met with him later.
“We've been innovating in the console space for a really long time, and as we partner across the industry, it's really about how we bring the innovations that we've developed and developed into the console space And how to bring them into the PC and bring them into the handheld gaming space,” Ronald said.
When we spoke to him after the event, he confirmed that Microsoft is considering combining the Xbox and Windows experiences together – and we should see the change this year itself, rather than waiting for the Xbox handheld. This may still take several years.
Ronald says, “I would say it's bringing together the best of Xbox and Windows, because we've spent the last 20 years building a world-class operating system, but it's really locked down on console.” “What we're doing is we're really focused on how we can bring those experiences to the broader Windows ecosystem for both players and developers.”
At the moment, Windows handheld is lacking, simply put, to the extent that A community-created fork of Valve's SteamOS experience This could be a much better way to pick up and play the game. Ronald is clearly aware of the issues. “We're really focused on simplifying it and making it more like a console experience. Our goal is to put the player and their library at the center of the experience, not all [Windows] The work you have to do today.”
Microsoft has created compact modes for Xbox apps on Windows that focus on Improve handheld experienceBut that's like putting lipstick on a pig instead of addressing the core experience. “I think we'll have a lot more to share later this year,” Ronald teases. “I think it's going to be a journey and I think over time you'll see a lot of investment that you're already starting to see, but we'll have a lot more to share later this year “
How Microsoft moves forward with this merger of Xbox and Windows will be important, but it doesn't seem like the company is going to suddenly port a custom Xbox operating system to Windows. It seems like Microsoft wants to make Windows better at gaming with the Xbox experience by hiding the annoying desktop, notifications, and legacy of Windows.
“I think, ultimately, our goal is to make Windows great for gaming on any device,” says Ronald. “The reality is that the Xbox operating system is built on top of Windows. So we've built a lot of infrastructure in the console space that we can bring to the PC space and really deliver a premium gaming experience on any device.
In particular, Microsoft has to tackle a lot of the basics of making Windows more friendly to controllers and getting that Xbox experience to actually running things instead of the taskbar, Start menu, and other elements. Ronald admits, “There are some things in Windows that aren't designed for when you don't have a keyboard and a mouse, like thumbstick support or a joypad and things like that.”
“There are fundamental interaction models that we're working on to make sure that regardless of the operating system details it feels very fundamentally like a gaming-centric device and a gaming-centric experience.”
Ronald says the goal is to put the Xbox experience at the center — “not the Windows desktop you have today.”