Overview

• Microsoft has paused development of its own Xbox handheld to redirect engineers toward improving Windows 11’s gaming performance on third-party portable PCs.
• The decision follows criticism of Windows 11’s battery life and performance on handhelds and the strong showing of SteamOS on similar devices.
• Asus’s Xbox-branded Project Kennan hardware is essentially complete and still expected to debut in late 2025 under Microsoft’s partnership.
• Microsoft stresses the pause is a temporary resource shift rather than a cancellation and intends to resume its own handheld efforts in the future.
• The next-generation Xbox home console, targeted for around 2027, and ongoing Xbox Cloud Gaming upgrades are unaffected by the handheld reallocation.