Phil Spencer says Xbox handheld is few years out, at least – WGB

Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer has been fairly open about his desire to see Xbox enter the handheld market, and now he’s offered an update on those plans.

Speaking to Bloomberg in a wide-ranging interview that covered everything from handhelds to more Xbox games coming to PlayStation and Switch, Spencer tackled the idea of a handheld Xbox head-on.

Spencer said that the “expectation is that we would do something” and stated that the company is actively working on prototypes.

However, according to the Bloomberg article the device is still “a few years out.”

“Longer term, I love us building devices,” Spencer told Bloomberg. “And I think our team could do some real innovative work, but we want to be informed by learning and what’s happening now.”

Apparently, in the coming months Xbox will focus on making the Xbox app a better experience on existing portable devices.

On that topic, Spencer seems to believe that Apple and Google will be more open to the idea of Xbox on their respective platforms in the future.

“I think the ball is moving in the right direction,” Spencer stated. “I think this idea of open platforms, where users have more choice, creators have more choice, you see the momentum, right?”