Goodbye Xbox Portable: Steamos is so formidable that Microsoft delays his own console

Long mentioned, never announced, the microsoft portable console, known as the Project Kennan code name, has just been temporarily relegated to the background. The reason? Steamos, Valve OS, shades Windows 11 in the field of portable games, especially since its opening to other manufacturers. Microsoft therefore adjusts its strategy: priority to software, while waiting for the hardware to follow.

Microsoft delays its portable Xbox to better answer Steamos

Brake on the hardware, accelerator on the bone. Microsoft would have chosen to postpone the active development of its Xbox portable console in order to strengthen the compatibility and performance of Windows 11 on portable games. The stake is clear: counter the fluid and light experience offered by Steamos, now acclaimed by players and adopted by several manufacturers.

It is in this context that The mysterious Project Kennan, the fruit of a collaboration with Asusremains topical but advances cautiously. While Valve continues success with Steamos’ compatibility on machines like the Lenovo Legion Go SWindows still suffers from a lack of readability in portable mode. Neither “console fashion”, nor dedicated interface, nor simplified native management of performance or touch. The ecosystem still lacks maturity.

And this is precisely where Microsoft intends to strike. Internally, the teams are working on a version of Windows 11 cut for compact screens, with designed features for integrated controls, controlled energy consumption and better integration of Xbox services, Game Pass in mind.

This change of course does not sign the death of the Xbox portable console, quite the contrary. Rather, it is a strategic repositioning dictated by the rise of a competitor who has listened to his community. Because if Valve obliges Microsoft to move, it was the voice of the players who pushed him to do it.