Xbox head Phil Spencer has officially confirmed that an Xbox handheld is in the works, although that announcement does, as you would expect, carry several pretty heavy caveats.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Spencer said that the "expectation" is that Xbox would create some kind of hardware in the handheld category. Bloomberg says that Xbox is "working on prototypes", but that the final release of any kind of Xbox handheld device is "a few years out".
An Xbox handheld (that is to say one created officially by Xbox, rather than one simply designed to play Xbox cloud games) has long been rumored, but this is the first official confirmation we've had from anyone on Xbox's side.
Rather than focusing on the handheld, Xbox engineers will instead work to improve the Xbox app on existing devices. Spencer told Bloomberg there was room for improvement with regards to the Xbox app, and that any potential handheld needs to be "informed by learning and what's happening now".
Elsewhere in the interview, Spencer reveals a couple of other interesting tidbits regarding Xbox's strategy. He reiterates that there are no "red lines" dictating which games could or couldn't come to non-Xbox platforms, but says that it's too early to talk about whether Halo could go multiplatform.
Spencer also confirms that Microsoft and Xbox are still looking at more acquisitions, which puts recent sweeping layoffs and studio closures at Microsoft into somewhat stark relief if you ask me.
Then again, Xbox arguably has a history of saying seemingly contradictory things after making big decisions. Remember when Matt Booty said Xbox needed "smaller games" right after closing two studios that would have been ideally situated to make them? Me too.
Spencer also confirms in the Bloomberg interview that the planned Xbox mobile store, which was originally announced in May with a July release window, has been delayed.
He says that an approach in which Microsoft simply hopes that "if we build it, they will come" won't work, and so the challenge is trying to figure out how to get consumers to find the Xbox store amongst stiff competition.
It should be noted that this is distinct from Xbox allowing you to buy and play games via its own app, a feature that Xbox president Sarah Bond announced would be implemented following a ruling in an Epic-Google lawsuit that also proved favorable to Microsoft.
