Although normally you have to take rumours about new games and hardware with a pinch of salt, Microsoft couldn’t be more blatant about its intentions to make a handheld console – given how often Xbox boss Phil Spencer has talked about it and his love of PC-based systems like Steam Deck.
Spencer has been praising Steam Deck since at least 2021 and Microsoft has officially confirmed it’s working on next gen hardware, with rumours that a new portable device is already being tested.
Some rumours suggest it could be out as early as 2026, which raises the question of when Microsoft would unveil it. It’s now suggested that a ‘teaser’ will happen during the Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday – although exactly what that will entail isn’t clear.
When the Xbox Series X was first unveiled it was via a short video showing what the console looked like and then a few seconds of footage from Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 (which developer Ninja Theory later admitted was all that existed of the game at the time).
Whether you’d see that much at this week’s showcase is hard to say though, as if it is mentioned it may only be in passing.
The suggestion that it will be featured comes from leaker eXtas1s, whose videos are in Spanish and so have been overlooked by many until now. However, he previously leaked footage of Hideo Kojma’s OD game, as well as the release date of Hellblade 2 – so he clearly has some industry contacts.
His other prediction for the event is that a first party Xbox game will be shadow-dropped on the night, i.e. released as soon as it’s announced.
Although he claims to know what the game is, eXtas1s has refused to name it, presumably to protect his sources. The most likely candidate is indie game Towerborne, from the makers of The Banner Saga.
Technically it could be anything though, including Avowed or Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, although considering the poor performance of Hi-Fi Rush, which led to the shut down of the studio, you might have thought Microsoft had learned that shadow drops often don’t work very well to stimulate interest.
We’ll find out for sure whether these rumours are true on Sunday, June 9, starting from 6pm BST. Previous rumours had suggested that Microsoft’s hardware focus for the showcase would be a white, digital-only version of the Xbox Series X but there’s not necessarily any reason that they couldn’t show both.
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