Month: March 2024

Rumors of a potential handheld Xbox have gathered pace yet again, but with game streaming and the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally I don’t see the point of such a device.

There are all sorts of things that could make Xbox a success over the next few years: the launch of The Elder Scrolls 6, Fable 4, expanded Game Pass options, a killer expansion for Starfield, and a host of exclusives. But the one thing I don’t think will change the success of Xbox and the position of the Xbox Series X in the market is a handheld console. 

Murmurs of some form of Xbox handheld have been bubbling away for years, but few rumors have really ignited. But more recently Jez Corden from our sibling publication Windows Central reported that Microsoft has handheld prototypes, and Microsoft Gaming boss Phil Spencer has told Polygon that the company is exploring “different hardware form factors and things.” So this would pour some fuel on the smoldering rumor fire. 

Yet while I love new hardware, I’m not sure we need an Xbox handheld games console. 

Slick streaming

(Image credit: Future)

The simple fact is that you already have a handheld Xbox console in the form of your smartphone. If you fork out for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to get access to Xbox exclusives, games spanning multiple generations, and PC games – which means Game Pass Ultimate remains one of the best deals in gaming – you also get access to Xbox Cloud Gaming, which lets you stream games to all manner of devices, but most notably phones and tablets.

All you need is the Game Pass app and you can access a suite of Xbox games, old and new, on one of the best Android phones or an iPhone; the latter does need an app that points to a web browser bookmark, but it’s trivially simple to set up.

Ideally, you’ll have a Bluetooth Xbox controller and some form of bracket to attach your phone to it, or a controller accessory that turns your phone into a pseudo-Nintendo Switch. But if not, there are some games that Microsoft has retrofitted with on-display controls – think virtual buttons rather than custom touchscreen controls – which work reasonably well for a brief gaming session. And with access to 5G, even cheap phones can tap into Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Now I’ll admit the service isn’t perfect, especially in terms of lag, but it’s far from bad. And even if you don’t think a smartphone is big enough for a good handheld gaming console, well there’s a solution to that in the form of Valve’s Steam Deck.

Steaming ahead

(Image credit: Valve/Future)

With a little bit of manipulation on the Steam OS desktop, you can coax the Steam Deck to not only access Xbox Game Pass via a web browser but also recognize the Deck’s controller. Once I set it up this way, I actually finished Starfield on my Steam Deck. 

Of course, if some code wrangling isn’t your scene then you can opt for one of a growing crop of Windows 11-based handheld gaming PCs, like the ROG Ally, that run Game Pass out of the box and can also run Xbox games natively.

So with such hardware and streaming capabilities, I don’t really see a place for a dedicated handheld Xbox device. Unless Microsoft can make such a console at a cost that undercuts the aforementioned Steam Deck, I’m not sure there are a lot of people clamoring for such a device.

The fact that Sony’s PS Vita never really found its feet on a large scale, and the PlayStation Portal is a niche device, shows that even PlayStation struggles with handheld consoles. So one would be forgiven for asking “Why would Xbox ever bother?”

And before you say it, yes I know people will look towards Nintendo as an example of making handheld gaming work. But Nintendo has decades of experience and goodwill to call upon, starting with the Game & Watch, then the iconic Game Boy then the various DS models, and culminating with the Nintendo Switch OLED – and potentially a Switch 2. I’d love to be proven wrong, but I can’t see Microsoft coming up with a device that would get within spitting distance of even Nintendo’s ‘weakest’ handhelds.

However, if Microsoft revealed a mobile Xbox device made with the same care and precision as its Surface machines, I’d be all over it. But putting aside gadget lust, I feel the current options we already have mean that there are already handheld Xbox consoles available in different form factors.

Instead of pursuing new hardware, I’d much rather Microsoft and the Xbox division worked to make cloud-based game streaming even better and optimize games for use on the Steam Deck and other handheld PCs. Heck, it would be amazing if some older Xbox exclusives even got ported over to the Switch, though that could be a bit pie-in-the-sky thinking.

In short, I don’t need or want a handheld Xbox console. But I do need and want Microsoft to build out the Xbox experience on handheld hardware; I don’t think that’s asking for too much.

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A surprise April Fool’s Day launch didn’t prepare us for how Gmail would ultimately dominate our lives

Gmail, the email service that almost started out as a joke but rose to become a dominant player in the space, is exactly 20 years old on April 1.

It is for most of us, as hard to imagine a world without Gmail as it is for us to search without Google. But Gmail was a latecomer to the email game, arriving decades after we started using computers to deliver electronic messages to third-party providers who would, like the old-school post office, sort and send them along to their proper digital destination. It was well after MSMail and ccMail but early enough that we still demanded a hyphen between “e” and “mail.”

Ever the cheeky upstart (despite by then being the most-used search engine), Google launched Gmail on April Fool’s Day to mostly widespread confusion. At PCMag, where I worked at the time, we admitted that “Google’s release included language which sounded like a ruse” and no one was quite sure if the search giant was serious about entering the crowded email space. Part of that had to do with the quite limited availability of the platform.

Google was among the first Internet companies to offer invite-only access to a new service. It was a brilliant bit of marketing but also had a more practical purpose. Google had struggled to launch Gmail and was still learning when it moved into public beta. Open access would’ve overwhelmed the system, forcing untold crashes, possibly un-delivered mail, and probably made it almost impossible to learn about what people wanted, needed, and used most often in the IMAP mail platform (there was no POP3 support at launch).

Welcome to the party, pal

On April 22, 2004, almost four weeks after the launch, I got access. I still have the welcome message, that told me I was “one of the very first people to use Gmail,” and thanked me for “agreeing to test Gmail.” The email described some of the key differences, like “searching instead of filing.” Gmail didn’t use folders, a time-honored way of organizing email, and instead focused on labels and conversations. To this day, the concept of folders in Gmail is foreign and I’m not sure I have ever loved the more amorphous “labels”.

It had some advanced features like filters and address autocomplete. And, of course, it came with 1GB of storage, an amount unheard of at the time for a free email service, which now seems woefully inadequate. Google’s pitch at the time was that we could stop wasting time deleting emails and save everything. I think I over-committed to this concept.

While Gmail didn’t have pop-up or banner ads (thank God), there were text-based ads in a column to the right (Gmail ads now mostly live under the “Promotions” tab). This turned out to be Gmail’s most controversial “innovation”. To provide contextual ads, Google would have to “read” the contents of your email. That sounded like an insane privacy violation, and I wrote about the concern right before I gained access. I reminded readers that computers, at least back then, didn’t really “read” anything. They had neither the eyes nor the consciousness to understand the context. Google was, of course, already anonymizing the data and delivering contextual ads without delivering your private bits to third parties. I also noted that, without those ads, we might not get all that, at the time, free storage. It’s worth noting that those early concerns did nothing to hinder Gmail’s growth.

Along with access to Gmail came some invites that I could dole out. They arrived in small bunches, and I would give them to co-workers, colleagues, and friends. Some people who knew I had a Gmail account sent me emails and AOL messages pleading for access. Whenever I gave someone access, Gmail would notify me of when they signed up and created their new Gmail address “so we could stay in touch with Gmail!” While not a social network, Google was aware of the inherently social nature of email. Keeping newbies connected was how it built that network and generated just enough FOMO to keep the service growing.

All the information

Google took a risk when it launched Gmail, and it knew it. In the original FAQ, Google had to explain why a Search company would launch an email service:

“Why is Google offering email? I thought you were a search company.

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally useful and accessible. For many people, email contains valuable information that can be difficult to retrieve. We believe we can help with that.”

It was further evidence that Google’s strategic aim was never just about search results, it was about information, yours, mine, and everyone else’s. Google wanted to organize the world’s information no matter the form, from search results, to mail, to video and images, and location. That quest never stops and not everyone is happy about it.

Even so, it’s worth celebrating Gmail, an online service that entered an entrenched market and ultimately remade it in its image. It never was and will likely never be a joke.

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