Of all the console makers out there past and present, pretty much all of them have released a handheld device at some point in time. For example we had the Gear Gear from SEGA, and we’ve also had the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita from Sony, and let’s not forget the Game Boy and DS/3DS handhelds from Nintendo.
This means that only Microsoft has yet to release a handheld of their own. Now there are probably a variety of reasons why Microsoft did not choose to release a handheld, and this question was answered by Xbox head Phil Spencer in a response to a tweet by a gamer who asked Spencer that very question.
@davidfraley27 Our view was that phones would take almost all of the mobile gaming market mostly.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) February 21, 2017
According to Spencer’s reply, “Our view was that phones would take almost all of the mobile gaming market mostly.” Basically Microsoft saw that mobile gaming would be a huge thing and that releasing a handheld wouldn’t really make sense. To a certain extent they are right as even Nintendo has moved to releasing games for mobile these days.
However the 3DS console has continued to sell very well for the company despite the proliferation of smartphones, but we guess now wouldn’t really be the best time for Microsoft to jump into handhelds anyway, but what do you guys think? Should Microsoft try anyway?