“I would say it’s bringing the best of Xbox and Windows together, because we have spent the last 20 years building a world-class operating system, but it’s really locked to the console,” says Ronald. “What we’re doing is we’re really focused on how do we bring those experiences for both players and developers to the broader Windows ecosystem.”

"Our goal is to put the player and their library at the center of the experience and not all the work that you have to do today"

Speaking during the ‘The Future of Gaming Handhelds’ roundtable at the show, and then in more detail to The Verge, Ronald revealed Microsoft wants to combine the Xbox console operating system with Windows, saying: "Our goal is to put the player and their library at the centre of the experience.”

Speaking to The Verge after the event, Ronald lamented that while the Xbox operating system is "world-class," it is currently locked to the console. He said

Microsoft has said that it plans to bring the best of Xbox and Windows gaming experiences for handheld devices.

Microsoft is at CES 2025 talking about its handheld ambitions, which includes trying to find the middle ground between Xbox and PC.

The future of Microsoft's handheld gaming plans includes a marriage between the best of Xbox and Windows. That's according to Microsoft's Xbox hardware veteran Jason Ronald, who also teased that the company would have "a lot more to share later this year" on what exactly its Windows-powered handheld vision might look like.

Ronald explained that Microsoft aims to bring a console-like experience to handhelds and "make Windows great for gaming" on any device. Microsoft will have more details to share later in the year, Ronald said, adding that the idea is to move away from a Windows desktop setup on handhelds and toward a "gaming-centric" experience.

If Microsoft actually pulls this one off, the world of handheld gaming consoles could be forever changed, and its goals are certainly ambitious.

The last time I tried playing games on Windows handhelds, it was a weird process. For all the flexibility of Windows and the freedom to run multiple app stores and customize however you'd like, a lot of things act weirdly and are very hit-and-miss.