Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski has shed light upon a dockable Xbox handheld that he proposed to the console giant years ago. Despite not giving the green light to handheld ideas before, Xbox recently expressed its keen interest in finally entering the segment.

When Valve's Steam Deck came out to significant fanfare in 2022, it opened the floodgates in the handheld category. Major industry players, such as Asus and Lenovo, have since rolled out their own handhelds and are competing with Valve in the handheld gaming PC space. For long, there have been rumors of Xbox launching its first-ever handheld, but no concrete details have ever followed. A recent insider story shared by Bleszinski highlights one of the ideas that the green brand decided to pass on.

In a recent post on Twitter, Cliff Bleszinski, Gears of War creator who left the franchise in 2012, revealed a few details about his handheld device proposal to Xbox. He said that the gaming giant didn't pay attention when he pitched "X-Slate," a dockable gaming handheld. Explaining what he had in mind, the game designer, whose last game was LawBreakers in 2017, shared that the handheld would have been an iPad-like device with a dock. Bleszinski's tweet also underlines that his handheld pitch came before Nintendo Switch, another dockable handheld, released in 2017.

Reacting to this revelation, certain Twitter users endorsed Bleszinski's handheld pitch, calling it "ahead of its time." While one user simply said, "They should’ve listened," another remarked that it was a "great idea" pitched to "poor leadership at the time." Another popular reply suggested a few alternative names for the product idea, including "Xplore," "Xplay," and "Xport."

Over the past few years, there have been multiple speculations pointing towards a potential Xbox handheld announcement. In recent months, these speculations have only become more frequent, in part due to Xbox's promise of making a big announcement during the holiday season later this year. Furthermore, Phil Spencer's latest positive comments about Xbox potentially having its own handheld added fuel to the fire of what many suspect could be an impending announcement.

Although the Microsoft-owned company hasn't made anything about the rumored handheld official yet, it recently refreshed its Xbox Series console family by adding 3 new Xbox variants to cater to more fans. These new consoles deliver the same power as the existing Xbox consoles but offer upgrades in other aspects, such as storage space.

HAH they never listened to me when I proposed the "X-Slate" - basically an Ipad like device that you can dock - and then the Switch entered the chat. https://t.co/sqdwPh4mq6

— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) June 10, 2024

Posted: Jun 15, 2024 5:46 am
Related Forum: Xbox Forum

Source: https://gamerant.com/xbox-rejected-handheld-system/