Xbox handheld said to feature a low-powered custom AMD APU

Microsoft is said to be working on an Xbox handheld that may be reveled later this year. Earlier this month, the rumored handheld was allegedly briefly seen in a video interview with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, but now a known leaker has shared that the company is working with AMD for the processor that will run this handheld. It should be noted that Microsoft has not shared any information on an Xbox handheld. 

The leak comes from KeplerL2 on the NeoGAF portal where they shared that the “real” Xbox handheld will be powered by a custom low-powered APU developed by AMD. It is unclear what “low-powered” means at this point and what architecture the APU will be based on. This may be a reference to its power consumption (a figure like 12 W would definitely be low enough) or its peak performance. For reference, the Steam Deck is powered by a 6nm AMD APU while the ROG Ally X runs on the AMD Z1 Extreme APU. The recently announced MSI Claw A8 BZ2EM features the newer Ryzen Z2 Extreme APU.

Earlier this month, it was suspected that a future Xbox console could be based on an ARM-based Snapdragon SoC but that seemed unlikely considering backward compatibility issues. While there is no official information about the handheld or the next generation of consoles, it is believed that Xbox handheld could be announced late this year.

As for the next full-fledged Xbox and PlayStation consoles, a 2027 release seems more likely. Just like Xbox, Sony is also believed to be working on a handheld that will launch alongside the regular PS6 and it is said to run PS5 games natively.