Contrary to what recent findings seemed to suggest, the yet-to-be-officially revealed Xbox handheld will not switch to the ARM architecture, but will be powered by an AMD APU.
Speaking on the NeoGAF forums, known AMD leaker KeplerL2 commented on the handheld, saying that it will be powered by a custom low-power APU from AMD. The Xbox-branded handhelds, on the other hand, will use whatever APUs are available to OEMs, including Z2E from AMD, Lunar/Panther Lake from Intel, X Elite 2 from Qualcomm, and N1 from NVIDIA.
Though it was expected for Microsoft to go with AMD again for its next-generation systems, including the dedicated handheld, which has been teased multiple times in the past, a job ad that surfaced online last week suggested that some of the next-gen Xbox products could make the switch to the ARM architecture. This choice could have made sense somewhat for a handheld system, as the ARM architecture provides better power efficiency, but it would have led to issues in terms of compatibility with current software, and not having access to a large part of the Xbox library wouldn't really fit with the current strategy of making Xbox games available on as many devices as possible.
With the Xbox handheld likely far from release, we will get to see the first glimpses of the company's handheld strategy with the aforementioned branded handhelds. The first one, known as Project Kennan, is being developed in collaboration with ASUS, will run Windows, unsurprisingly, and feature an interface reminiscent of the Xbox consoles. This handheld should be released before the end of the year.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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