Qualcomm has unveiled its latest G3x Gen 1 gaming platform as one of the tech giant’s first moves to enter the handheld gaming market. The company has, in fact, also partnered with Razer to bring the new Snapdragon G3x Handheld Development Kit.
The development kit sports most of the functionality that fans expect form a modern handheld- the ability to dock it to a display, controllers with haptic feedback, a touch screen, support for 5G, and framerates up to 144 fps. Of course, it’s still a development kit rather than a mass-market device, though it can be used to natively play Android games or stream AAA titles either from a PC, a console, or a service like Xbox Cloud Streaming.
Interestingly though, a report published on the matter by Windows Central goes through the possibility that such a development kit might be the base of technologies that Microsoft will leverage to create its own Xbox Cloud Streaming handheld platform. Author Jez Corden claims that Microsoft has been “dabbling” with cloud-based Xbox handheld prototypes for some time now, and that the Qualcomm platform might serve as a base for them to build future ideas on. Corden has previously been spot-on with all things related to Xbox, so the rumour might be worth a look.
Microsoft has been aggressively pushing the Xbox Cloud Gaming platform by upgrading its server blades to Xbox Series X hardware to provide better streaming experience, alongside introducing Clarity Boost for Edge browsers. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has also previously talked about the possibility of Xbox Cloud Gaming on TV sticks before- read more on that through here.