Reports from last year indicated that Microsoft had cancelled the development of its in-house handheld gaming system to instead work with Asus on the ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X. A new report, courtesy of YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead, has indicated that the company is continuing its support of handheld software by offering more software features for developers, including new power-saving tools integrated with the Xbox Game Development Kit (GDK).
The report has noted that Microsoft has a “novel console prototype” referred to internally as Project Green Leaf. Through this prototype, Xbox is working on offering more Windows features for systems that might have strict hardware considerations, be it making use of a mobile platform or even just having battery constraints. A document shown off by Moore’s Law is Dead notes that the Xbox GDK will feature (PO)—Power Optimized—and (PO+)—Power Optimized Plus—which act as identifiers for “intelligent, software-driven efficiencies.”
“These optimizations are designed to lower energy draw during periods of inactivity, background execution, and navigation layers,” reads the document. “For a significant number of products, these enhancements will be simple to integrate, though we acknowledge that suitability may vary by genre.”
The document also notes that games developed that make use of these efficiencies will get (PO) or (PO+) markers on their technical details page on the Marketplace, which will give users more options to filter games out depending on what kind of battery life their chosen hardware is capable of.
It is worth noting that Microsoft hasn’t really revealed any details about the hardware specifications of Project Green Leaf, and whether it is even slated for a public release at some point remains to be seen. In the meantime, however, developers will likely find these new features useful when it comes to optimizing their projects for release on handheld systems that often have to deal with slower hardware when compared to desktop computers, as well as battery life.
While the reasons behind why Microsoft halted development of its own handheld system remain unknown, a report from October 2025 has indicated that it came down to chip-maker AMD wanting the company to commit to more than 10 million units of the chip powering the system. AMD seemingly wanted to justify its own research and development investments that would be required for such a chip. Microsoft, on the other hand, had trouble committing to the high sales figures after taking a look at industry-wide trends. The Steam Deck, for example, had sold 5 million units at the time.
In the meantime, Microsoft has revealed more details about its next-generation console, dubbed Project Helix. In a recent Game Dev Update, VP of Next Generation Jason Ronald confirmed that it will make use of deep texture compression while “leaning in very heavily” to Zstandard. Coupled with DirectStorage, the console will be able to stream game assets directly from an SSD, rather than having to first load them into RAM or VRAM before pushing them to a player’s display. Microsoft has also confirmed that Project Helix will offer ray tracing performance “an order of magnitude” beyond the capabilities of Xbox Series X/S.
