In this week's DF Direct podcast, we discussed the recent Fortune article on Xbox, which combined extended executive access and some spicy reporting, including the idea that Microsoft would release an Xbox handheld in 2027 and a $1200 to $1800 home console in 2028. During this section, Rich mentioned that there were rumours suggesting that Sony had some measure of exclusivity on mobile RDNA 5, which might impact Microsoft's handheld plans - though it's not clear if this would extend beyond Xbox to other rumoured devices like the Steam Deck 2.

Contrary to our expectations, this snippet was presented as being newsworthy, and on the /r/Steam subreddit was even construed as "AMD is no longer making custom chipsets for niche handhelds like Steam Deck 2". That goes quite a bit beyond what Rich said, despite being attributed to him, so we thought it would be sensible to clarify.

In short, we're only aware of two upcoming leaked AMD handhelds SKUs that are production-ready based on leaks from the reliable Kepler_L2 - Canis (RDNA 5) and Gainsborough (RDNA 4m) - so the question is whether an Xbox handheld would be use either of these or something new. RDNA 5 is an "exclusive of sorts" in the sense that of the two SoCs we know about, only one is said to be using RDNA 5.

It's a similar story for Steam Deck 2, where Gainsborough, which could come to market under the Z3 Extreme name, has been linked to a mooted Steam Deck refresh in rumours. Again, there's no hard evidence one way or another and we've already mentioned that the naming link between the Steam Deck's Aerith APU and the Gainsborough chipset is down to AMD's own codenames, not Valve's.

In any case, we appreciate the interest in our podcast discussions, but much of the reporting we've seen overestimates our knowledge of the Sony handheld. In this case, we're working from much the same information as everyone else in the space, and our deductions shouldn't be taken as any kind of confirmation.

As far as the Microsoft handheld in the Fortune article is concerned, the report of a 2027 release is something we didn't see coming - and we're looking forward to finding out more.