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Microsoft Handheld Gaming in 2007?
1up is reporting on speculation from analysts 'The Diffusion Group', who have forecast a handheld gaming device from Microsoft sometime in the next two years. From the article: "It's an analyst group's speculation and should be taken as such, but simultaneously one has to wonder what is the likelihood of Microsoft bringing a PGC to its platform library. A portable entry seemed like the next logical step for Microsoft before E3 -- and that logic was confirmed by the announcement of Live Anywhere at E3 -- a handheld platform would certainly make a solid launching pad for the mobile arm of Live Anywhere, wouldn't it?"
...so those totally-unfounded rumors of someone playing Halo on an Origami prototype start seeming a bit more substantial.
How many analysts need to predict an MS handheld before MS either admits they're working on it or the analysts get bored and give up. Seriously if it's already been predicted by someone else is it even still a prediction, or just agreement with a previous prediction?
Besides I don't think MS will be going after a handheld of their own so much as pushing a new universal gaming software. Some form of windows/direct X that they can push to PDA and Cell phone makers. I think they'd want this more from the software angle then the hardware. I have a feeling if they ever did make a handheld it would be some bastardized cell-phone thing along the lines of the N-Gage.
Collector's Edition
I would love to see this. have games similar to those from www.addictinggames.com downloadable for a couple bucks onto a handheld.
Have microsoft charge little or give a simple "flash games-esk" SDK and make money as a publisher/distributer of cheap and simple timewasting games.
Isn't the Origami just a small tablet PC running a variation of Windows XP? I have a Sony Vaio U70 from a couple of years ago that's essentially the same thing as these Origami computers and that thing has Halo installed on it. It runs quite well, I might add, except for the fact it doesn't run with some of the more advanced visual effects.
Maybe you were making a joke and I completely missed it.
Snore
What we all want to know is, "Can I put Linux on it?"
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Sega Game Gear ...
... if they ever want to trun a profit though ...
Atari Linx
Neo Geo Pocket
Wonderswan Color
N-Gage
(potentially) PSP
and many more
Every company that has ever thought of entering the gaming market has decided to produce a handheld device, which is (almost) always assumed to be the end to Nintendo's dominance. Every last one of them has had all success limited to a region and been eventually knocked out of the market by Nintendo.
Essentially, if Microsoft wanted to lose another billion dollars a year with limited success in the gaming market I would advise them to produce a handheld gaming device
I thought the reason MS entered the video game market was to gain control of the living room. How does a portable fit into this goal?
Good luck.
And it will run Microsoft Vista Pocket Gaming Edition Premium Platinum 20ought8.
This guy's the limit!
If this thing is sold below cost and is anywhere near as hackable as the xbox, this could be very good news indeed.
Maybe it's just me here but does anyone really care? Sony and Microsoft don't want to make a games console. They want to sell more crap which also play games (Media centres and such). Nintendo have more or less bitch slapped the PSP and gone "And stay down n00b" with the DS. I really doubt MS can do any better, and even if they do the DS is already so big that it won't matter. People are saving for the next gen console set (360, PS3 and Wii), so won't buy another handheld for another year or two at least.
Plus lets be honest here, WTF does the Xbox have that will work on a small scale? Other than Halo the Xbox doesn't have any real killer aps or a real fanbase outside of fanboys.
I like muppets.
AFAIK, Xbox/Xbox360 are just bleeding money on this business unit.
Why would MS rush into a secondary market when they haven't even made money on the primary market?
It makes sense to do some R&D, but a 2007 release is unlikely.
But... with Zillions in cash reserves and not being apologetic about their operating costs, anything is possible.
I can see it now, going into a store: "Can I have one Mega P Box Bundle, you know, the one that comes with the free cleaning brush"
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
This "analyst speculation" flies in the face of what Microsoft is actually doing in the handheld realm - namely, giving fairly strong support to the DS. There's a version of Mechassault on its way, and Rare is doing up a new version of Diddy Kong Racing with some fairly nice extras (better graphics and a touchscreen-based track editor). If these rumors were true, I'd bet they wouldn't be using their licenses or developers for the benefit of a semi-direct competitor.
--- Bwah?
Lets face it ( I have ) Nintendo dominates in hand held gaming. Like the iPod and digital music players, the Gameboy is iconic for this market.
The PSP is an utter failure. Sony tried to make a portable game console that uses the same gaming concepts that makes its PS and PS2 popular, but they ignored that portable gaming is not about sports games, or even complicated RPGs or First person shooters. Portable gaming is about 20 - 60 minutes of diversion while sitting on a bus or riding a plane or putting your feet up at home. What few puzzler and other "quick fix" like games are available on the PSP are generally poorly though out (like Smart Bomb). There isn't even a tetris game out for the PSP. Instead, Sony focuses on sprawling adventure games, RPS, sports franchises, and other non-arcade or puzzle games.
Microsoft will fail too because the most popular gaming titles that are played on Live are Halo/FPS, Sports Games, and MMORPG's. All these genres do not make successful portable gamining titles. Live will fail as a portable product because if your travelling, your never going to have WiFi access long enough to play any of these games. You will have to be a home, or in some dedicated environment to play Live on a portable console, and if you HAVE to be in a specific location, then why not just play it on the Xbox or Xbox360?
Sony has, and Microsoft will, fail to understand what makes the portable gaming franchise successful. Sony still hasn't gotten a clue as to what would have made the PSP a successful product. The fact that Sony tried to make a device that works with both games and multimedia pretty much sealed the PSP fate because even the PSP's multimedia handling is poorly implemented. Music playback could be significantly improved on the device (i.e. get rid of the necessity for a folder structure and use a database file like the iPod) and video playback without TV out support? I mean, Sony failed in every aspect of the PSP, from its multimedia handling, to its games, to the fact that there is a strong community of people that WANT to develop for it, but Sony considers them criminals. Sony failed in ever way.
Microsoft might gain a little more success if they base a portable game system on their Mobile Windows platform. If Microsoft allows for homebrew applications which can be developed easily using Visual Studio with a familiar API like DirectX and Windows SDK then they could make a ubiquitous device that will have more then just gaming potential, but Mirosoft won't allow this. Microsoft will bastardize a version of Windows Mobile to prevent homebrew applications. Microsoft will err the way Sony has, buy trying to release a portable version of Halo with Live support or other non-portable genre's of games that won't work in most mobile cases. Unless something like WiMax is released in 2007 where you can have ubiquitous online access across a city or even country, a portable version of Live will fail.
In the end, I think that Nintendo has a strong grip hold in the portable gaming market. Devices like the NGage and PSP have failed to captivate an audience, all Nintendo did to counter these releases is come out with a different color of their Gameboy or DS and they still get more sales then the other devices combined. Also consider that by 2007 Nintendo should be on schedule to release a next generation Gameboy or sucessor to the DS. Microsoft won't be able to compete with the anticipation of a new Nintendo portable game system.
Microsoft will offer just another portable system that will have mediocre appeal and will most likely cripple its success by implementing too many poorly implemented features and DRM protection schemes.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Either they fear something happening to their cash generators or they are just on the quest for more money.
So far perfectly normal business.
But another reason is that they went into consoles to stop Sony. MS fundamentlly believes that the PC on the desk in the study is going to disappear or at least be reduced. The so called living room PC will take over. Wether that is in the form of web-tv or thin clients or the mobile phone MS don't know what they do now is that they don't want anyone else getting their paws on whatever it is going to be.
Enter the PS2. Enter linux. Enter linux on the PS2. When MS learned of this it shit itself. There is only one reason for Sony to mess with Linux and all those evil hacker commies and that is if they want to see if they can have an desktop OS on their millions of consoles. Turning them instantly into living room PC's.
Does Sony want this? Doesn't matter, what matters is what MS thinks Sony wants. There certainly is no love lost between the two or japan tech industry in general and a lot of people would love to see MS loose its hold on the PC market. While it is doubtfull the PS2 or PS3 could ever be a full fledged Linux PC can MS ignore this direct threat to its two cash cows (PS3/Linux won't be running office you can be sure off that)
I think MS partly launched the x-box for the same reasons it went into the browser wars. To stop its competitors from controlling the market.
If you look at the x-box it didn't really do anything new. People complain about the PS3 being not being as innovative as the Wii but the x-box and 360 are just plain carbon copies of the most basic console functions. Except for the bits inherited from the PC, the whole "live" idea. MS certainly did not use its massive resource to outtech Sony, just as with IE it did the minimum that it hoped could disrupt Sony's stranglehold on the console market.
It sorta worked. Remember how IE forced netscape to rush their browser development leading to the dreaded version 4? Is Sony perhaps feeling a little rushed and does this account for the "not ready yet" feel the PS3 gives everyone? On its own the PS2 could have lasted another year at least maybe two. Plenty of time for the PS3 tech to be ready.
The 360 is not innovative, it doesn't push the tech envelope and doesn't do anything new. Yet it is out and the PS3 is not and Sony surely must know about the first mover advantage.
But we are not talking about the big consoles, we are talking about handhelds.
Well the same logic would apply, MS is always looking for another way to make money but at the moment it is already very busy and the handheld market is not easy.
So would it have the desire to disrupt the current market. Nintendo is the absolute master of the handhelds with the PSP being a worthy contender but with a lot of catching up to do.
Nintendo is so far NOT competing with MS in anyway. The gameboy line, until the opera browser game launches, is 100% a game console and Nintendo is not about to release a linux distro for it. Nintendo knows its place and gets patted on its head by its masters. (At least that seems to be MS vision of the world considering recent statements about people buying the 360 AND the Wii instead of the PS3)
Sony however is with the PSP making more then a game device. It now has a pretty complete web browser and can play movies and music. It doesn't excell at tbis but it could be argued it is comes close to a PC.
Getting into MS turf? Maybe. MS has long toes.
The only reason for MS to go into yet another hardware project bound to loose them money is if they feel that not to do so might loose them a market they don't want to be controlled by their enemy.
And Sony is ver
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No. Get over it. Microsoft is not going to launch a handheld, they're crazy not stupid.
Oh of course! I say competition is a good thing, and I get modded down for trolling. Only on slashdot
NOONE is more entrenched in the portable market than Nintendo, in fact, noone else has ever succeeded with a handheld.
I didn't know Peter Noone was in on the Palm platform.
There isn't even a tetris game out for the PSP.
That's because Nintendo probably bought an exclusive license from The Tetris Company LLC.
Which were both also failures, as admitted even by Nintendo. But at least they had more than two or three worthwhile games, unlike the PSP.
The PSP is a failure already (especially judged by the expectations people and Sony had for it), and if Sony can't get a few more good, new PSP games out, it'll be dead by this time next year.
No, it just proves that you're much more of a Sony fanboy than I'm a Nintendo fanboy :-P
Seriously, almost every freaking Meteos review mentioned that this was what Lumines was always meant to be. Nothing against Lumines, it's a great game. It's just that Meteos is better.
Look, I know you're scared and pissed. Nobody wants to shell out hundreds of bucks just to find out that he bought a console that was dead the day it came out. But that's the way it is. You need to get over your cognitive dissonance and acknowledge the facts.
Nah, come on, I'm just pushing your buttons :-)
As long as Sony won't kill the PSP like Sega killed the DC, new games will appear. Who knows, some of them might even not be crap.
My Dell Axim X51v came with Bubble Breaker & Solitaire!
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.