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Microsoft's Handheld Codenamed Argo
The Seattle Times reports that details on Microsoft's handheld gaming/music device are finally slipping out. The Argo project looks to be Microsoft's hedge against angry analysts, upset that the next versions of Office and Windows have slipped yet again. From the article: "As reported last week, initially by Bloomberg News, the device is expected to go on sale by Christmas. It has Wi-Fi capability so it can connect wirelessly to home and public networks and other players. Wi-Fi sounds like a big deal if you're comparing the player to the wire-bound iPod. But this is more than just another MP3 player. It will also compete with game players from Sony and Nintendo that have long had Wi-Fi and work as media players, Internet terminals and communication devices. Argo is likely to showcase another Allard project — XNA, a new toolkit that helps game developers create titles for multiple platforms."
A bit off topic, but I fail to see why this article would appear under the Apple section. I suppose one could agrue that because it likely is a product made to go tete-a-tete with an Apple product, one might want it mentioned there. But shouldn't this be under Microsoft's section? Or handhelds?
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Did I read that correctly? The media forgot to call it an ipod-killer!? Heads are going to roll down at the Seattle Times.
"Wi-Fi sounds like a big deal if you're comparing the player to the wire-bound iPod."
Not exactly the same result, but AirTunes provides something most of us simply want...
Animoog.org
Not wishing to sound like a nay-sayer, but what happened to Microsoft's last handheld device, the Origami?
Anyone?
Exactly, not much at all. I'm rather skeptical at this point to be honest. The only hardware that has an MS-badge on that I've found to be any good has normally been developed elsewhere and brought in and rebadged.
Name your latest high tech gadget for a bronze age pirate ship crewed by illiterate drunks and thieves trying to stay one step ahead of that mad bitch Medea. Brilliant!
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Nintendo does well in the hand-held market because they've spent almost 20 years learning what people want in a hand held device, as well as offering a large selection of software that is fun and speaks to a wide spectrum of people, not just your 14-24 male crowd.
Sony has been able to break into the handheld market (where many others have failed) because they have the brand name recognition, as well as ports for a lot of popular franchises, not to mention the nice movie viewing capability. (However, even Sony is beginning to sink, as the number of people speaking against the constant remakes are beginning to grow, and UMD movies have all but sunk.)
So Microsoft, which barely edged Nintendo out for second place in America, and is in third place in Japan by a far gap (even despite being the first "next-gen" system there), thinks that they can break into the handheld market with what sounds like another version of their "Origami" project, but geared more towards games? I would put down safe money that it sinks faster than the Game Gear. The idea of it being an XBox brand makes me think that the device will be bigger than the PSP, too.
"My, that backpack looks heavy. What do you have in there?"
"My eXtreme-Box portable gaming system."
"And what else?"
"Uh, that's it."
Of course, no one would try to steal it, since the device would be useful as a bludguning instrument, as well. "Looks like the perp left a mark on his victim. What exactly is that?" "Looks like some sort of big X."
Argo? Not.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
I think there's a common thread among the devices you mention: the ones that succeeded did one thing, and did it well. The Ipod plays music very well (plus video, but that feels tacked-on to me). Nintendo handhelds have always played games well. In addition, both have put an emphasis on portability and battery life.
Then you look at devices that aren't doing that well. The PSP has some sweet specs, but (as you mention) it has some issues. The DS getting twice the battery life (or more) probably doesn't help either. As for portable audio players, wake me when the manufacturers that aren't Apple figure out how to design a user interface that doesn't suck.
When MS started talking about creating simpler infrastructure, and more ellegent solutions, I got a little worried that maybe they were really in the right headspace to compete with the iPod. But now I see that those original ideals were just words, and this thing is going to be just another PSP: "It's a game device, it's a PDA, it's a video player, it's a music player, WOW!" You'd think that MS would have learned its lesson from Sony on this one, but it seems like they haven't. Their decision to make a handheld gaming system will be their biggest downfall, now they're not only competing with Apple (and Yahoo, and Creative Labs, and iRiver), but with Nintendo and Sony as well. At this point, if you manage to piss off Nintendo and Apple in the same punch, you're likely to just strengthen their unspoken alliance to the point of them officially joining forces against you, and I wouldn't want to be on the other side of that battle.
What's so difficult to understand? The two most successfull handheld entertainment devices, in their respective fields, are the iPod and the Nintendo DS. Both of these devices succeded because they were aimed at only one market, were designed to do one thing, and they did it extremely well. And because of it, they slaughtered every other competative device that tried to throw in the kitchen sink. Meanwhile, the PSP, N-Gage, and all those other little "3 in 1" type gadgets are foundering.
The first thing this device is going to kill (if anything at all), is all the iPod's competitors, which are trying to do exactly the same thing as MS is here. The irony is that these are MSs biggest allies, many of them use WMA as their primary file type, and thus have contracts with MS worked out. But there's no way that MS is going to be able to compete with the iPod, head-to-head from the get-go, these other devices stand like a helpless rank of unarmed soldiers standing just in front of the huge army that is the iPod.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
A lot of people seem to be completely missing the details of the product here...
1) Unlike Origami, MS is actually making the hardware and software here. They are not bound to the hands of a lot of crappy Consumer Electronics device makers and PC OEMs that historically make ugly hardware (and huge hardware)
2) This is coming out of the team that made the Xbox and the Xbox360. They have proven that they can write lean/mean software that just works and has pretty and good UI
3) This device is not (currently) a video game player. As pointed out above, MS is still obviously making games for the DS, and no respectable news site has stated that it plays games, just that it might at some mysterious point in the future.
4) The leaked pictures show a fairly small device with a small attenna on the top. It has some blurry UI that doesn't look like Portable Media Center software, which implies that they wrote something specially for the device to go head to head with the iPod
5) Its not just a device, but also appears to include an iTMS competitor. In light of this, it looks like they aren't going to use the horrid "Play for Sure" crap. Instead, they are doing what needs to be done. Make something that actually just works well together. Not something they somehow make work together (like WMP in general with media devices)
6) MS already has relationships with most record labels due to the old MSN music store. They also have relationships with most movie studios due to the VC-1 codec that is in both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
All in all, it sounds like MS did look at the market and realized that they had to make something that is small, is focused at just media (audio and video, no games). They also appear to be trying to innovate ever so lightly by adding WiFi and a lot of the potential that brings. One need only look at what MS did with Xbox Live and the 360 to think about what can be done with a permenant Internet connection on a Consumer Electronics device. There is a lot of potential here that if they live up to, could mean the next step in Portable Media Devices.
Worst case, MS shows what not to do with things like WiFi, then Apple comes out with the iPod WiFi and does it right.
Either way, it only benefits us, the consumer.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
No, there is no official relationship between the two companies, but the similarities, especially in business philosophy are uncanny. Share no interests? Think again, they seem to share almost identical innovation philosophies: KISS (keep it simple, stupid), when in doubt, go back and try something completely different (iPod wheel, Nintendo DS & Wii), make one gadget that does one thing very well, the list goes on and on. This all at a time when the word on the street is "features, features, features!", complexity is better than elligance, and innovation is risky business. I don't know any companies who share more similar business philosophies than Apple and Nintendo. Now, that doesn't mean that next year they won't turn around and become huge competitors, but I think they share an almost identical ideology. It does mean that if there is any interest in doing any joint business venture, there is a deffinite compatability there to do so. So, if both of their livelihoods are threatend by the same company in one swoop, if it's worth their while, from a business standpoint, I could easilly see them doing a joint project. I don't think there's any need for one for the time being. Although, it's become fairly clear that Nintendo has taken some cues from Apple: the footprint for the iPod Mini and the GameBoy Micro is identical (even their naming convensions suggest some looking over eachother's shoulders), and the Nintendo DS Lite's styling is way too close to the iPod to be mear cohincidence. But these are not really unexpected, and don't really have anything to do with the business's overall mission statement. Now, their makeup might be quite different, I don't know, but having such an uncannilly similar ideology makes up for some interesting speculation, don't you think?
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.