Microsoft Xbox Handheld

[davygee]

marc said:

I am not too sure about that honestly. MS already has the software for the most part, so it wont cost them nearly as much as Nintendo or Sony who had to start from scratch relatively speaking. Also, by using windows in a portable they open the machine to a slew of software that can possibly work on the system. If I were them, I would include libraries for easy 360/portable/PC portability so that devs can make games that can work on all 3 thus lowering their risks & development costs dramatically. So as a 3rd party, I can make a 360 game, which I could already port relatively easily to PC, which I can also port to handheld easily (if they design it that way). You could potential sell to 3 markets with just 1 game. This is an advantage that no one else has and will help aleviate some 3rd party concerns. Of course its not that simple but they do have a big advantage over other companies who started from scratch.

The thing is, there is no point in MS having a handheld that predominately gets ports from PC and 360 versions of games.  This is where the PSP went wrong initially.  You cannot compete with a home console at the same game.  Also, cost is a big issue.  The unit probably needs to come in around £150 or under $200 when it's released.  It doesn't matter what it does, just look at the PSP, it's so versatile are doing loads of functions, but the cost was a big problem and having to compete with a dedicated games handheld with the DS, this is where it lost out on sales over the last year.

The Xbox handheld would need to have a slew of dedicated titles; can MS dedicate the time and costs to do this in a unknown market.

Also, they will probably try and release it nearer the end of the PSP's and DS's lifespan, which IMHO would be around 2009/2010 to get in there before the DS Advance and the PSP2 is released, but I reckon the cost would be huge.  Whereas the next PSP or PSP2 would only need to be slightly more powerful and incorporate another analogue as well as a larger integrated  memory allocation as well as a much better battery life and quicker UMD drive.  The DS Advance will probably be, better graphically, but will look similar to the DS at the moment.  And both will be backward compatible.  Whereas the Xbox Handheld would have to start from scratch.  It will undoubtably come last in the next generation of handheld wars and probably by far.