By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Shadow1980 said:

Ignoring the fact that it's highly improbable if not impossible for a portable X1X to exist in just 3-4 years from now—realistically, it might be at most as powerful as a base XBO, and even that might be pushing it—, there's other issues that MS would face if they entered the portable market.

1) Games. An Xbox Portable will be at least a generation behind whatever their current home console is in terms of power. That means it will only have ports of older games made for previous generations, indie titles and other low-budget affairs that don't require a ton of horsepower to run, and original titles made specifically for the system. The latter would require third parties to invest in the system, and for MS themselves to invest more money in creating original titles for the system. Given other problems the system would face, I'm not sure the risks in investing in it would provide sufficient reward. Plus there's MS's track record of not investing as strongly in first-party efforts as Sony & Nintendo have. And without enough original content for the system, I doubt it would have much commercial viability. Simply saying, "Hey, you can play Xbox One games on the go now!" will be enough in and of itself to propel the system to success.

2) Xbox is not a global brand. While PlayStation and Nintendo sales are more equitably distributed across the major markets, a significant majority of Xbox sales are from Anglophone nations. The U.S. & UK alone represented at least 60% of all 360 sales, and at least two-thirds of all XBO sales. Xbox struggles mightily in continental Europe (the XBO has sold only about 5.4M in Europe sans the UK according to VGC), and it might as well not exist in Japan. This will most likely come into play with a portable system as well. The U.S. & UK will be the best potential markets for an Xbox handheld, but in other markets it would be a hard sell. Even handheld-friendly Japan is likely to simply ignore it.

3) Nintendomination. It's no big secret that Nintendo owns the handheld market. The only non-Nintendo handheld to have truly mainstream success was the PSP, and as the Vita has shown that was a fluke (well, in the West, anyway; the Vita did decent numbers in Japan, though still far short of both its predecessor and the 3DS). Nintendo has had the strategy, the brand power, and the games needed for their handhelds to be successes. If even the massive brand strength of PlayStation wasn't enough for Sony to win in this market, what chance does MS have?

Good post, this pretty much covers it but one other thing, the OP is suggesting a $500 price tag which would be waaaayyyyyy too expensive to reach a mainstream audience.

This device would be lucky to sell 10 million lifetime.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.