With the announcement of the xbox tablet, it seems that Microsoft will officially be entering the portable console space.

The yet undisclosed Xbox tablet, behind air-tight top-secret development at the moment.

When Nintendo created the DS, it was meant to serve as a 3rd pillar for Nintendo, alongside the home console and the portable console. Since the DS proved to be a true successor to the Game Boy, it left room for a new 3rd pillar alongside the Nintendo DS.

The Nintendo DS was intended to be a 3rd pillar to Nintendo's family of console HW. Instead, it proved to be a natural progression of the Game Boy.

The tablet market is much different from the console tablet, as the sales of units is magnitudes higher than those of portable consoles. Also, tablets have a very different form factor from both the Game Boy and the DS.

Is it time Nintendo finally took the world by storm? Has the inevitable come to knock at Nintendo's door?

What's your take?

I don't think a company of just 5,000 that focuses on video game hardware and software and still does a fair bit of outsourcing for games and hardware can effectively enter the tablet market with their own unit unless it's just a branding of someone else's tablet. And even that contradicts their own corporate direction.

Nintendo are not operating system developers and aren't going to become one now. That would mean that their tablet would need to run Android (or Windows 8) which would undermine their own interests.

If the Nintendo tablet only played (expensive) games, it would fail as it would seem vastly inferior to other tablets on the market.

No...just no. If they did it would probably bankrupt them.

I think they might need to find a new solution to the "Handheld problem". 3DS is selling great (despite what the analysts may think and say), but the software is falling behind - compared to the DS.

Making some kind of tablet or phone with, say, Samsung, could be the way to go. I don't think they'll make it themselves, but co-operate with some other manufacturer.

I vote "Maybe"

No they shouldn't. The tablet market is crowded.

I would not buy a nintendo tablet.

And why would that be?

I am not answering that question. Let's just say that because of personal preference.

I accept. Mind if I ask what about the hypothetical tablet do you dislike? Since we don't have specs, is it because you don't expect Nintendo to deliver a competitive product given their track record?