No point, biggest handheld market is Japan - Microsofts weakest territory.

Think about it 5 sec, what else could Microsoft bring to the handhelds market that's not/will not be already available? 3DS and NGP are different in many ways, and appealing in their own ways.

I fail to think about something that this "XBoxP" may have that they don't.

No, they dropped the ball.

I actually believ them, when they say that WP7 is their handheld. Sure, its still a young and unevolved platform, but it could make some serious money from it.... whats that? Youl be able to play PS games on an Android... well, then scratch that

On a more serious note: IMO MS lost their chance to enter in the handheld market bigtimes. Their WP7 platform barely moves units, and even the future of Sony and Nintendo is uncertain in the more core oriented portable market. MS would be DOA with a PalmX ( or something like that) especially seeing how the PSP is alive thanks for japan, a market that is impossible for MS to penetrate. Only time will tell if any of them will remain in it for a long time to come.

Nope.  They'll invest behind Windows 7 phones.  I believe it would be a disaster for MS to release a 3DS/NGP equivilent at this point.  Nintendo rule that roost and even Sony, coming off the two best selling home consoles ever, could only manage a decent first try - although I think with NGP they could do even better this time.

For MS a handheld would be a huge expense and distraction and they'd probably end up way behind Nintendo/Sony initially rather than focusing all efforts on 360 install base and Kinect.

So nope.  Just doesn't seem to make strategic sense to me and seems to likely to end in failure.

Japan may be the strongest handheld market in ratio to consoles, but they are still far behind Americas in actual sales of handhelds.  EMEAA is even further ahead of Japan, so actually, Japan is the weakest of the 3.  

OT - No, Microsoft won't release a handheld.  There really wouldn't be much benefit for them, as it isn't an emerging market anymore.  This next generation will be the last official handheld generation IMO as smartphones and tablets swoop and and steal the marketshare.  

I highly doubt it. The home console market may be big enough for three competing consoles but i don't think the handheld market is.

Wow.  You ... you really stole basically every bit of thunder I had coming here with this post.  All I can do is QFT at this point ...

WM7 being their handheld is a smart move, they simply cannot compete with the 3DS. XBL and Achievements on any WM phone, regardless or manufacturer is a very attractive proposition and it's mostly all profit for MS as they don't have to develop and subsidize HW.

Why release a handheld with likely <30M units sold when they can release a portable OS which sells to >100M devices if not over 300M potentially?