@DarkDecent666

1. MS sucks at making hardware, their handhelds would probably break if you tossed it on your bed.
2. MS has next to no studios and can't even get a decent line up of 360 games they'd never be able to manage 2 gaming devices (even sony had trouble)
3. Not a single one of MSes higher selling franchises are portable friendly
4. Japan is the biggest market for portables, you know the one MS fails in
5. Nintendo dominates the handheld world and pretty much always has, Sony made some headway but MS would never be able too.
6. It would weaken their promotion of their phones

1. Microsoft would simply make a proof-of-concept for phone manufacturers to build.
2. A handheld would likely be based on WP8, which will likely offer code compatibility with the next Xbox as well as Windows 8. In addition, it would likely offer backward compatibility with Xbox 360 games.
3. Microsoft doesn't need Halo or Gears of War on a handheld, but having said that I'm not sure how one can justify saying that when Microsoft hasn't even created a proof of concept that would depict how it would duplicate analog sticks, a d-pad, or bumper and trigger buttons.
4. The reason why Microsoft isn't doing well in Japan is because it lacks a portable device. Where as in several respects Sony and Nintendo have been fighting last generations war here, Microsoft has been fighting its own last generation war in Japan. The Japanese people have gone mobile, and lacking a serious mobile gaming platform has hurt it. Had Microsoft offered a mobile gaming platform instead of a home console, I recon it would have done better in Japan.
5. The Xperia Play is where Sony should have put its money, not the PS Vita. The 3DS and the PS Vita will suffer from a successful mobile phone/gaming platform. Regardless of whether that comes from Microsoft, Sony, or Apple. Dedicated devices rather than phone/gaming devices are where the future lies.
6. Not if it used Windows Phone 8 (WP8). It would, in fact, strengthen it.

1. No idea what you mean here but a phone is not a gaming handheld and MS can't make hardware, the 360 worked in their perfect enviroment didn't do too well in the real world. 

2. A handheld can't have BC aside from digital and there's no way a handheld could play 360 games, xbox original maybe, but those games are still 6ish gigs each where's the memory going to come from. Also didn't adress my point about no games for the system. MS just doesn't have the studios no matter how compatible it is someone still has to make something for it. 

3. Microsoft would need something on a handheld. Also I said friendly not impossible, even on the vita shooters aren't a portable friendly genre. Platformers and rpgs are the most friendly ones, both genres MS fails in. 

4. There are plenty of reasons MS isn't doing well in japan and not having a handheld isn't one of them. 

5. lol okay buddy, so far I haven't seen anything on a phone that isn't either a port from a previous console or that couldn't be done with heavy javascript, phone games suck and they will never get close to current gen handhelds. The vast majority of phone games are on par with free flash games (many of them direct ports)

6. How is a phone going to be a handheld? You can make a handheld that takes calls but you can't make a phone a gaming handheld and no matter how you cut it, it would weaken their phone promotion. 

@Reasonable

I agree. I don't think Microsoft wants to be in the consumer hardware manufacturing business, but in order to have a platform for it's products and services it's finding it must.

Microsoft has had a problem of creating software that is often ahead of the game but nobody realizes the potential or value of it. Sometimes not even Microsoft.

@Disolutude

I don't think Microsoft ever wants to do a dedicated device again, at least not if it's that late to the market as it was with the Zune. The market changed pretty quickly on Microsoft. Not only in the media player sphere, but in the mobile phone sphere as well.

In the PC sphere, they typically are influencing the industry if not ahead of the game with inside information. In the gaming sphere, they've been able to influence the direction of the industry. Apple and Nintendo are the only other hardware manufacturers to have been able to do that in the past several years.

If Microsoft were to get into mobile gaming with a serious mobile gaming platform, then it would be a combination of phone and gaming platform. Not a dedicated device.

If your going to make a list of why there should be no Xbox handheld at least try to keep your bias out of it.

Anyways I don't think there will be a Xbox handheld because it really doesn't make sense. I think they will just keep with their Windows 7 Phone's.

1. Actually the zune and xbox original both have higher then average failrates though not as horrible as the 360 and I do admit I exaggurated. Though quality design and hardware is more important in a handheld then console. 

2. Two of those 14 are for phone games and Sony has 31, Nintendo has nearly 40 also the majority of those unkowns are kinect games, and 12 studios even on 2 year schedual per game (which is fast) means only 6 games a year, spilt that over 2 consoles and that's 3 games a year. Also most of their studios aren't that talented and are working on kinect games. 14 studios is not nearly enough for a console maker to support 2 consoles.

3. I addressed this with the last guy. I never said they couldn't have it I said their not handheld friendly and even with the second analogue shooters aren't. It just means their games won't be as good as the console ones but that can still hinder sales. 

4. Opps only compared the psp sales (which japan has the most) even so when you add up the console sales NA is only about 10 million ahead of japan region, so with MS failing in japan they'd lose 25-50% of potential sales right off the bat 

5. MS is only making a profit now because Sony messed up horribly and made sacrifises for blu ray, I don't see nintendo doing that badly and even if they did Sony would probably be able to wedge MS out.

6. One of the phone selling points (among the less well informed) is that it's an all in one device and if you have it you don't need a handheld because it plays game too and that it will replace handhelds. Release a portable after backing phones would make people realize it's not true and destroy those selling points. 

@DarkDesent666

1. No idea what you mean here but a phone is not a gaming handheld and MS can't make hardware, the 360 worked in their perfect enviroment didn't do too well in the real world.

2. A handheld can't have BC aside from digital and there's no way a handheld could play 360 games, xbox original maybe, but those games are still 6ish gigs each where's the memory going to come from. Also didn't adress my point about no games for the system. MS just doesn't have the studios no matter how compatible it is someone still has to make something for it.

3. Microsoft would need something on a handheld. Also I said friendly not impossible, even on the vita shooters aren't a portable friendly genre. Platformers and rpgs are the most friendly ones, both genres MS fails in.

4. There are plenty of reasons MS isn't doing well in japan and not having a handheld isn't one of them.

5. lol okay buddy, so far I haven't seen anything on a phone that isn't either a port from a previous console or that couldn't be done with heavy javascript, phone games suck and they will never get close to current gen handhelds. The vast majority of phone games are on par with free flash games (many of them direct ports)

6. How is a phone going to be a handheld? You can make a handheld that takes calls but you can't make a phone a gaming handheld and no matter how you cut it, it would weaken their phone promotion.

1. MS can make hardware, RRoD on the Xbox 360 was a blip. An engineering issue and an eventual lesson learned. It's made hardware successfully for years, and since resolving the RRoD issue it's made millions of Xbox 360's. Having said that, a proof-of-concept would be an example of a Windows Phone 8-based mobile gaming platform similar to the Xperia Play.

2. Why can't it have BC? Just because they haven't in the past doesn't mean they can't. Code compatibility is a matter of ensuring the calls made by the code on one device match the calls made on another. A game relies on the application layer of the OS to ensure that the calls to the OS work. As long as you provide code compatibility in the OS and all the necessary hardware functionality is there to match call for call (i.e. GPU, etc) it'll work. The Xbox 360 uses a PC-based processor, not a Cell processor. BC is much easier to accomplish there than on the PS3 with the Vita. And where BC would be important is with Xbox LIVE Arcade games, not so much on disc-based games.

Supposedly the next major version of Windows Phone, Xbox OS, and Windows 8 will be code compatible. Some rumors are that they'll all be based on Windows 8's kernel. Microsoft has also committed itself, ages ago, to being forward compatible. That is games available on the Xbox 360 will be compatible with a future console, as well it has suggested that Xbox LIVE will be available on the PC. Thus the possibility is that Windows and Xbox gaming may merge and you'd be able to run Xbox 360 games on a PC.

If that functionality does eventually exist, that would imply code compatibility. At what cost, who's to know but code compatibility between two distinct devices isn't impossible. It just takes planning.

3. Unfortunately you fail to understand the importance of Xbox LIVE Arcade and the games available on it. Microsoft doesn't need first party studios to create great games, and there are plenty of great games available through Xbox LIVE Arcade and at a lower price than most PS Vita or 3DS games. Not to mention, any game studio that wouldn't take a chance on a Microsoft mobile gaming platform would be stupid.

4. Fair enough, but I believe personally they would have done better with a mobile gaming platform rather than a home console.

5. Just because someone doesn't do something right doesn't mean that there aren't better ways to do it. Whether you'd like to admit it or not, the Apple iPhone and Android-based mobile phones are killing it in mobile gaming. They may not be able to duplicate the console gaming experience, but that hardly matters if developers are making and selling games on those platforms like hotcakes. The Xperia Play was the right concept, but the wrong implementation. Had Sony put all of its efforts behind the Xperia play rather than develop a single device gaming platfom in the Vita, it would have been able to win the hearts and minds of more gamers. Instead, the Xperia Play is a device that Sony can hold up and say "Look we have a Smart Phone for gaming too!". So, no the experience on the Xperia Play is no better than that of any Android phone. That doesn't mean it couldn't have been different.

6. I'm not sure I follow you. You can build a mobile phone that's a slider with a hidden game pad like the Xperia Play and offer a better/true gaming experience. Why you think you can't, just because Sony hasn't, I don't understand. If a WP8 mobile device also included a game pad, and WP8 supported that game pad, and Microsoft's development tools supported the game pad, then I'm not sure why it couldn't make a great gaming platform. Potentially, with a game like Ilo Milo, you could have both a smartphone experience with the game or a console experience with it.

You're arguing possibilities which aren't fixed in stone. What can be done and what will be done in hardware and software is not always predetermined. Just a few weeks ago, it was announced that higer capacity flash memory chips were being produced so that in the next year or so you'd see higher capacity SSD available. That means those flash memory chips and lower capacity ones will be coming down in price, making flash memory even more affordable than it is today. In the next couple of years IC sizes will be shrinking even further, and new imaging technology means we likely could see them shrink even smaller faster than what was predicted five years ago. That will allow faster, more efficient processors and memory.

So, I'm not sure how you can say with any certainty that what is possible, isn't. Given the fast-paced changes of technology and the ability, with software, to make things happen, why a company couldn't make a mobile phone and gaming device. And with Nokia as a Microsoft partner, why it couldn't be Microsoft.

Because Microsoft knows it's a lost cause, that's why. If Sony couldn't dethrone Nintendo's dominance in the handheld gaming market, nobody can. Better to focus on the 360, the NextBox and their upcoming Windows 8 which could unify the PC/Xbox/mobile platforms.

1. It took them 5 years to fix the 360 and all of their devices has a higher failure (not as bad as 360 though), the only reason it was profitable is because the skimped on the warrenty while still avoding being sued. Their hardware just isn't up to par and I still have no idea what you are talking about with the proof of concept. 

2. I stopped reading this at the first sentance, here's your answer to that. The technology doesn't exist to make something as powerful as the 360 and as small as the vita yet atleast not anywhere near anything affordable and even if it did you'd max out at 5 or 6 BC games per biggest memory card. 

3. MS has 12 studios working on 360 counting the xbl ones even if you made all xbl games work on both 360 and the handheld there still wouldn't be enough games to go around and lol 3rd parties are not going to back a MS portable. 

4. Maybe maybe not, but they can't support both and it's not going to magically going to make japan love their products. 

5. Phones are never going to win over gamers like me. Have you seen Gravity Daze? That's what I want not angry birds, not even Infinity blade comes close to handheld games. If Sony put all their eggs in the xperia basket it probably would of sold better but not done anywhere as near as well as vita will and there would have been a lot less good games made. The only reason phone games sell are because they are cheap, the market is already staturated and full of clones. There are a lot of good little innovative games but again they aren't anything more then flash games for the most part and gamers will never be statisfied with that. 

6. You can't make something cheap enough to sell as a portable and sell it as a phone without losing a ton of money because most of the people who buy it won't buy enough games. Either it will be too expensive for anyone to buy or too inexpensive to turn a profit with a bunch of people buying it because it's cheaper then phones. Almost everyone buys a phone on a plan but you can't do that with a gaming device.

The PS2 had a far greater failure rate than the Xbox. Though both were garbage compared to the gamecube failrate wise, just like both the 360 and PS3 have insanely high fail rates compared to the wii, but I guess thats because wii hardware is very weak and so produces little heat.

Actually the PSP sold more in the United States than in Japan. The United States has been the biggest market of any country for every single console this gen and has a 19million lead over Japan in handhelds this gen.

Obviously if microsoft were to make their own handheld they would hire more studios, but regardless its never going to happen because it just isn't profitable and phones are already getting the specs nessessary to play full fledged games. 

You have a source for that? I know more ps2s failed but that;s only because more ps2s were in existance, if we go by % I'm pretty sure xbox was worse. Also it's not about heat it's about the wii being last gen tech, the longer tech exists the lower the failrate, companies usually do a good job considering the cutting edge tech they work with (MS being the exception)

I looked at the regions psp sold 8 mil more, though it doesn't break it down by country. So again link? 

Where would they get these studios from? As it is half their studios are unproven and they ran a ton into the ground already.