And yet there is nothing out there that supports your theory that both the Zune/ZuneHD and the original Xbox had high failure rates.  In fact, from what I've read, the iPod has had higher failure rates than the Zune.  As far as the original Xbox goes, being a former owner of a Day 1 purchase that lasted the entire five years I owned it, they were rock solid.  Some people did suffer DVD failures, but I wouldn't assume the Xbox failure rate was any worse than the PS2's failure rate.  Considering Sony was sued over a DVD drive issue, I'm guessing the Xbox's failure rate was significantly lower.

this is still hot? plain and simple,
there is again 3 basic reasons microsoft wont put out a handheld
1- there is not enough room for 3 handhelds -probably the biggest reason of them all its already hard enough 3 consoles, ---- juggling which is doing which
2 nintendo dominates as shown already by ds psp and now 3ds vs vita in japan-outselling vita in its home turf 7-1 and lets this be known japan is bigger then the usa on handhelds a place where microsoft is near dead ---not only will nintendo dominating the industry be key part but the xbox brand is not that popular in the biggest region for handhelds at all

3 if they ever came out with a handheld --- price? failure rate ? and oh boy there better be somthing other then halo fable forza or gears , --- just look at psp which tried to --throw ps3 ports at us , did that work -sure it gave them a foot in the door but still they were and continue to be blown away by the nintendo brand name handhelds need their own set of little games to succeed sure some big names but ms has not that many to go around ,,

nintendo gets away with it because well look at mariokart 7 ! theres somthing different from the wii --flying , underwater 3d, etc
nintendo ds vs gamecube-online obviously was the new addition
gba -first handheld entry -basic but it sold ,
thats why nintendo gets away with this their stuff sells more plus nintendos handhelds also had a history of selling more then their console counterpart a even bigger reason for this - wii has been good but the fact remains, handhelds under the same b rand wii is under , , sell more and succeed nearly all the time wait nearly i mean all the time there is not one handheld that flopped by nintendo and they are not going to start now!

so ya ms -no handheld keep focus on xbox ,, cause lets look at sega whos also never made it to the top --- tried their hand at handhelds ---- after that - they fell into mistake after mistake after mistake!

and if psp go is anything to go by i think sony is just about doing the same thing,
they also have 3 mistakes now
psp
ps3
psp go
and now psvita is--- following its footsteps!

Making a handheld is a risky proposition. There's a reason why Sony didn't even try until 2004: it's expensive and Nintendo's track record in that sector is infallible. Kind of hard to topple someone who's been on top since they basically created the market in the 1980s.

I don't see what MS could bring to the table, either. Vita's already doing everything an MS handheld would do. It seems in MS's best interest to just keep making games for Nintendo's handheld systems.

There's barely room for two dedicated handhelds, let alone three.

Especially in the west. The PSP survived as long as it did because of the tremendous support it received from Japan. Any Microsoft portable wouldn't have any presence in Japan, and Microsoft wouldn't be able to convince any major western third parties to take the device seriously.

They'd have a tiny market to cater to, and little of note to offer that market, yet they'd be spending billions on developing, manufacturing, marketing, and selling the device. It'd be a bloodbath for the Xbox division.

Plus, they seem to be pursuing the handheld gaming market through WP7 and Windows 8 already, an approach that will likely be far more lucrative and far less costly than any potential alternatives.

Oh please you are deluded enough the think the 360 failrate was under 50%. If you do the math from 1.15 billion that MS spend in that year it is enough to repair over 50% of the 360 sold at that point. The 33% is pure bull. You are the kind of person I'm talking about no proof is good enough, MS just lies their ass off and you eat it up.