We're seriously contemplating if a company that has powerful members within it that want to sell off the entire xbox division because of it's lack of profits is going to spend a BOATLOAD of money to try and steal customers away from Nintendo, the king of handhelds? Microsoft won't. The psp was crushed by the ds, the vita is even more so crushed by the 3ds, and all the other previous Nintendo handheld slayers have been destroyed and in many cases the company that made them were destroyed or greatly weakened arguably because of their attempt to take Nintendo out. Microsoft will have a longer future if they simply don't try to declare war on Nintendo in the handheld industry.

That would only lead to embarrassment. The Vita has shown that you can't rely on 3rd parties to move handheld hardware, and Microsoft lacks many series that would translate well to a handheld. I suppose you can make stripped down Forza and Halo games, but based on the sales of handheld vs. console racing and shooting games, that would sell very little hardware. And considering how the PlayStation brand helps the Vita, Microsoft's BitBox or whatever they'd call it would fare even worse outside of America, where the Xbox brand isn't particularly powerful.

Are you really sure about that? Considering how popular handhelds are in Japan, don't you think they'll give it a try?

It would be a monumental flop.

Sony doesn't know how to make handheld games. Microsoft even less. And will never have pokemon.

Well, they'd have to convince Japanese publishers to support it, who are collectively as short-sighted as they come, or they'd have to develop games which appeal to the Japanese market themselves.  Neither one is all that likely, to be honest.

No point, it makes more sense to develop noteworthy titles for their mobile devices.

How could they support more than one console in the generation when they cant even offer a good support to Xbone ?

Microsoft has much less games coming to Xbone than Sony has to PS4 even if Sony support 3 consoles at the same time, that's insane to think they could make a handheld.

You underestimate Japanese nationalism. Look at Japanese sales figures.

Wii 12.75 / PS3 9.63 / 360 1.65

PS2 23.18 / GC 4.04 / XB 0.53

3DS 13.97 / PSV 2.12

DS 33.01 / PSP 19.89

It would flop IMO.

Nintendo is currently and will likely retain dominance in this market.....forever (or replaced by mobile in the future).

Mobile gaming is becoming more and more popular due to low cost and easy integration into a our daily required device (smart phones).

This makes any new addition to the market pointless.

Microsoft has no hold in Japan, where handhelds are kind. They are dying everywhere else, it would flop.