Why Microsoft portable needs to wait ?

Ahmad Dajania from Vgarabia.com said " In my opinion it's not the right time for Microsoft to enter the portable wars because of three main reasons, Microsoft needs a better first party support, or they need to create a new division to focus on creating games on theirs rumored handheld"

[KingKionic]

I wish one was made. But i guess it was Natal or Portable.
Hopefully MS decision will pay off.

[immortal84]

Microsoft put a lot of effort in project natal, so they must make sure the market will accept a third portable console.

[KingKionic]

At least the portable will come eventually.

Even if it`s years from now.

[immortal84]

The reasons in the article do make sense, so it may take sometime for Microsoft to release a new harware.

[chrisnick]

i think the only "new" thing they could use would be xbox to handheld operability, other than that, the ds has a touch screen and a camera and the psp pretty much has everything else (except a damn second joystick) what else could they possibly offer?......if i was them, i would have my handheld doing something sick with software, its what ms is good at anyway.

[AAACE5]

Handheld gaming is an aquired taste!

I owned a PSP a while ago and found that I never really played it!

I owned a DS lite and never really played it!

Somehow, I tricked myself into buying a DSi, yet I still never really play it!

If you think about it, none of the hand helds really do as well as they should (compared to home consoles). They usually have their main few games that really sell, but pretty much anything else is doomed... prime example, GTA: Chinatown wars! I bought that along with the DSi, yet I have only played it for about an hour!

I think handheld gaming has a long way to go. I will admit that the Psp is the closest to making handheld gaming catch on though.

I just don't get it! All sony had to do was make the thing have 2 analog sticks and it would have been like playing your games on a Ps2! To me, that would have made developers move over to the Psp and create tons of great games for it! Instead, it's more like going back to a Ps1.

[urban bohemian]

The portable would instantly have a huge huge library.

Added Live connectability would also attract alot of gamers.

Combined portable and home console gamerscores.

Portable to console chat....

There are alot of possibilities.

Don't forget Microsoft also sanctioned two portable games from their studios for Nintendo DS. Maybe to test the water: Blue Dragon DS and Viva Pinata DS.

Competition is normally a good thing for the industry. Sony and Nintendo won't be worrying too much yet.

Everyone knows that Halo Portable would dominate sales even if it wasn't too good a game!

[Final_Rpg]

Only game I ever really got into on my PSP that didn't feel like a watered down PS2 game was Crisis core. Oh and GoW chains of olympus.

Yes I know there are some awesome games for the PSP but I don't want to invest in UMDs as I'm planning to buy a Go! at the end of the year. I'm a little wary as to whether I'll have to rebuy all my games so I'm holding out till then.

[R2D2]

Can you imagine playing Castle crashers with your buddys while you are doing a number 2.

[LordMarius]

iPhone, PSP Go, DSi
Do we really need another?

[RockmanII7]

maybe you can connect to xbox live through a system similar to how you can get online through your iPhone.

[dylandurden]

Who needs an Xbox portable when we already have two successful handheld plus the iPhone?

I have a feeling that, when the Xbox portable will be released, it will share the same games of PSP 2, much like PS3 and 360 libraries, wich are fairly comparable overall...

We all know Microsoft isn't good at producing first party stuff, I wonder what kind of unique games the Xbox portable could possibly bring to the table. But I already have the answer: Microsoft will just pay Rockstar or Capcom in order to have some useless timed exclusive.

Well, at least they're taking their time in producing this handheld... So hopefully it won't have any sort of RROD this time around... :D

[Mr_iClu7ch]

i hope Xbox Portable is being developed!

But for now NATAL is the way to go for MS.

[SpoonyRedMage]

I think a better deal might be to go all the way with their support for the DS for now. They've supported it relucantly(with Rare being the only dev to actually make DS games) and I think for now it might be better to support the DS more and get the devs more accustomed to a portable device then when they're ready make their own.

I know it's unlikely to happen but they could even team up with Nintendo if they weren't sure about it.

[KingKionic]

Hope ones made 2 years from now.

[LordMarius]

I hope not
I also hope for the PSP to die
As well hope for the DS2 made 2 years from now

[Double Toasted]

...until they can manage 360 graphics on their handheld and strike up a deal with one of the cell phone companies to have wireless connection anywhere there is service, forget hot-spots, this way we can get a portable Gears and portable Halo with online matches on the go. A man can only hope and dream...atm.

[keysy420]

its their problem that they are facing with the 360.notice how m$ plan isnt games to extend their life cycle. thats becuase they cant compete in that category. instead its other things peripherals.

they cant bring out a handheld and only have the support of thrid parties look at sony. the psp went though a drought because of this.

[-MD-]

I hope it's still a few years out.

[gumgum99]

For me, its not a matter of when it comes to market, its whose portable brings the better games. We already know how Sony's handheld turned out thus far.

[Xi]

It will likely be an extremely different concept then today's portables.

It will rely more on the idea of a server-terminal system and even cloud computing.

If i was going to design a handheld it'd be more in tune to a remote-control for the xbox 360/MS OS. It would rely on a extremely high-bandwidth connection between the server(a pc or xbox) and the terminal(handheld) because of this, the handheld would require almost no real hardware since all computing would be done with the Server. Since it would likely only have a touch-screen, controls, wi-fi, accelerator/gyro and a simple pgpgu it would be relatively cheap. This would also allow for the largest possible battery-life, top of the line graphics and the ability to stream any media you have stored on your PC/Xbox.

The concept would be extremely similar to that of what onlive uses, but instead of using their servers it would take advantage of a personal wireless connection between only the handheld and whatever equipment the user has synced with it, this would help keep lag spikes, and connection issues to a low.

The other nice advantages to having the handheld set up in this fashion is that developers would be able to take advantage of tools already available, and ms would hand an even larger install base to woo developers.

this patent explains how the handheld console would use the PC or 360 as a computational device.
http://appft.uspto.gov/neta...

there would likely be a subscription model to sell the games however, and the price and price modeling would likely be the toughest part of the concept.

[kaveti6616]

You could probably hot potato with an xbox portable. Hehehehehe.

On a serious note, no. Microsoft needs to concentrate all of its resources on the 360 right now. Having another console to look out for will be spreading them thin.

[PHIL1017]

DS and PSP are still the top. Xbox portable? where is it now? ahh, it is a failure! sad!

[Grandreaper9999]

The only thing that really interests me about a MS handheld is the fact that they take care of North Americans, and those great features the psp has in Japan *should* work good over here. I find the nice little extra features the psp has in Japan has me a bit jealous. If MS can make their handheld do what the psp does in japan, I'm sold (unless there's some silly sub fee for using it).

[caffman]

so I don't want another portable console. Plus my PSP is flashed to hell and I don't pay for games on the thing!