Microsoft Handheld?

[Phillyman]

Anyone else smell this in the works, Microsoft competes against Apples Ipod with the Zune, and Microsoft does not have its claws in a portable gaming system like Sony and Nintendo do. I feel that Microsoft will be trying to kill 2 birds with 1 stone very shortly. Anyone else have that feeling?

[meppi]

I'm not sure what good this would do at this time to be honest.

There's barely enough room for 3 players in the console section (you can see the 360 and PS3 cannibalizing each other) and I don't think a 3-way race in the handheld world would really work.

As for myself, I'm not the least bit interested. Certainly not when I see just how few I tend to play my PSP, which is barely at all these days.

Can't even remember the last time I turned it on. Must have been after WipEout Pulse came out somewhere.

[Phillyman]

I'm not sure what good this would do at this time to be honest.

There's barely enough room for 3 players in the console section (you can see the 360 and PS3 cannibalizing each other) and I don't think a 3-way race in the handheld world would really work.

As for myself, I'm not the least bit interested. Certainly not when I see just how few I tend to play my PSP, which is barely at all these days.

Can't even remember the last time I turned it on. Must have been after WipEout Pulse came out somewhere.

Well we have had 3 handhelds before (lynx, game gear, gameboy) and with the consoles.....what were we up to in 1995....like 6 (NES, Genesis, SNES, 3DO, PSx, Jag)......it may be overkill but Microsoft obviously had no problem shoving themselves into the mix back in 2001 when Sega, Nintendo and Sony were already established.

[triverse]

Back in 1995 we had the following systems going at it, although not all in a successful manner:

NES (some games were still being released)

SNES

Genesis

Playstation

Saturn

3DO

Jaguar

Amiga CD32 (I may be mistaken on this one, I have never seen on stateside in a store)

Amiga CDTV

Philips CDI

32X

That is about a 11 way battle, 8 if you drop the Amiga offerings and the CDI (which never really was marketed as a gaming system).

Microsoft has the money to do it if they wanted. I wonder what medium they would use for the games though?

[Phillyman]

Back in 1995 we had the following systems going at it, although not all in a successful manner:

NES (some games were still being released)

SNES

Genesis

Playstation

Saturn

3DO

Jaguar

Amiga CD32 (I may be mistaken on this one, I have never seen on stateside in a store)

Amiga CDTV

Philips CDI

32X

That is about a 11 way battle, 8 if you drop the Amiga offerings and the CDI (which never really was marketed as a gaming system).

Microsoft has the money to do it if they wanted. I wonder what medium they would use for the games though?

Anything that has a Mario game or Zelda game....has to be counted....no matter how horrible those games were

[meppi]

Back in 1995 we had the following systems going at it, although not all in a successful manner:

NES (some games were still being released)

SNES

Genesis

Playstation

Saturn

3DO

Jaguar

Amiga CD32 (I may be mistaken on this one, I have never seen on stateside in a store)

Amiga CDTV

Philips CDI

32X

That is about a 11 way battle, 8 if you drop the Amiga offerings and the CDI (which never really was marketed as a gaming system).

Microsoft has the money to do it if they wanted. I wonder what medium they would use for the games though?

You can also easily drop the 3DO, Jaguar and 32X from that list.

And by 1995 NES was just about as dead as it could be and the SNES was starting to run on it's last legs. MegaDrive wasn't up to much anymore and Saturn had barely started even though it was out before the PSX.

Well we have had 3 handhelds before (lynx, game gear, gameboy) and with the consoles.....what were we up to in 1995....like 6 (NES, Genesis, SNES, 3DO, PSx, Jag)......it may be overkill but Microsoft obviously had no problem shoving themselves into the mix back in 2001 when Sega, Nintendo and Sony were already established.

Same thing. Lynx was a non factor and the Game Gear wasn't much better. Well ok, it was quite a bit better, but still.

And look what happened when MS entered....Sega had to bow out of the race because there wasn't enough to support 4 consoles.

[Thor]

Yeah exactly and look what happened most of those companies threw in the towel after just a few years. No one can topple Nintendo's handheld market. I for one would buy a M$ handheld but I love my handheld gaming.

[triverse]

Sega was in the throes of financial trouble way before Dreamcast ever launched. They didn't bow out of the hardware market just because of MS entering, although it didn't help. I mean, the japanese CEO (I think that was what he was, he died shortly after) donated millions out of his own personal bank account to keep Sega afloat towards the last days of the Dreamcast. There are interviews with various Sega staffers that are now with other companies stating that if they could have hit the critical mass point of system sales they would have continued on supporting the system but couldn't reach that level.

When I first heard about MS entering the gaming market with a system I really really thought they were going to buy Sega out and either continue on that legacy or phase it out completely but keep the internal dev teams, the two companies have been close since the Genesis days if I remember correctly (may have been the Saturn days on but I remember something about MS software in the Genesis library).

Sega, I think, would have fared a lot better with the Saturn had they not brought out the 32X at all. I mean, that really tarnished their reputation in America. Sega CD was a neat add-on and had some actual good games on it and to most was a justified peripheral, if not a required purchase. The 32X was just a bad business venture from the get go with the Saturn coming up so soon afterward.

As far as the other companies throwing in the towel a few years later, most of them were performing a hail mary attempt at system releases (Atari with the Jaguar and 3DO with the well, 3DO-had EA supported the system they help bring to market like a real hardware manufacturer, which they really weren't more than money, this could have been a contender longer). Had Matsushita stepped up to the plate and launched the M2 then we may have been playing the M4 right now, I really think they could have, with the right people in charge, have taken the gaming world by storm much like Sony did with the PSOne. Then again, it could have bombed big time as most that were in charge felt it would, therefore not releasing it in any form other than a couple of arcade games (Konami made one and Jaleco made one game each for the M2 arcade hardware, there were others but they escape me right now).

Microsoft getting into handheld gaming could be one of many things, good or bad. I mean, come on, they have enough money to make it a success if they try it. What design do you think they would go with if they did try it? Looking at the Xbox series controllers, they are pretty close in design to Dreamcast controllers (Who really designed the Dreamcast anyhow? MS or Sega?). Would they go with a design from something Sega may have wanted to bring out? So far there have been three major handheld designs, like the PSP, GBA Original, Game Gear, Lynx and N-Gage where the screen is between the controls, #2 flip up style like the GBA SP and #3 flip style with the controls on the bottom with a second screen occupying the area between them. I am interested in seeing what they could come up with in a handheld. I would most certainly, almost positively, think about buying it.

[perudon]

I just bought my wife a Zune and, you know, even though it isn't as sexy as an iPod I actually prefer it. When my iPod finally craps out I am going to get a Zune. Now think about the vitality that the XBox and XBox 360 have brought to the world of video gaming. It pains me a little bit to say it, especially about the 360, because I am a major Sony fanboy, but there is no denying it. The way I see it, Microsoft could definitely be successful in the handheld department. The first version of the hardware might not be the greatest (as seems to be the case with many things Microsoft) but after working the kinks out I think they could come up with something pretty decent.

I think that the prospect of Microsoft coming up with a portable is even more likely now that Apple has pushed gaming on the iPhone so much.