Microsoft recently entered into a partnership with ARM Holdings, the dominant name in mobile processing. While there are all sorts of products that would benefit from ARM chips (Zune media players, Windows Phone 7 handsets), one (remote?) possibility is a portable gaming device. GigaOm’s Kevin Tofel wrote:
Another possibility arose a few hours ago in our weekly live mobile technology podcast. Folks in the chat room suggested a viable option for portable gaming — Microsoft has a large Xbox Live community but hasn’t leveraged it in the mobile space. While the upcoming Microsoft Windows Phone 7 phones will have some type of Xbox Live integration, they won’t be poised as true handheld gaming machines. Even with the Xbox Live effort generating $1 billion a year, Microsoft currently has no portable gaming initiative to compete with Apple, Nintendo and Sony.
What do you guys and dolls think? Will Microsoft compete with Nintendo and Sony on the portable front? Will it be able to nab a bigger slice of the mobile gaming pie than Sony? Would you be interested in a portable Xbox system with Xbox Live functionality?
No because the device will be carrier locked (going with a cell connection theory) and the new caps are ridiculous for anything but email and some browsing.
ARM can not compete with Nvidia for mobile gaming. I think it is more likely that they will be releasing another phone. (Anyone remember Kin?)
@Sandrock
ARM processors are great. You can put a separate GPU on the die and still have incredible battery life. I get where you are coming from, but ARM has really stepped it up over the last year.
Greatest portable system ever -http://www.vootar.com/imgs/elementos/1265036651_SegaNomad.jpg
@Smartguy
They have, but it is still a CPU game. If this was a deal with AMD/ATI, I wouldn't doubt a portable xbox was on the way. Microsoft seems to be pleases with their current partnership for the 360, and ATI can come up with the GPU they need for a handheld. ARM can't do that. As nice as their processors are, they are still weak graphically.
usually i'm a bit of a sony fanboy but if microsoft creates a handheld w two analog sticks, patents that, and finally moves into Blu-Ray disc format, i'll go back to M$.
as far as adding live/cross-console live gaming? i'd say that it'd be a different platform of 360's live because you wouldn't make the same game available on both consoles, even if they both are xbox entities.. you'd make more money from a business stand point, by having even console exclusives including exclusive live platforms which would most likely be separate accounts to charge… go M$! but i'm so ready for real portable FPS action!
Barring the good points that @Smartguy and @Sandrock are making about this idea, I would probably love to use a portable xbox system. I would also kind of want their handheld to also be the phone running Win Mobile 7 too. So if they came out with something that looked and moved like a PSP Go, was a phone, and played all of the XBLA titles…I would really want to buy that. I would even change phone carriers in all honesty to be able to have that. But I don't see anything like that happening in the near future, so I will now retreat back to the imagination in my mind where that is an option for my portable gaming needs and I already have one…
I would love to see a portable Xbox and I've always wondered why they haven't done it, its not like they don't have they resources to do so.
im not smart enough to comment on this article
i dont know shit about gpu's
@Thunder
Haha, I hear that. Which is why my post discussed what I would like to see happen and which will only happen in my imagination.
@Big Blak
They have said in the past that the handheld project was put on the back-burner so that they could focus on other projects. Microsoft wants one, it is just a matter of when.