More news on the rumored Xbox portable

[Paco]

From the book, 'Xbox 360: Uncloaked'

As the hardware team wrapped up its work, Microsoft had to consider what to do with its talented team of 200 engineers. Many of the engineers would be tied up on the cost reductions for the Xbox 360 for years to come. They would redesign the parts so they could be simpler and cheaper to build. They would combine the graphics chip and the microprocessor into a single chip at some point. But some engineers needed work to do before the next console had to be designed. Microsoft’s executives hatched a plan to keep them busy. They dusted off the old scheme to create a portable game player. It was about time. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer decided to realign Microsoft’s top executives so that the company could move faster to deal with its new rivals. It had to start thinking beyond Sony and Nintendo. Microsoft had to compete faster against companies such as Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon.com, Apple Computer, and a host of fleet start-ups. On September 20, 2005, the company split itself into three divisions. The core Windows group would be called the Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division, led by Kevin Johnson and Jim Allchin as co-presidents; Jeff Raikes was named president of the Microsoft Business Division; and Robbie Bach was named president of the Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division. Bach would no longer be the chief Xbox officer. He would step up beyond the Xbox. His Home and Entertainment Division would be combined with Mobile and Embedded Devices, including gadgets such as smart phones, MSN, music services, and Internet TV. With this portfolio of businesses under his control, Bach could end some internecine warfare within the company and launch a counterattack against rivals in portable gadgets. He now had everything within his control to launch a so-called “iPod killer” that played games.For a long time, Microsoft had watched Apple’s resurgence with frustration. The iPod had become a cultural phenomenon, selling well over 10 million units a quarter. Everything that Microsoft did in music services had fallen short. It created PocketPC software that enabled people to play music on their handheld organizers. It had SmartPhone software that was just starting to break into the cell phone business. It licensed its software to makers of Portable Media Players, but even though it won over dozens of licensees, none of the companies could break Apple’s hold on the market. The smaller players didn’t have enough advertising money to establish a brand, and they didn’t have control of hardware, software, and services the way that Apple did. Apple was so well integrated that it could design a product and everything to go with it. It was time for Microsoft to step up and take on Apple directly, in the same way as it took on Sony with the Xbox and Xbox 360. Different parts of Microsoft had tried to take a stab at Apple. Otto Berkes, the co-creator of the original Xbox, had left the project early in its inception to return to Windows products. He was a right wing hawk when it came to supporting the PC and Windows. Berkes began research to try to make a handheld Windows computer. He didn’t know or care what it would be used for. But he knew if Microsoft could pull it off, people would find wonderful uses for it the way they had done with the ever-evolving PC. He teamed up with Horace Luke to create various prototypes. But the Intel-compatible chips of the time had not been designed with extreme low power in mind. Even Transmeta, which made low-power microprocessors, couldn’t make chips that enabled the tiniest handheld computers that Berkes had in mind. He persevered, even as Luke shifted over to designing SmartPhones. Bill Mitchell, the head of Windows mobile devices, encouraged Berkes to keep at it. Bill Gates held up an early non-working prototype, which Berkes had dubbed “Haiku,” at a Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in April, 2005. But that version proved too hard to make, so Berkes started work on a successor, dubbed “Origami.” This system got traction as Samsung and other computer makers in the Far East decided to launch versions of it in the spring of 2006. But nobody expected the Origami machines, which had 7-inch diagonal touch-screens and couldn’t fit in a pocket, to do any damage whatsoever against the iPod or the Sony gadget. Microsoft needed a game machine that was small. Bach assigned J Allard to take on this “next big thing.” Doing so would make a huge statement that Microsoft was going to ship this iPod-killer and that it would do it with the same precision planning that it had done with the Xbox 360. Allard would run the platform, handling the hardware, software, and services for the handheld. Bryan Lee, meanwhile, would become the chief financial officer for the entire Entertainment and Devices Group and run the handheld’s business side. Peter Moore would take charge of the Xbox 360 and Windows games businesses, effectively replacing Bach in his old job. These promotions set in motion another series of promotions. Todd Holmdahl replaced Allard as the head of the Xbox platform. Larry Yang in Mountain View took Holmdahl’s old job, while Bill Adamec eventually stepped up to replace Yang as the semiconductor chief. Allard picked Greg Gibson to be the project director on the handheld.

Gibson had a proven track record for managing a complex design. He would be able to spearhead the core team as it tackled difficult technical challenges, such as cramming a powerful microprocessor into a handheld device that couldn’t consume a lot of power because of battery life requirements. Microsoft hired Transmeta, the low-power chip company, so that it could use 30 of Transmeta’s engineers on a secret project, and the press began speculating about a connection between a handheld project and the Transmeta team. After all, Transmeta was helping Sony create low-power versions of the Cell microprocessor for handheld applications. The Microsoft project would operate in secret until, once again, the media blew the lid off the story in the spring of 2006. The project reminded Microsoft veterans of other times when the team had considered handheld game players. Back in 2001, Margaret Johnson explored the idea of doing the Xboy handheld with technology from R.J. Mical’s Red Jade project. But that project got scuttled. And the Xe 30 team contemplated handhelds again, but they decided to wait until the Xbox 360 shipped. The hardware gang had moved on to bigger and better things. The handheld seemed like the logical next step for Microsoft in games,

Microsoft is fucking terrible at keeping things in the dark. It's coming.

What makes it most exciting is Microsoft's recent announcement of Live Anywhere. Content you purchase off of the Live service could potentially be accessed using your PC, Xbox 360, Xboy (we'll call it that for now), or any other Windows enabled device. Imagine purchasing a fun Xbox 360 game and taking it with you later on without having to pay for it again. Nice.

My concerns are with Microsoft's developer resources. It seems as though they have just enough exclusive content to finally divert some attention away from Nintendo or Sony and pay some mind to the 360. I don't want to see Bungie, Rare, or Lionhead taking even longer to release games because they're working on Xboy projects. The third-parties...good luck getting them from the already installed userbases of Nintendo and Sony. I suppose by late 2007/2008 (the projected launch), Xbox Live Arcade could have a considerable library of games, but enough to justify a purchase over a NDS or PSP?

eh...I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think I'd rather see them firmly establish the 360 than spread thin their developer resources on another hardware venture.

[lazyfatbum]

I'd be very surprised to see a serious handheld gaming system from MS. Even with millions of deniro backing me I wouldn't enter the portable market unless it had Nintendo's name on it. The PSP is a vastly superior portable that no one wants, if the XBoy hopes to make any dent in the market it has to be cheap and not to mention oodles of support and those are two things MS just does not do. They make high end hardware with a significant lean towards western developers and that spells death to a handheld. If MS came out with a $150 portable (I hope to god it runs on carts and not CD's) with a launch lineup of various EA games and the occasional gem from jap support and Rare I can see them making a niche in America and Europe (not Japan obviously who wont buy it just because it's American). But as it stands right now, i'd spend that 150 on a DS and wait and see what games if any are any good on the MS portable before even thinking of buying one, and I think 90% of the population would be in the same mind set.

Odds are though, the MS portable will be huge, expensive, run on 12 car batteries for 6 minutes and use DVD's as its medium with the only decent game being Capcom's Resident Evil Card Stacking. Mark my words.

[Dark Jaguar]

The PSP has done better than any previous handheld against Nintendo's might, but yeah the DS is, at this point, accuratly described as "dominating".

My stack of DS games outnumbers my stack of PSP games by a huge margin.

[Paco]

PSP is doing alright. Not as well as Nintendo (phenomenal), but well. It's not going anywhere, and they're already working with Nvidia on PSP2.

I'd have to find the article to be sure, but I believe the rumor is that it won't use a phsyical media for the games, but rather detachable hdd's. The delivery? Live Anywhere, of course. The content? Rumor has it MS is working on making some of the most popular Xbox games downloadable. Then there is the obvious Xbox Live Arcade to provide further content. In fact, I think that needs to be the hook- Xbox Live Arcade. Of course, Microsoft would need to work really hard for the next two years to make XBLA THE place to get fast, fun, and cheap games, both for consumers and the developers that make the games.

I agree that it would need to be cheap.

[lazyfatbum]

saying the PSP isn't a failure is like like comparing the GC to PS2. Sure the GC didn't fail, but when it sold 20 thousand in a week against the PS2's 12 quadrillion you definitely get a sense of not-so-successful.

Detachable hdd's and d/l (up to) 7 gig games for a portable sounds clumsy to me and an all out battery genocide. But if you could just pop the hdd off the 360 on to the portable, other than issues with weight, it would be pretty cool.

The problem though becomes the 360's HD capabilities. Remember the interview with the guys who are making Metal Slug for Wii? They said they cant bring it to 360 because MS wont allow games that aren't in HD. Which is why support for original XBL content is so sparse, that and the memory issues. In order for the portable to work, MS needs to re-evaluate its stance on HD XBL games.

If i were MS i would exploit the DS user base and make software for it, especially after the losses from 360's birth. releasing a few quirky, small titles on DS like pumped up versions of XBL games and not only are you spending very little but also penetrating a huge market and at the same, essentially advertizing the XBL brand which could further the current MS and Nintendo combo that everyone is looking forward to. Right on the DS box "MS brings you its top rated XBox Live Arcade Games to DS!". It's a win-win for MS.

[Dark Jaguar]

Both DS and PSP, for maximum penetration as easily as possible!

...

I can imagine MS basically sending Rare out to do all that. "Hey Rare, rather than remaking PD or JFG completely, just port it to the DS."

[lazyfatbum]

Going after DS and PSP might work, but now you're making two versions on completely different hardware with different mediums. I dunno if that would be very cost effective for MS. But I can see the headlines on game sites: 'MS DP's Handhelds!"

JFG and the original PD on DS would be pure sex, as well as the B~K games. If MS gets its head out of the HD clouds for XBL, we could end up seeing them there.

[A Black Falcon]

PSP isn't doing as badly in the US as it is in Japan, while the DS is ahead (I think) the PSP has kept close... it's just Japan where it's losing 2-1.

[Paco]

The problem though becomes the 360's HD capabilities. Remember the interview with the guys who are making Metal Slug for Wii? They said they cant bring it to 360 because MS wont allow games that aren't in HD. Which is why support for original XBL content is so sparse, that and the memory issues. In order for the portable to work, MS needs to re-evaluate its stance on HD XBL games.

I didn't read that interview, but now that you mention it I remember MS's 720p standard. I also agree it needs to be re-evaluated. It's probably holding back more than a few developers. Hadn't thought about that before.

If i were MS i would exploit the DS user base and make software for it, especially after the losses from 360's birth. releasing a few quirky, small titles on DS like pumped up versions of XBL games and not only are you spending very little but also penetrating a huge market and at the same, essentially advertizing the XBL brand which could further the current MS and Nintendo combo that everyone is looking forward to. Right on the DS box "MS brings you its top rated XBox Live Arcade Games to DS!". It's a win-win for MS.

I agree. I doubt Nintendo would mind having a Halo game on their DS, or having Rare's back catalog. Can you say "teh sales, omG!"

[lazyfatbum]

And Blast Corps! But i wouldn't put Halo on DS, that would be like putting Metroid on PSP; you'd alienate the fanbase and wreck a mighty powerful exclusive for MS... even if it's a watered down version it would be too much of a whore-out. Besides I want original PD on DS dammit.