Microsoft's portable...

[Paco]

Seriously if Sony cant claim stake in a market in to a profitable (comfortable) niche where a company (Nintendo) basically runs the circus, then a company that cant even get Japan to spit on it if its on fire is sure to meet an even worse fate. ESPECIALLY if it's trying to be an all in one device and cost over 200 bucks. It's like Virtual Reality, everyone dreams about it, no one spends money on it. Even the all-in-one apple products with video, pictures, music, etc or the cellphones with music, video etc are all not doing too hot. It's too expensive, it's too much of a pain, it's time for Mario kart.

Good God, how did I know you'd look at this from a purely video game perspective? How the fuck did I know that? Oh, yeah, because you can't see past Nintendo.



Are you joking on the new iPods not doing well? I sell them where I work and we can't keep them in stock. During Christmas we had people driving over 250 miles just to come and get some of the few remaining ones we had during the holiday season. The major cities were sold out. LOL.



Last I read, iPod was the biggest selling handheld device last year, and the year before that. Apple owns like 65% of the mp3 business and the market continues to grow. It takes no stretch of the imagination to think someone else wants some of what Apple is currently enjoying. If Microsoft can come up with a device that betters everything iPod does, without breaking the bank, then they could very well have a hit on their hands. The possibility of how it would interact with Vista (and subsequently, Urge) is promise enough of a good handheld.



Games...will happen eventually on the MP3 players. Developers are talking about it more and more so it's only a matter of time. My stance is that Microsoft should break into the MP3 market first, get established, then offer a spin-off games device with Live Arcade type games in the following years. They would fail if they take on Nintendo directly, and they wouldn't enjoy all that much success if they took Sony's ideas with the PSP (jack of all trades, master of none) because Sony will already have established itself. It needs to excel in one area, and last I read the music business is far bigger than the video game business. If someone could merge the two in some fashion then they'd probably have a huge hit. I'm not saying it will be Microsoft but who knows.



As far as Sony and the PSP. I don't think the PSP is doing "bad" in any sense of the word. I think it still continues to outsell the DS in N.A. and it's still doing well in Japan (not DS well, but well). The PSP isn't going anywhere and it's only going to get better. They finally have some potential hits on the horizon (Daxter being the most promising, imo).



Oh, and Microsoft does sell Windows in Japan, and they do rather well. It's just the Xbox they don't seem to like. If Microsoft doesn't associate it's new handheld device with the Xbox brand then they could do well.