Do Gamers Want An Xboy?

For a good while now rumors have been making the rounds that the Redmond giant is plotting its first foray into the handheld market, these rumors are subsequently squashed by someone at Microsoft, simply to re-emerge a few minutes later. Only last month Xbox executive Neil Thompson stated categorically that “a pocket-sized Xbox isn’t on the cards,” and that Microsoft was “not even thinking about that at the moment.” Of course it didn’t take long for someone to fan the flames again, and this time it was the big guy himself, Bill Gates.

So as with many other things in the gaming world it seems to be on again, off again and super-duper top-secret, but who cares if Microsoft wants to make the darn thing, the real question is, do we want the device and if we do, what do we want from it?

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For a good while now rumors have been making the rounds that the Redmond giant is plotting its first foray into the handheld market, these rumors are subsequently squashed by someone at Microsoft, simply to re-emerge a few minutes later. Only last month Xbox executive Neil Thompson stated categorically that “a pocket-sized Xbox isnÂ’t on the cards,” and that Microsoft was “not even thinking about that at the moment.” Of course it didn’t take long for someone to fan the flames again, and this time it was the big guy himself, Bill Gates.

So as with many other things in the gaming world it seems to be on again, off again and super-duper top-secret, but who cares if Microsoft wants to make the darn thing, the real question is, do we want the device and if we do, what do we want from it?

When Microsoft launched the Xbox back in November of 2001 in North America, it was met with quite a bit of skepticism. Many weren’t sure if the company behind Windows was gifting a Trojan Horse or offering a PC in a console box, they also questioned whether an American company primarily known for designing software could compete in the primarily Japanese dominated console hardware market. Fast forward five years, and the answer is yeah, they could. Now we ask ourselves, can they do it again?

Ever notice how a month after a new McDonald’s opens a Burger King pops up across the street? The popular theory is that Burger King waits for McDonald’s to spend the big bucks on all the market research in the area, then waits a wee bit to see if things are lucrative before jumping in. In a sense Microsoft are in a similar situation, Nintendo has done a huge amount of research in the handheld arena, and Sony in the short amount of time they’ve had their feet in the pool have done the same. Microsoft stands to benefit from the lessons learned by both companies and could introduce a product that incorporates all the positive aspects of their competitors products while removing the superfluous features and avoiding the pitfalls.

But what could we see from a Microsoft handheld? To answer that question we have to consider the company’s pedigree, as well as question whether the portable system will bear the “Xbox” brand name just as Sony’s offering bore the PlayStation brand, or create a separate identity for itself much in the same way Nintendo’s Gameboy and DS lines established their own brands.

Considering Microsoft’s pedigree as one of the worlds largest and most successful software providers, it stands to reason that a Microsoft portable system would be blessed with an abundance of multimedia functionality and productivity. This makes even more sense when we consider Microsoft’s continuous push into the living room with both the 360 and Windows Media Centre PC’s.

Will it bear the Xbox brand name? If so the implication would be that it would share features with the Xbox 360 or whatever Microsoft’s console offering at the time may be, we can also expect Xbox Live Anywhere integration built into the unit. The risky thing about sharing the Xbox brand name is that there’s always the danger of diluting the brand, and possibly even harming it if the product underperforms and gains a bad rep in the public eye. Creating an entirely new brand identity is more even more risky, and a lot more difficult, but also affords the possibility of expanding the company’s product catalog.

If the Xboy does make a debut, do we want it to concentrate on games and games alone? Do we want more of a multimedia gaming device akin to Sony’s PSP offering (assuming the few faults with the PSP hardware are fixed) that also offers portable versions of our fave Xbox franchises like Halo, PGR and Ninja Gaiden, or do we want something that moves in an entirely different direction, focusing more on the kinds of quirky innovative titles that populate Nintendo’s current DS library?

As always, we’d love to hear what you guys think in the comments.