ipod
03/21/2006, 1:35pm, EST
Tuesday, March 21st
MS creating portable game, media player
Microsoft is developing a portable device that would play video games, music, and video that the company hopes will out-class Apple's fifth-generation video iPod. The device could debut as soon as the end of 2006, and several top Microsoft executives involved with the portable device's development who also worked on the Xbox 360 game console said Microsoft is very serious about catching up with Sony's PlayStation Portable hand-held game console, as well as Apple's iPod players, according to a report from CNN Money. Microsoft is already a major player in the home console market, and the company's early release of the Xbox 360 could make that device the new dominant player of home consoles. The Xbox 360 launched offering limited connectivity to many digital music players, revealing Microsoft's hope to integrate consumer's home entertainment systems with its own hardware products.
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Can Microsoft do something amazing? possibly. I'm really liking my xbox 360, but i don't need another mp3 player or game system. I have the best of both (currently. when ps3 comes out i may get that too).
if MS does make a PSP competitor, it had better come with games that people actually want to play (unlike psp right now)
It's main audience probably also have one or more iPods - in fact all 3 people I know at work with a PSP also have 20G iPods.
If MS make an XBox portable - it will do well. If they try and also make it 'the only portable you'll need' it will do less well. Sony don't advertise that the PSP plays media.
Really, you'd think analysts would learn to look at the whole business model rather than the hardware. No doubt they'll be calling the touchscreen iPod a PSP killer because it can run simple Javascript games.
Sony does advertise the PSP as a media platform. I can't turn on the TV without hearing an ad for a movie that's, "Coming soon to DVD and PSP.".
That behavior guarantees the source a spot on the "this guys nothing but a tool" list.