A real Xbox portable

[Mr. Cool]

Does anyone know if Microsoft is making an pbox Portable. With Nintendo and Sony already out with their portables, ol' Billy Gates is behind the band wagon. I know the Xbox 2 is coming out with the Nintendo Revolution, and the PS3, but shouldnt they be making a portable?

[soundwave]

PPCs, I don't think they have any plans beyond what they do for PPCs.

[Mr. Cool]

Wow thats surprising. You'd think that they would make a portable xbox.

[Alchemist]

There's a few reasons why this is not going to happen.

The first is that the Xbox contains many different chips designed by many different companies, and to shrink them all down onto one or two would require a collaboration (and sharing of technical resources) between all of them. Unlikely to happen.

Second, Microsoft have fallen out with both Nvidia and now Intel (you don't jump to PPC and get away with it) over the course of the Xbox's lifetime, so neither are going to want to assist Microsoft right now.

Add a third practical concern: Space (hdd, dvd aparatus) and power consumption (not easily reducable).

Xbox is not going to be a portable.

[Doofus]

Maybe it's something simpler... Like perhaps they just entered the console arena, and they're still struggling to dominate the home-console market, and until they feel secure in that, I doubt they'd even consider making a portable.

Besides, a portable from Microsoft? It'd look like a laptop.

[Mr. Cool]

So Alchemist, if theyve fallen out with Nvidia and Intel, how are they gonna make an Xbox 2?

[bicostp]

All Micro$oft does is re-package other companie's sproducts as their own, much like Sears. They would need to either get into the hardware biz or forget about the home console market after the Xbox is surpassed by the Nintendo Revolution, the ps3, or that rumored Sega box.

As far as an xbox portable goes, they would most likely be better off building an entirely seperate handheld unit with power equal to the Playstation, Saturn, or n64. They could have it be able to link up with the Xbox, like the GBA and NCG. However, this unit would probably fall into obscurity like the neo-geo pocket and the N-Gage.

Microsoft would be far better off making games for the other systems. They are better at making software than hardware, if you ask me. (Even "Microsoft" mice are manufactured by Logitech or Dell or somebody like that.)

[Mr. Cool]

Microsoft is or will become a lot like sega
Microsoft was beaten by Nintendo and Sony in the consoles market
So was sega
Microsoft will make games for other systems, after its own stops production
So does Sega
Anyways...
Sega box? Never heard of it. Sounds cool though.

[Black Six]

So Alchemist, if theyve fallen out with Nvidia and Intel, how are they gonna make an Xbox 2?

Using IBM PowerPC G5-based processors and an ATI Radeon-based GPU.

[cennar]

Does anyone know if Microsoft is making an pbox Portable. With Nintendo and Sony already out with their portables, ol' Billy Gates is behind the band wagon. I know the Xbox 2 is coming out with the Nintendo Revolution, and the PS3, but shouldnt they be making a portable?

no...

[Jeff]

That, and gates himself has pretty much said that the goal for the xbox is living room takeover, and they want to add so much to it to make it a central home system.

[daguuy]

Sega box.

there's gonna be a new sega console? cool.

[bicostp]

In theory... No guarentees... yet...

[Alchemist]

No there's not. Sega are a 3rd party software producer who are wholly owned by Sammy, a pachinko company, who have no interest in funding a new console war with players as big as Microsoft and Sony. Expect whoring of franchises and little else in Sega's future.

So Alchemist, if theyve fallen out with Nvidia and Intel, how are they gonna make an Xbox 2?

Using IBM PowerPC G5-based processors and an ATI Radeon-based GPU.

Exactly, multi-core PPC and a R520 variant. The dev kits are apple PC's

I don't see how Xbox2/360/whatever could even have backwards compatibility, I've heard nothing of any big hardware collaboration to reduce the Xbox to a chip/smaller form factor (and given that some models of the next Xbox are rumoured to be shipping without HDD, there'd be another issue there). According to Engadget, it won't be backwards compatible anyway (but it's worth bearing in mind that in terms of reliabilty trusting something on Engadget (or Spong for that matter) is akin to trusting a drunk on a friday night down your local, so don't hold me to their claim)...
Software emulation would be the only way to go, but even for a giant like Microsoft that would be an impressive feat to get anything near full compatibility.

[Sparkfist]

I have to agree wholly.

The G5 chips would be able to run 32bit code but I dont think Microsoft would invest the time and money into such a thing when the Xbox's only really big hit were Halo and Halo2 of which I'm sure ports would be easier.

As for making a smaller Xbox. The smallest computer board I've seen is the new Via Luke and that required a combine System bus and CPU to get so small. Not to mention anything else.
Microsoft is as I see it in the console wars havent hit a level where their hardware and sales are strong enough to give them room to experiment. Sony has the bucks and was the #1 seller for this generation, Nintendo so deeply intrenched in portables that its a second core to their business.