MS and Transmeta: Xboy??

[EndR]

Ok, this is from The INQ, so it might be a "take it with a grain of salt"-warning.

WHEN WE were at IDF earlier this week, we asked respected industry analyst Peter Glaskowsky what he thought Transmeta might be doing with Microsoft – it has seconded 30 engineers as we reported a few weeks ago. Now this is speculation, but what Peter had to say was quite interesting. Transmeta is really good at producing efficient low power consumption stuff. And the only direct connection Microsoft has with chips is the Xbox 360. Transmeta engineers wouldn’t be producing efficient low power consumptions for Microsoft mice.

So what if it was, instead, contemplating a handheld version of the Xbox 360? It certainly would make a lot of sense.


http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25745
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What *else* could it be? MS has been active in the portable sector, but not for gaming but multimedia (Portable Media Centers).


But sure, it could be pretty much anything here...

[BlueTsunami]

They seem to be pulling with that article (nothing really solid). I can't wait for the

We don't comment on rumors and speculationanswer...

[EndR]

They seem to be pulling with that article (nothing really solid). I can't wait for the

answer...

As always..:)

The INQ has been in a downward spiral, nearing "spong" status... but they´re not there yet.

But it sure is interesting what the Transmeta-fellows are doing with MS..

[Guden Oden]

Ok, this is from The INQ, so it might be a "take it with a grain of salt"-warning.
More like grain of salt the size of matterhorn...

<insert crazy-ass wild and unsubstantiated claim by inq>

Inq: "What ELSE could it be?"
Rest of universe: "We don't know, but NOT THAT!

This is the dumbest Idea I ever heard. Or well, dumbest this year I guess at least, the phantom was even dumber actually. Not only does x360 use some serious hardware that is beyond portability (unless you want to lug around on a car battery to get more than 15 minutes runtime), it also renders at screeen resolutions that aren't really suited for portable use.

I hope nobody here starts to get their hopes up because of this load of bull... x360 isn't even out yet and already there's rumors of a portable version. Pshyeah, right!

[EndR]

More like grain of salt the size of matterhorn...

<insert crazy-ass wild and unsubstantiated claim by inq>

Inq: "What ELSE could it be?"
Rest of universe: "We don't know, but NOT THAT!

This is the dumbest Idea I ever heard. Or well, dumbest this year I guess at least, the phantom was even dumber actually. Not only does x360 use some serious hardware that is beyond portability (unless you want to lug around on a car battery to get more than 15 minutes runtime), it also renders at screeen resolutions that aren't really suited for portable use.

I hope nobody here starts to get their hopes up because of this load of bull... x360 isn't even out yet and already there's rumors of a portable version. Pshyeah, right!

I think you read it wrong.. maybe too much "nubbe"?? ;)

The speculation isn´t about a portable 360 but a portable gaming machine, a la Gameboy/PSP...

[silhouette]

These guys can simply be the software guys who used to work on transcoding of the x86 op-codes to op-codes used in transmeta's architecture. MS need a similar thing to make xb 360 backwards compatible with xb (i.e. x86 to PPC op-code transcoding).

[Shifty Geezer]

Isn't Transmeta also cahooting with Sony? Obviously PSP2 is a Sony/MS joint effort built around Transmeta's technology. Obviously.

[Lazy8s]

While not offering X360 compatibility, SGX boasts a similar feature set to Xenos and high fillrates, considering the small resolution it'd need to drive for a handheld.

[Brimstone]

Seems plausible to me that Microsoft is having Transmeta customize a Efficeon microprocessor for a portable gaming device. I doubt the Power CPU in XB-360 has anything to do with it.


It would be nice to see

Efficeon CPU
ATI GPU
16:9 LCD with touch screen support (stylus)

Two thumbsticks

[kyleb]

we asked respected industry analyst Peter Glaskowsky....

OMG, that guy is a riot! He is the one that gave the GeforceFX a "Graphics Proccessor of the year Award." the year before it came out and then tried to defend himself on nvnews forums.

link for the curious. (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=7741) :)

As for an "Xboy", I kinda doubt it.

[mckmas8808]

Should they focus on the console market first? I mean they are losing to Sony by almost 70 million units. And to add they didn't make one dollar from the Xbox hardware and....

[Farid]

WHEN WE were at IDF earlier this week, we asked respected industry analyst Peter Glaskowsky
I stopped reading here.

About this rumor, MS has already an ongoing uphill battle in the home entertaiment sector, I don't why they'll divise their efforts into two front.

I'd had believed a rumor about a iPod-like HDD add-on (Maybe even playing small downladable games), but not about a full blown console handheld. It makes little to no sense economically for MS.

[Dave Baumann]

ATI's Dave Orton has already spoken about seeking avenues of furthering ATI's relationship with MS from just the XBOX and a handheld gaming device fits that bill perfectly, IMO. I'm fairly sure that ATI will bring a shader enabled Imageon chip, based on their unified architecture, in 2006 - if this were the case it'd fit in with XNA nicely as well, quite probably. MS have the OS side sorted already with "Magneto" (next version of CE / Pocket PC) which could offer truely convergence handheld capabilities - a gaming device (via DirectX Mobile) with internet capabilities (IE already built in), push email (a la Blackberry - the bit new feature for Magneto), Media capabilities (Media Player 10 is already built in), G2.5 / G3 phone capabilities via SmartPhone software additions, etc., etc.

[lip2lip]

only thing this suggests is they are planning to release a portable dvd player style system with a mobile cpu inside to play games on. oh boy. cannot wait!!

[Farid]

ATI's Dave Orton has already spoken about seeking avenues of furthering ATI's relationship with MS from just the XBOX and a handheld gaming device fits that bill perfectly, IMO. I'm fairly sure that ATI will bring a shader enabled Imageon chip, based on their unified architecture, in 2006 - if this were the case it'd fit in with XNA nicely as well, quite probably. MS have the OS side sorted already with "Magneto" (next version of CE / Pocket PC) which could offer truely convergence handheld capabilities - a gaming device (via DirectX Mobile) with internet capabilities (IE already built in), push email (a la Blackberry - the bit new feature for Magneto), Media capabilities (Media Player 10 is already built in), G2.5 / G3 phone capabilities via SmartPhone software additions, etc., etc.
But why would they go down the closed platform route?

I think that if MS do anything on this market, it would be along the lines of their PMC initiative (or the windows one, you may say, to a certain extent).

They entered the home consoles market simply because there were no other hardware alternatives on this sector where MS could include their software solutions.
In the porrtable gaming sector, they can, and they are including their portable OS solutions in a lot of devices (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/default.mspx).
Pocket PC and Smartphones will, in the near future, be a larger market than any handheld consoles could ever be. Every future cellphone produce could be a smartphone, and we all know how man cellphones are produced/sold each years.

No need for them to split their forces on the gaming front. It would be an incoherent move for them.

[Dave Baumann]

Personally, I find the idea no more or less odd than the existance of the XBOX from MS when they have their PC software, but thats beside the point.

Pocket PC's and Smartphones will still be tailored to the primary target markets and needs, which will not be gaming - that will be the frilly bits on the end. Simply put, you can't have a phone that has a battery life of 4 hours, but you can with a gaming device. In otherwords, I think that regardless of functionality there will still be "horses for courses" dependant on the primary needs and the battery life to fit those needs - I would say that you will still see devices tuned towards phone operation that can play games (longer battery life) and there will still be games devices that can "do other stuff" (shorter battery lafe, higher performance for games).

Other reasons for doing it are branding an perception - do they want XBOX to be just percieved as a trojan for getting MS into the living room, or do they want to be seen as a division that is serious about gaming?

[Shifty Geezer]

To date MS have repeatedly denied any interest in handhelds, and said (J. Allard) they don't really want to work with hardware either. Unless MS is wanting to reposition part of itself into the hardware market this move if true wouldn't make sense for them. They already make money on every CE handheld sold, so why mess that up with their own competing product? I mean, regards consoles they only made XB to fit an MS OS into the living room. Prior to XB MS approached Sony and Nintendo by all the accounts I've read. If Sony or Nintendo had accepted MS wouldn't have been in the console hardware business and would be showing even more record profits over the past few years. Project that into the handheld space where MS already have their OS on other hardware manufacturer's products and there's little point to enter.

Unless they are going toe-to-toe with the Sony Universe and want to produce the de facto gateway for home AND handheld media, they won't make a great deal of money from the handheld space which is already saturated with new and emerging products. Plus unlike Sony MS don't have the content to distribute without making lots of deals, and the content providers again are being stretched over how many millions of platforms to release their titles on.

I imagine this Transmeta move is something experimental. There's lots happening at MS, not just consoles. A handheld doesn't seem right for a company that's repeatedly said 'let Sony and Nintendo knock each other out in the handheld space' unless, as I said, there's motions through MS to expand beyond software in a big way.

[Farid]

Personally, I find the idea no more or less odd than the existance of the XBOX from MS when they have their PC software, but thats beside the point
Their PC softwares have a very low, if even relevants back in 2001, penetration % in the CE market.

MS had their foot in the door, when they include the WindowsCE framework in the DC SDK (along with Sega's own OS/Framework), the problem, to call it like that, is that Sega stopped the production of any CE hardware. Leaving MS out of this huge software market.

Therfore, they had three solutions in front of them, leave the market, find their way into the platform of one of the big player (Sony and/or Nintendo) or create their own platform.
Pocket PC's and Smartphones will still be tailored to the primary target markets and needs, which will not be gaming - that will be the frilly bits on the end.
The sucess of the PS2, the GB/A, the DS, the Cellphone gaming clearly shows that graphics are not the most important factor for a success in this market.
Other reasons for doing it are branding an perception - do they want XBOX to be just percieved as a trojan for getting MS into the living room, or do they want to be seen as a division that is serious about gaming?
Is that even an issue with the mainstream?
Do people (casuals) question MS ways when they produce the Xbox? And if they do, will they stop questioning MS ways, if they produce a handheld?

Also, and more importantly, J.Allard, a few months ago, said, IIRC, that if MS could they'd pull out of the hardware business, and they'd concentrate on a Xbox hardware agnostic platform only. His dream would be a VCR like situation for the videogaming.
Of course, at the moment being, it's impossible for MS to do that.

The thing is that situation exist already in the handheld market, why would they complicate their lives and fabricate hardware to fight another uphill battle against Nintendo and now Sony? When they could, simply, find their way into billions Cellphones?

Was the Xbox hardware experience profitable for Microsoft?
Are the other MS Software platforms profitables?

Simple question that should be at the roots of any decisions for MS execs about the handheld sector. If you ask me, that is.

[EndR]

Maybe a portable gaming device (with multimedia capabilities of course, MS loves the whole "carrying your photos, music etc) would maybe help MS to strengthen Windows more.

If you look at 360, it has functionality to work with Windows Xp and future versions but all this is still in the same household. With a portable gaming device, you could expand the "Windows work area" even further. Maybe that a portable gaming device has the same functionality as 360, meaning that you could access your PC at home anytime you want (of course, this means that the PC has to be on all the time).

But by having this kind of functionality, MS strenghtens Windows and expand it more. The more stuff you can connect to Windows, the stronger it gets. If all multimedia tech-stuff can be connected and all have "360-ish" functionality, then Windows gets stronger and could maybe hold off Linux even more (because if you have a Windows, you could connect your cellphone, gaming device, PDA etc etc and have an added functionality).

Then we have all this with XBoxLive and making it portable as well....

Not so say that there is a portable "Xboy" in the works, but I think that there might be some "truth" to it, in some ways or another...

[Dave Baumann]

Their PC softwares have a very low, if even relevants back in 2001, penetration % in the CE market.
And yet it has always been their plan to get the PC into the living room, as it still is now. That doesn't mean they haven't attacked the living room on multiple fronts.

The sucess of the PS2, the GB/A, the DS, the Cellphone gaming clearly shows that graphics are not the most important factor for a success in this market.
I would suggest that PSP, GB/A, DS are gaming machines primarily, and any other functionality they offer is more of a peripheral. Ongoing you are still going to be able to offer more powerful portable gaming devices by targetting that need than the convergence devices will offer.

Besides, its not as though gaming was a dismal failure on the PC - that didn't stop MS going after a wider section of the home gaming market; if the mobile market ends up in multiple teirs (as it certainly is at the moment) why would they not want to go after that? In the GB/A, DS & PSP there are millions and millions of handheld gaming devices out there right now that have absolutly no MS influence - is MS never going to take note of that? What other party is going to be able to make enough of a stand to challenge in this space using MS based software? Its not as though the likes of Gizmondo is going to concern Sony too much.

Is that even an issue with the mainstream?
Do people (casuals) question MS ways when they produce the Xbox? And if they do, will they stop questioning MS ways, if they produce a handheld?
Absolutely not, but the casual person sits there and thinks "Nintendo - Gamecube / Revolution & GB/DS; Sony - Playstation & Playstation portable; Microsoft - XBOX & ??, hold on..."

[Shifty Geezer]

If you look at 360, it has functionality to work with Windows Xp and future versions but all this is still in the same household. With a portable gaming device, you could expand the "Windows work area" even further. Maybe that a portable gaming device has the same functionality as 360, meaning that you could access your PC at home anytime you want (of course, this means that the PC has to be on all the time).This sounds just like Sony's vision, and if MS are thinking along these lines they've approached it too late without designing such portable/base connectivitiy from the offset. PS3 will interface directly with PSP, with MemSticks and WiFi, and even the possibility of accessing the PS3 systems over the internet based on talk of Cell Storage of HDIP cameras. Both PS3 and PSP are set to access the same content through the same gateway. PSP seems set from the original design of PS3 to be a portable gateway to that base system.

XB360 dosn't have a memory card reader for whatever SD or CF media XBoy would use, and neither does it have WiFi as standard. You'd need extras to interface with the portable, or need a MC PC to hadnle all that, so the XBoy would be like a portable MCE. The result would be a more expensive solution to something Sony offer. Plus though they have Live! as a delivery platform they don't have the content.

There's no need for MS to provide their own hardware solution to a portable MS OS as there's other manufacturers out there already doing that are there not? And competing head to head with Sony they'll be very much on the back foot. That said, MS have got where they've got by beating their competitors at their own game, taking their ideas and making a success of them one way or another. If they could see a profitability in it that I can't they may consider a portable.

[Brimstone]

I'm guessing a portable could help to give MS one more bargining chip when negotiating with third parties. For example, develop for 360 and we'll also cut you a sweet deal for all the portable games you make for our X-Boy. More influence with retailers.

[mckmas8808]

I'm guessing a portable could help to give MS one more bargining chip when negotiating with third parties. For example, develop for 360 and we'll also cut you a sweet deal for all the portable games you make for our X-Boy. More influence with retailers.


Not smart if you ask me. And shouldn't MS have to prove to it's higher up execs that the console gaming world is a good business move. I mean the Xbox sold well if you compare it to Nintendo's offering, yet Nintendo can always state that they made one hell of a profit. MS can't say that.

Shouldn't they prove themselves finiancially with their consoles before they come out with a handheld?

[a688]

Not smart if you ask me. And shouldn't MS have to prove to it's higher up execs that the console gaming world is a good business move. I mean the Xbox sold well if you compare it to Nintendo's offering, yet Nintendo can always state that they made one hell of a profit. MS can't say that.

Shouldn't they prove themselves finiancially with their consoles before they come out with a handheld?

Didn't Nintendo make most of their profit from handhelds?

[mckmas8808]

Didn't Nintendo make most of their profit from handhelds?

Not sure but they have been in the handheld business for over 15 years now and they had a stable console market status before they came out with the Gameboy.

[london-boy]

Didn't Nintendo make most of their profit from handhelds?

Yep. Worst case scenario it's 50-50. But i'm pretty sure they made most of their profits from handhelds. And Pokemon. :wink:

[Acert93]

I think a MS portable "game" platform of some type would not be a bad move for 2 reasons.

1. Sony. The PSP continues to broaden its featureset, and in doing so is slowly nibling away at the PDA market. Basically Sony is moving in on MS's turf. I think in the long run, if unechecked, a $200 portable game device that did most of the same stuff as a PDA would undercut the market substantially.

2. MS is already involved in portable devices. We can ponder "will they or wont they" but the fact is MS is already there. While a PDA is not a "game first" device, many Pocket PC owners do play games on their device. And as seen with the new Axim series 3D chips are beginning to hit the market. Pocket PCs already surf the net, check email, watch movies, take pictures, and so forth. The next logical evolution is to expand their abilities to the mainstream market--and the easiest way to attact a LOT of people is GAMES.

I cannot say if MS is headed this direction or not, but I think MS would be stupid not to consider it (as I am sure they are and have).

With "Handtop" devices around the corner, which plan to be not much bigger than a PDA (so PSP size) we may see a MS strategy to 1. solidify the struggling PDA market and fend off some of the PSP defections and 2. broading the scope and interest in their own platform.

Just as an aside, I am a PDA user. If the PSP had 1. a touch sensative screen and 2. an open software development platform (like Palm) I would have been sold on it from day 1. I don't do enough portable game (none actually) to justify $250 for a portable game machine.

But a portable device that can email, surf the web, watch movies, play music, run my favorite apps, work on a Word document AND play games?!

Well, that would be a little miracle of a device... especially with a large sexy screen like the PSP has. All I would need then would be a thumb pad keyboard accessory!

[MoeStooge]

I'm not really sure the PSP is nibbling away at the PDA market that much. PDAPhones are what are really killing the plain old PDA.

My dream pocket pal = Mobile Phone + Gaming Device + PDA with VGA, powerful processor, and no usability issues.