Oh, never mind the success of Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, but Microsoft thinks that portable gaming consoles do not make for a viable
business model and it explains that why Xbox company is planning to come up with any dedicated handheld gaming console.
Speaking at E3, the company's chief operating and financial officer Dennis Durkin cited the sales performance of Nintendo 3DS to further his point forward. He said that 3DS had a "slower start than analysts and others had expected." Umm, Microsoft, let's not forget that 3DS sold out on its launch in most of the market and whatever hiccups it had to face were mainly due to '3D' concept and not the 'handheld' phenomenon.
However, the CFO did make a valid point that with the increasing influx of smart-er phones, the dedicated portable devices such as cameras and portable gaming devices are going to face stiffer competition. So, in a way, the company has simply declared that it is not going to compete with Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. Well, at least not by designing a new gaming console. The company will compete indirectly via its WP7 phones, though.
Microsoft also divulged a couple of stats about WP7 and Xbox Live integration. Quantity wise, Xbox Live games are less than 1 percent of the total games available on WP7 platform, however, these games are responsible for more than 70 percent of the revenue. Well, now we can see, why Microsoft is not going to bother coming up with a dedicated handheld gaming console.
In February, the company had also demoed that its WP7 phones would be able to interact with Xbox 360 and Kinect sensor. Currently, Xbox is among the biggest star products for the Redmond company. Let's see, if it would be able to maintain the stellar performance.