Gamers rejoice: Two new handhelds on their way? (another Microsoft, and even APPLE handheld story!)
Supposedly, two more handhelds are on their way to the gaming industry.
They aren't the Gizmondo, Tapwave, or some super-high tech cellphone. Apparently, Microsoft and Apple are making handhelds.
A handheld gaming system is a small unit that plays video games. For
example, the old GameBoy that played the classic Tetris game.
Over the years, many companies have attempted to compete with
Nintendo's GameBoys, such as Sega Game Gear, Turbo Express, Atari Lynx
and so on.
Since then, Nintendo has pretty much dominated the handheld gaming
industry with the GameBoy, GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance, GameBoy
Advance SP, and the current Nintendo DS. Sony joined back in 2005 with
the unit known as the PlayStation Portable.
Now there's speculation Apple and Microsoft will be joining in.
PORTABLE GAMING ON RISE
The latest known name for Apple's handheld will be the gPod, which
looks quite like the PlayStation Portable -- except without the
joystick. It'll have all the same media players as the PSP including
pictures, music, videos and a probable browser.
The various iPod models have been dominating the media player
industry and now there's already an iPod Video out and all it needs is
a game player.
Portable gaming is on the rise -- so why not try to join in?
When Microsoft decided to join the gaming industry, everything changed.
At the time, it was only Sony PlayStation and Nintendo GameCube.
Then Microsoft joined in with the unit known as the Xbox, which has now
advanced to the Xbox 360.
Time passed and the Nintendo DS (Dual Screen) and the PlayStation
Portable have been competing. The consoles are set, and Microsoft has
yet to attempt to join in with the handheld industry -- until now.
There is no known release information about it yet, but it's obvious
they'll be joining in soon. There's talk the Microsoft's handheld may
be called the "Xplayer" and there are no known images of it, either.
With one company dominating the media industry and the other one
having everything but a handheld in their product line, a venture into
handhelds seems obvious.
Ryan Inman
May 30, 2006
Source: Newsvine