If not the handheld then somthing apparently...


Gamespot' s Rumor Control

Looks more like a cross between a palm pilot and a tablet pc.

The update at the bottom of the page verifies the rumour.

Basically the handheld is real but the video shown on Digital Kitchen' s website is a year old and was the initial concept, meaning the device in the video was a conceptual design and the final product will likely look different.

Just gimme a portable Halo!

These images are taken from the video and show the EARLY concept. Ofcourse if you look at the layout of the buttons on the unit it would be virtually impossible to play Halo with it. My guess is that with Sony getting loads of stick because they only included 1 analog nub that Microsoft will actually have 2 one there.





It looks too big just to be a media player and if it is then i' ll stick with my PSP and collection of iPods. But if it has lots of functionality, is smaller than the concept, has analog control and high quality games, ...then i' ll be buying it!

Nice work Mass!

EDIT: After digging some more i found this...



...which is Microsoft' s Ultra-mobile Tablet PC concept and a device that was shown at tha Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in August last year by Bill Gates himself...





Now while the two units may look completely different they both use touchscreen technology and the first image shown is a year old concept. It' s quite likely that the image shown at the top and reported on by Gamespot was the concept that the second unit shown evolved from.

It' s more likely to be an ultraportable “lifestyle PC" than a handheld gaming device although it may still play games.

Interesting indeed.

We' ll see in march :)

Im still skeptical on an MS handheld!

After digging some more i found this...



...which is Microsoft' s Ultra-mobile Tablet PC concept and a device that was shown at tha Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in August last year by Bill Gates himself...





Now while the two units may look completely different they both use touchscreen technology and the first image shown is a year old concept. It' s quite likely that the image shown at the top and reported on by Gamespot was the concept that the second unit shown evolved from.

It' s more likely to be an ultraportable “lifestyle PC" than a handheld gaming device although it may still play games.

we got you the first time majik ....accidental double post?

Im skeptical on MS' s handheld too. I dunno...

Then again it may not even be a handheld, but just a new portable device for the computer market that has Media Center capabilities, like Magik noted.

Aha!
Here' s a little somin from Cnet
Cnet
They seem to be following it pretty closly.

Something like that KiLLeR!

It' s highly unlikely to be anything more than a $500 touchscreen tablet PC that runs a full version of Windows Mobile or maybe even Vista.

Gamespot picked up on the concept unit that' s over a year old now and which i WOULD NOT BUY in a hundred years. It looked awful!

If it was a handheld gaming device it would need an attractive form factor, which neither unit has.

The official product that Gates showed last year was fully touchscreen but could be used with a mini-keyboard. It' s more of a GPS, camera, music, video, phone hybrid and can supposedly last on full brightness for 13+ hours...

It' s something you' d take backpacking, not something you' d take to school or to work to play multi-player Halo (bummer i know!!!)

Ofcourse, it could even be a seperate unit and COULD be a gaming device (but dont hold your breath).

The timing is suspect (i doubt it' ll release until 2007 at the earliest) because it just so happens that Apple are unveiling their " fun" new unit (touchscreen video iPod?) tomorrow.

Microsofts announcement is obviously aimed at countering Apples but that would mean the two products are similar (otherwise why bother?) and since Microsofts is definately some sort of media device that would make Apples one too right?!

Gimme this...





...and make it fully touchscreen and i' ll forget all about Microsofts unit.

NOTE: those obviously aren' t real but it' s nice to dream eh?!

I' ll need to know the confirmed features of this product before I make my opinion on it. It seems pretty cool if it' s a mini-pc but how much will it cost??

Welcome to Kikizo B_ren!

that footage looked pretty good, but i' m not sure i like that tablet PC design. i' m afraid that it will run into what was the main problem with the Nokia N-Gage, and it' s sucessors, It tried to be too much at once. it was a game machine, (however subpar) a phone, an fm radio, it had mp3 playback, audio video playback, bluetooth networking capabilities, and a confounding online plan by Nokia. and it did none of those things sucessfully.

I can understand mp3 playback and even internet acess, but anything else would make it too large for the casual gamer. yeah microsoft would have a convenient travel case or something, something really stylish. but that would most likely draw away from one of their main consumers... kids. Who here is young enough to remember going to the doctor' s office as a kid? and sneaking in your (now enormous, then it was tiny) gameboy, playing tetris or alleyway while your folks signed you in. that whole idea would be gone, the good thing about handhelds was that they were easy and discreet to tote around.

because as big as the handhelds are now, bigger than ever (not counting the Sega Game Gear). i can still fit all of them into a cargo-pocket. now you' d either have to sew a special pocket on to your jacket, or go in looking like an IV league college student. meh, i guess if there' s Halo with wi-fi on it, then it won' t matter how big it is.

Quick update...

While more information will supposedly be available tomorrow Microsoft have said that the unit won' t be shown.

My guess is that Microsoft (like me) thought that Apples secret announcement yesterday would be a fully touchscreen iPod and planned to show their own unit to counter it. But since Apple didn' t announce the touchscreen iPod, Microsoft now don' t have to bother worrying about showing their " concept" (work in progress - and probably still too big) tablet.

The website will still have some kind of update on it but since there' s a 3 week coundown i can' t see us learning any more or even seeing it, ...for a short while at least.

It' s worth noting that it' s also being spectlated that Microsoft will show the handheld at CeBit, being held in Germany from the 9th-15th March.

I want my bloody portable Halo, ...and i want it NOW!!!