“In a bid to capture the huge audience for handheld entertainment gadgets, Microsoft is designing a product that combines video games, music and video in one handheld device, according to sources familiar with the project,” Dean Takahashi reports for The Mercury News. “The Microsoft product would compete with Sony, Nintendo and Apple Computer’s products, including the iPod. And Microsoft has some of its most seasoned talent from the division that created its popular Xbox 360 working on it. Game executive J Allard leads the project, and its director is Greg Gibson, who was the system designer on the Xbox 360 video game console. Bryan Lee, the finance chief on the Xbox business, is leading the business side of the project.”
“By anchoring its entertainment device as a handheld game player, Microsoft is starting from its position of strength in the entertainment business that it hopes Apple cannot match, even with its iPod. The game press has dubbed it an ‘iPod killer,’ but its functions would likely more closely resemble Sony’s PlayStation Portable multimedia gaming device,” Takahashi reports. “Meanwhile, Microsoft’s efforts in PocketPC handhelds and Portable Media Players have fallen short in competition with the iPod. Last week, Microsoft unveiled Project Origami, a handheld Windows computer. But that device isn’t targeted on pure entertainment as the Xplayer is. The existence of these other projects suggests that there is still some infighting within Microsoft about its best approach to portable gadgets. The handheld project is still in its early stages. Microsoft is still figuring out which strategy to pursue in music technology, according to sources familiar with the matter. The code name for its music service, which would be the equivalent of Apple’s iTunes, is ‘Alexandria.'”
“It could be 2007 before the device hits store shelves. That gives rivals such as Sony, Nintendo and Apple considerable time to consolidate their position and come up with their own new gadgets in the meantime,” Takahashi reports.
More details in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The number of iPod and iTunes “killers” currently sitting on death row is uncountable. All of them are tied to Microsoft in some way or another. The only true “iPod killer” and “iTunes killer” is Apple. We heartily encourage Microsoft to keep throwing their money away on a market they’ve already lost long ago.
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The Microsoft product would compete with Sony, Nintendo and Apple Computer’s products
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Good luck! M$ has showed on so multiple occations that it can not compete without resorting to unfair means. I guess anything that’s bad for M$ is good for us though
Bring it on!
why is it so important to these also-rans to “kill” the iPod? why do all these “me too” companies seem to think that they are, in any way, entitled to any market share of anything Apple introduces? i’m so sick of everything remotely related to those di¢ks from redmond.
It sounds like it is competing with the PSP not the iPod. But that headline wouldn’t sell as many papers or generate as many hits.
“It could be 2007 before the device hits store shelves.”
Can you imagine what the iPod (or PSP) will look like by then?
I’m planning to release a killer that kills killers.
And MacDude.
Where do I register it?
“The code name for its music service, which would be the equivalent of Apple’s iTunes, is ‘Alexandria.'”
Wait, I thought MS was developing a music service called URGE with MTV. Are they announcing that they are going to come up with a service that will compete with another service that they haven’t even launched yet? They really need to change their name to Vaporsoft.
My only two questions:
1. How much of a loss will MS have to price it at to sell?
2. How long will they have to sell at a loss to kill the competition?
Face facts, Microsoft is the Ronco of the tech world.
Origami on steroids.
And since the device will be designed by Microsoft to everything, expect it to do nothing.
Makes sense, someone else invents it, MS makes a mediocre copy of it, throws a 1 billion dollar add campaign behind it, anf steals the show.
I’ll be optomistic and say that, this time around the consuming public has had a taste of the good stuff for quite a while now, and whatever MS comes up with is going to have to be ACTUALLY, and IN REALITY, better. Otherwise conusmers are very likely to blow off any MS offerings that pale in comparison to Apple’s.
Someday this will be true of the pc market as well.
If you can’t stick it into your shirt pocket, it can’t even be considered an “iPod Killer”… end of story.
This is a PSP “killer” and nothing more.
ha, microsoft is designing an ipod killer. i eagerly await to see this in action. what do you bet it will have an innovative new “click wheel”?
The bottom line:
Microsoft will… Microsoft will…
…fail with .Net …fail with Live …fail on Plays for Sure
Little chance that anyone will get excited by ‘Microsoft will create iPod killer’
Eric,
“I think the only thing they have done right was the Xbox.”
Isn’t the Xbox a money loser for Microsoft, i.e. selling bellow cost? I recall reading somewhere that they’re goal is to plant hard drives in everyone’s living room as a springboard to Home Entertainment Hub nirvanna. So they’re sacrificing current profits for future market domination in an adjacent market.
Doea anyone here remember the source of that report? It was an analysis of Xbox unit costing I think.
again wouldnt say an ipod killer, just a competition to psp.
Is anyone else tired of Microsoft announcing products that are more than a year away from store shelves?
Do you know why it rains so much in Seattle? It’s all the vapor that rises from Redmond.
Gates’ upcoming announcement for this groundbreaking technology will have to include the following paradigm shifting innovations:
1. Transparent album cover art
2. An option to play music backwards to screen for Satanic messages
3. A “secure” credit card account system for game and music purchases
4. Allowances and gift certificates (Melinda’s idea)
5. A PlaysForSure start-up chime in Dolby 5.1 engineered by a staff of over 300 during the last three years.
6. Tetris
7. A vibrating joystick that may shock you or burst into flames for extra graphic effect.
8. A Mach 3.0 microkernel and FreeBSD services
9. 4 Intel Core Quad processors
10. 1,288 Installation Wizards and a pop-up animated X cartoon character to gently guide you through any help it thinks you need – loudly and at random.
6. Tetris
So what?
But wait! This version of Tetris is innovative and groundbreaking! It has transparent blocks, a soundtrack by the two remaining BeeGees AND drop shadows! Ooooooooo! ! !
1- Microsoft has a mature business with Windows and any new growth in the space will be incremental. In order for them to grow, they have to find new markets and niches.
2- Over the last 5 years, while Apple has been maturing OS X and converting from PPC to Intel, Microsoft has made tremendous progress into the telematics (onboard automotive), embedded (non-GUI hardware) and PDA markets. Nobody was screaming as M$ has squashed Palm flatter than a Pancake, a la Netscape, Corel, etc.
3- Windows Media- the MOST popular format on the internet, has made significant inroads in the emerging Digital Media formats (including UPnP) and has found traction in Pro Video. Not dominant, but now with a foot-hold.
4- MSN is now a profitable business and with X-Box Live MS is well on it’s way to becoming a 2nd profitable IP-type business. Windows Live will just add to the fray.
5-Microsoft has cash by the truckload to throw at any market it cares to enter. They will sustain huge, multi-year losses in order to gain a beachhead in a market. Ask Sony, AOL and others.
If you are looking at Windows as simply an OS you have already missed the forest for the trees. Microsoft has evolved their platform from an OS to an ecosystem. Ten years ago it was an OS issue– not anymore. From Desktop to Laptop to Server to Embedded Device to PDA to Cell Phone to Game Console to Set-Top Box to UPnP Device to Car Telematics to Media– anyone entering the field has to be interoperable and compatible with MICROSOFT.
That may not be what you want to hear, but that is the plain and simple truth. If Apple instantly gained a 90% client OS market share they would still have much of what their OS does defined by Microsoft protocols, codecs and technologies.
Where is an embedded version of OS X? A PDA OS? An OS for Telematics? Cell Phones? True 64-bit Computing?
(Sound of Crickets)
Why don’t they just stick to what they do best:
Blue screen generators….
MW: See… as in MS tries to see the light…again!
The “iPod killer” project is named ” Longthorn” the original shipping date was 2007 but now it looks like it will slip to 2009 and a half. Who knows when is the actual ship date, just like Windows Vista, aka “Longhorn” also aka Windows XP SP3 or Windows 2000 SP 4. LOL
I recently read a commentary on microsoft saying that all they do is play catch up. There is little ground breaking innovation . . .they strive to produce their version of a search engine, an iPod, an OSX, a playstation etc. The comentator’s point was that if all they do is try to emulate what is already out there, they are in trouble.
hahahahha ANOTHER PSP???!
BRILLIANT!!! That thing’s tanking..
<3 <3 DS!
And how many times have we heard this before?
I’m sure the interface will be like learning scientific calculation to use it. And it will cost to much and it won’t be both PC/Mac compatible or iPod compatible which is where this will all go wrong.
Bla,bla,bla,bla…
Screw all of you
Microsoft Vista will be running on Macs by Christmas.