In a story run by Kikizo recently, Microsoft's corporate VP, Shane Kim, dropped some interesting quotes on the possibility of entering the hand held games market.
In the interview, Kim described the situation as "matter of focusing on 'when'" and pointed out the importance of Microsoft's 'Live Anywhere' service, describing it as "connective tissue" between players and differing platforms. "We talked about Live Anywhere a few years ago. Live is the connective tissue. You're starting to see that now - we integrate Netflix, we integrate Facebook, we integrate Twitter - because we understand that customers don't want an island experience, they want to be connected to the rest of their lives."
This led to the question of an Xbox hand held – specifically one revolving around the Live Anywhere service. As Kim explained, "...the question will be, how do we enter into that market - do we do our own device, do we create our own phone - that's a question for the company itself - do we continue to go down the Windows Mobile path which is that path that we're on today, etc, etc."
While this isn't quite the Xboy smoking-gun that we were waiting for, it certainly suggests that Microsoft is looking at how to integrate its network services beyond devices like Zune. Will this eventually lead to a direct-download gaming hand held? We shall see.
Read the rest of the interview here
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