Allard Working on MS Games Handheld

It seems that the Origami is not the only portable platform that Microsoft has coming.

The revelation of Microsoft's much-touted Origami handheld as nothing more than a new type of tablet-style PC sucked the wind out of talk of a games-centric handheld coming from the company, but it's all flared up again with a report today saying not only does Microsoft still have something coming, the project is being headed by key Xbox man J Allard.

Microsoft is working on a new handheld that, "combines video games, music and video in one handheld device". Joining Allard on the new project is Xbox 360 system designer Greg Gibson and Xbox finance chief Bryan Lee. This according to unnamed sources speaking to San Jose Mercury News' Dean Takahashi, author of books about the making of the Xbox and (soon) the Xbox 360.

The handheld, dubbed the Xplayer by Takahashi, may sound similar to the Origami handheld manufacturers have been showing off over the past fortnight, but Takahashi says games are key, and speculates that it would be high-tech enough be able to "run a lot of original Xbox games from a few years ago".

Don't get too excited, though. The Xplayer is reportedly still in the early stages while Microsoft thinks through other parts of the business, which includes an iTunes-like music service code-named Alexandria.

Takahashi speculates that the handheld could come in 2007. While that seems like a long way away, in hardware terms it's tight, meaning that if this report is true we'll likely hear something from Microsoft over the next few months, probably at May's E3.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games