Will Microsoft ever bite the bullet and develop and release an Xbox Portable device? Team Xbox has created a mock-up for an Xbox Portable. Some of the features hoped for include bluetooth, music player, video, Zune media download store, camera (VGA resolution), camera (Megapixel+ resolution), IM and E-mail and Live Anywhere. Unfortunately, Team Xbox believe it will be difficult for Microsoft to cheaply bring Xbox features to a portable device.
Putting together the required silicon to offer an Xbox experience on a handheld will be a difficult task for whoever designs this portable console, not because of a technology barrier, but because of prices. With the Nintendo DS costing as low as $129.99, and the Sony PSP selling for $199.99, Microsoft will have a hard time bringing the Xbox console to a handheld device at a price lower than $300. The only way people could pay for an Xbox Portable more than what the DS and the PSP cost would be if Microsoft offered with the XP something its competitor can’t; not hardware specs so much as software and services.
A Daily Tech post offers a good summary of Team Xbox's Xbox Portable vision.
Team Xbox envisions a system with a QWERTY keyboard, directional pad, trackball and four action buttons. The article then goes on to examine a wide variety of handheld devices on the market (Sidekick 3, QTek 9000, OQO 01+, etc.) and describes what features that Microsoft could possibly emulate when coming up with its own portable gaming unit. As for the hardware choices, there are a number of possibilities for a processor including Transmeta's Efficeon and XScale (which Intel recently sold off to Marvell). Here's Team Xbox's take on the graphics for the XP:
Of its entire technical specifications, it is worth highlighting that the nVIDIA GoForce 5500 is the first handheld GPU to playback and encode H.264, WMV9 and MPEG-4 video up to 720 X 480 (NTSC) and 720 X 576 (PAL) resolution at 30 frames per second with 24-bit surround sound, making the GoForce 5500 compatible with major mobile TV standards, and capable of both recording and decoding video at DVD-quality. The GoForce 5500 also offers digital photography features, including multi-shot capabilities with support up to 10 Megapixel resolution digital still images.
Kotaku points to modders who have created a large Xbox portable. You can see how it was made here. Nice try. Now, if only they could make it about five times smaller.
Will Microsoft ever bite the bullet and develop and release an Xbox Portable device? Team Xbox has 
