A news story came out recently starring Robbie Bach, a former member of Microsoft's Xbox team of 22 years. Microsoft hasn't exactly done badly with the three Xbox consoles released to this date, but with hindsight the talk became that maybe Microsoft should have been looking towards phones. Not thinking about a handheld console, but a gaming phone.
"The irony is, the thing we missed about that was it should have been a phone. What we should have done was the Xphone, not the Xboy. I don't think it would have been an obvious thought at the time. This was still pretty early. This is three years before iPhone. But if we'd been prescient enough to start looking at phone technology, looking at touch screens — if we managed to think that all through, we might have said, 'Oh gosh, we should do an Xphone.' That could have been ... who knows? Hindsight is 20/20."
In the past, Xbox has been Xbox. That thing that sits beneath your TV. With Windows 10 on the horizon we're starting to see Xbox and Windows move closer than ever before, but we even had Games for Windows Live on PC games in place of just, well, Xbox Live.
Microsoft's biggest competitor in console gaming, Sony, has had its own (mostly failed) attempt at a gaming focused phone with the Xperia Play. This chunky little Android phone slid apart to reveal a dedicated game pad adorned with Sony's trademark PlayStation buttons.
Personally, I liked the Xperia Play. I remember visiting Sony's offices in London and playing with an extremely attractive burnt orange model and wondering if what was in my hands was the future of mobile gaming.
But that was then and the Xperia Play didn't lead to anything more successful from Sony, nor did Microsoft go after the market itself. So we're turning it over to you guys. Given the chance, would you have bought an Xbox Phone? Have you had a secret hankering for such a thing or is it the last thing you'd want in your pocket? As ever, drop a vote in the poll and jump into the comments below!
