Zune HD (xYz) positioned to take on Apple, Sony, Nintendo and Google?
By Thomas Ricker 
posted May 15th 2009 6:42AM
posted May 15th 2009 6:42AM
Sounding too good to be true, the cats at Teamxbox have posted a lengthy piece quoting multiple sources from Redmond and Santa Clara who anonymously spill the beans on what the Zune HD is and isn't. The "digital entertainment handheld," dubbed unanimously as product "xYz" by said sources to emphasize its purpose of bridging the Xbox and Zune platforms, is not a phone (that's Project Pink) but a converged "mashup" of devices like the Sony Mylo, PSP, and iPod touch. The emphasis of the device is not the hardware but the software, services, and entertainment experience if offers while remaining primarily "a portable game console and media player." It's said to link into Microsoft's Skybox computing services for mobiles and blur the lines between Xbox Live and the Zune and Sky Marketplaces. Even the Xbox 360's NXE interface will be making its way onto the new Microsoft handheld. As Teamxbox summarizes: Buy a song, a movie or a TV show on your Xbox, play the content later on the handheld or the other way around. Play an Xbox Live Arcade game either on your Xbox or in this handheld.At the moment, we have no way to authenticate any of this beyond what we've brought to the table already. Honestly, having had our hopes crushed by a tepid reaction to market trends from Microsoft in the past makes it difficult to believe all these seemingly fanboi fantasy claims of specs and convergence. However, if true, if Microsoft finally breaks free from the rigid silos of its own making and delivers an integrated living room, gaming, and portable media experience along with a stable Windows 7 computing environment... well, wait this just can't be happening.
[Via wmpoweruser and SlashGear]
Can they announce this thing already? My Zune 30gb broke and I had to fix it myself. Close call. I can't travel without music. Possibly E3?
@ Schweppes
There are so many holes in your logic that I don't know where to start so I'll wrap this up quickly by saying you're an idiot!
>like a begging troll
Wow. Ironically enough, a troll just called others trolls.
Just... what?
Apparently Schweppes has never heard of the iPod touch, which is clearly a bag o' shite by his own definition. Dumb monkey...
He's not a dumb monkey, he's a troll. I'd call him a dumb troll, but that would be redundant.
Schweppes is certainly a d-bag, but that doesn't make him wrong.
Wi-fi is hardly ubiquitous, and wimax is available in all of 2 cities at this point. Even when it is nationwide, in 3 or 4 years, I doubt carriers are going to offer free access to it. I'm not paying $50 a month on top of my mobile bill for a gaming handheld.
Also if you read the txb article, wimax is an assumption by the author not anything he was told.
For this to truly be a cloud device it needs access everywhere, and I don't see that ability without cell networks.
It is obviously a business decision not to include a phone.
Microsoft making a phone would obviously upset their windows mobile partners which they don't want to do.
These feature hopefully will also feature in winmo7 as well so MS will have this device and winmo 7 to compete with iphone and ipod touch.
Then again there is nothing concrete here.
It could also be modeled like the Kindle, where it has cellular access to data but no monthly fee. All speculation at this point anyway.
You know though its another step in the right direction. In a microsoft environment (although there is no xbox portable) theyre decreasing slowly the amount of devices to carry. Eventually I think we'll see very strong relationships to this device and winmo 7 and eventually one device will be a smart innovation.
I hope they can keep tight control over the hardware (like the Xbox/Zune) since the software/ecosystem licensing model doesn't work well in consumer gadgets.
Android seems to be doing OK out of the gate... though it's not "licensed" per-se
Way 2 go Microsoft!
Sounds pretty awesome! sadly awesome and Microsoft don't go together.
Wonder if we will ever be able to not bother buying one of these in the UK !
@Brian - You smugness and lack of excitement for this product is insulting to the other Brians. Renounce your name immediately.
@xYz - Awesome
A) Zune is the best deal around for music with the exception of stealing. $15/mo for all the music you want is entirely reasonable, plus you get to keep 10 songs/mo. The only thing Zune needs now is a kickass piece of hardware. Zune 120 is nice, but it's not as portable as the iPod Touch. Zune Software >>> iTunes Software, iPod Touch hardware >>> Zune 120 hardware
B) Integration into XBL on a portable device sounds like a dream come true, so long as it can play some form of XBLA games, integrate my MSN messenger contacts, and stream my TVersity content over WiFi, just like the 360.
C) It better be smaller than the first gen PSP. If MS released a portable entertainment device that looked like that fanboy mockup of the PSP2, for less than $250, Sony's PSP would have to either seriously shape up or die.
Count me in!
OP Brian, don't you mean that you wonder if your EU Overlords will ever allow such a device to be sold / imported into the UK? I mean, a device that plays music, surfs the web, and has games...that's a monopoly!
If true i expect a slide out keyboard plus dpad and buttons.
If not, it won't be more successful with hardcore gamers than the ipod touch.
"Hardcore gamers" & "iPod."
Now that's two things you wouldn't expect to read on a website with intelligent people!
i can bet there are a lot more casual gamers is this world than 'hard core' gamers.
If you were a business who would you target?
They could sell an aftermarket device that you can place the Zune into with controls. That would be awesome for Xbox Arcade games and couldn't be any larger than todays PSP.
There is too much buzz about this, for them not to show anything at e3.
It's either Microsoft is going to come with something amazing or E3 is going to be a letdown for them because of these rumors...
OMG! I which this is comes to pass... It would so trump all apples's products combined... Zune HD FTW!!!
Only if they can fix the shite Zune Software.
zune software is 100 fold better than itunes. i've tried out tons of media player software, samsung, microsoft, winamp, apple, etc, and itunes is by far the worst.
Admittedly, previous versions of the Zune software were kinds lame. Slowed down my system and really weren't all that special. The last release though, REALLY bloo mah 50ckS off! I really liked it. I used to buy my music through iTunes but now I've been buying my music through the Zune software. (I have to admit though, the last album I bought from them was the last Breaking Benajmin CD [which was awesome btw] os I haven't had a chance to try out the new version of iTunes). The Zune software's really neat. :)
Well, at least Apple can make a decent browser.
IE on the desktop is slow, doesn't conform to standards, and is the scorn of web developers.
IE on mobile devices is one step above getting your information through carrier pigeons.
WebKit (Safari/Chrome) on the desktop is fast, flexible, and one of the most standards-compliant web engines out there, it's even open-source.
WebKit on mobile devices is the de-facto standard.
WebKit was the way Apple changed the mobile industry. After all, before the AppStore, the iPod touch was just an iPod with that all-essential WebKit browser, and it sold phenomenally well. Microsoft don't have a history of making good browsers.
@KarlW
Begone. You contribute nothing.
@rob
Oh really?
The buggy ID3v2 tag reading, its tendency to rewrite tags without notifying the user, how 10 somehow comes before 2 when organizing albums.
It's easy to prevent it from changing your tags or album in for in the settings. Putting in your own info and album art is simple as well.
@KarlW
Hmmmm....ever heard of Firefox? Is it made by Apple? I don't think so. Of course, it's not made by Microsoft either but that's not the point. Don't act like Apple is God.
Microsoft has a lot of software that can easily make this a potential threat to all the aforementioned. seriously imagine all those xbox live games in a zune sized package that plays all your media and makes calls. and I hope that if this is true, that it is a separate entity than windows mobile.
Hold the "phone", nobody said anything about being able to make calls. You let the cat out of the bag. Might as well let them know it is a camera and had gps too.
ha ha ha...i laugh at all the fruity fanboys...
Zune HD is gonna crush all your PMPs ^_^
I'm going to bet against that if only for the fact that Microsoft will surely find some way of snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Why they do this is quite beyond me...
I love my 120g but Microsoft always seems to find a way to fail; even when they do everything right...I really don't understand it. Zune is obviously better than iPod ( to those of us not blinded by pop cult.) yet it barely manages a profit
...Until we realize it costs $400.
What are your standards for failure, Liam? Anything less than total market domination?
The 360 is a solid machine, and their decision to beat the PS3 to market (despite troubling RROD issues) seems to have given them a real advantage in the current generation of consoles. They've been doing nothing but right with the 360 recently IMO.
The Zune hardware and software are both great but of course they're not dominating the PMP market. Apple still releases quality devices and they had a huge head start.
By most accounts Windows 7 is going to be a great revision.
And last I heard, they're still turning decent profits.
I'm confused with the whole fail thing :|
@Liam, 250M in R&D will do that to any division.
Hehe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msCSi7obI9s
Microsoft never cease to amaze with their attempts to conquer the living room.
I have a Media Center PC and a 360 in mine. So I'd say they've succeeded.
And Apple's don't? See: Apple TV
Microsoft has taken over my living room. Media Center FTW. If the Zune HD turns out to be what these rumors describe, I will be severely tempted to get one. And the Apple TV does not even come close to Media Center. The inability to act as a TV tuner/DVR makes the Apple TV just a glorified streaming device.
@Mr Clickerson:
Mio didnt say Apple TV wasnt a successful attempt!
What's wrong with you fanboys?
I didn't say they succeeded, either. The AppleTV is a regrettably underwhelming device.
For you idiots:
"Microsoft never cease to amaze with their attempts to conquer the living room."
And Apple's don't?
You see, idiots, I didn't reply to Mio, I replied to "skyzbig". Apple's trying harder and harder to push their "Apple Ecosystem" bullshit. If you guys hadn't failed reading comprehension, that would have made more sense.
Fanboy? LOL! I don't even like Apple products- how could I be a fanboy of them?
@ Mr Clickerson
Please use @ followed by name of whom you are directing your comment in order to improve said comprehension.
See above for example.
You only use that when you're replying to someone who isn't the OP. You can only click "Reply" on the "original poster's" post. If you're replying to someone else who replied to the OP, then that would be the case. It's obvious who I was talking to when I didn't post "@".
@ Mr Clickerson
clearly it wasn't obvious as no one understood.
BTW was your reply to me or the OP? :-p