Organization: Alexa Crawls

Another piece of the puzzle falls in. Back in May, we told you all the info we got on Microsoft�s plans for a digital entertainment handheld that will merge the Xbox and Zune platforms into a single device. We speculated on the possibility that the Tegra computer-on-a-chip from NVIDIA could power such handheld and later, Microsoft confirmed that the Zune HD will use the aforementioned chip.

Now Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Strategy and Business Development for Microsoft�s Interactive Entertainment Business, has acknowledged that a portable Xbox is not a matter of �if�, but �when�.

"For us, it's a matter of focusing on 'when', because if we chased after a mobile or handheld opportunity, we would not have the resources and ability to do things like instant-on 1080p HD, Facebook, Twitter, Project Natal." said Kim in an interview with Kikizo.

"And so we've chosen to focus on the living room experience from a hardware standpoint, if you will, but we're building a service in Live that will... will extend to other platforms. No question about it."


Zune HD could be the predecessor of a portable Xbox

The former vice president of Microsoft Game Studios believes the incursion of the Xbox platform into the mobile space is inevitable. The question is how Microsoft will enter the mobile gaming arena:

"So 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, etcetera, etcetera. But believe me, we understand the importance of that device in people's lives. And the more we make Live about valuable service and add more content, and add more ways to connect with your friends through it, we're going to need to make sure that it's on all the important platforms in people's lives, including PC."

In our editorial, we told you that the Microsoft handheld is supposedly an Xbox Live Anywhere device and our sources explained the role that Xbox Live and other services will play in this portable video game system. Coincidentally, Kim mentions the Xbox Live Anywhere initiative in this interview and confirms that when Microsoft enters the mobile gaming space, it will use Xbox Live as the �connective tissue�

"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."