“Releasing dedicated handheld devices is not a good idea right now”, stated Microsoft Executive Dennis Dirkin. Durkin labeled the handheld gaming device market as a “very, very red ocean,” which isn’t at all surprising as Microsoft would rather focus on its Kinect gaming system.
In an interview with Industry Gamers, Durkin said: “the crowded nature of the mobile gaming market now makes it extremely difficult to launch a dedicated handheld gaming device successfully.” He also noted that doing so would hurt the company financially, leaving the handheld market to Nintendo and Sony.
“If you look at the 3DS, certainly versus people’s expectation’s it’s not been as successful as people would have thought. So that’s a very crowded market and a very, very red ocean right now with a lot of change happening. So I’m not sure it’s [a good idea],” said the Microsoft Xbox COO. “[Really], you only have a certain number of bets you can make as a company and you have to decide what you want to put your wood behind and I’m just not sure that that’s a place that I would put mine,” he added.
Sales of Nintendo 3DS have fallen below what was expected, with only 3.61 million units sold at the end of March.
Durkin also made it clear that Microsoft is deeply focused on developing its Xbox Live service and Kinect, instead of competing with other companies by developing a handheld gaming device.
Is Microsoft doing the right thing by not participating in the handeld gaming market?
