3. Xbox Live Arcade
The Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) library is full of games that would lend themselves for play on the go. In the early days of the Xbox 360 the Arcade carried the system with a single game. Geometry Wars was the must have title for the 360. From that humble beginning XBLA has turned into a shining showcase for not only ports, retro reinventions, or independent games, but games that quite possibly give better dollar for hour entertainment values than their retail disc brethren. Not to mention Microsoft makes the Summer of Arcade a grand event. Taking your new shiny games with you on the go is a great bullet point. With the right hardware Microsoft could parlay the quality of the XBLA past, present, and future and use it to push their brand. The proposed Xbox handheld must give the same experience as its home counterpart. It has to be seamless and Im positive it can be done. Sony has its Minis brand on both the PS3 and Vita, but for me the games are just glorified iOS and Android games arguably no better than the indie games available in XBLA. So much potential Sony wasted that Microsoft can learn from and use. I need meatier games than your standard Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, or Tiny Wings. Portable experiences do not always have to equate to small chunk gaming. XBLA heavy hitters like Shadow Complex, Bastion, or Limbo are games which would be fun anytime. Classics like Geometry Wars, re-imagined Bionic Commando Rearmed, or Pac-Man Championship Edition would be welcomed for travel. It certainly would be nice if the Xbox Handheld were powerful enough to run higher end 3D games like Battlefield 1942, Iron Brigade, or Monday Night Combat while we are creating a phantom piece of vaporware. Im sure the new home console would usher in a new era of XBLA games, and if a single game was able to carry the 360 in the last generation imagine what a library of games could do for this handheld.