Is Xbox going portable or what?

A flurry of gossip and other internet flotsam surrounds nearly everything that comes out of Microsoft head honcho Bill Gates. The latest morsel of titillation dropped by the head man himself came out of a statement made at the D4: All Things Digital Conference, held in Carlsbad, California. Nebulously alluding (or do we mean eluding?) to possible future Microsoft plans, Gates said, "We are looking at various ways to bring more to that [handheld] space. There is a lot yet that hasn't been done."

Above: Is Bill Gates smiling because he knows an untold portable Xbox secret?

A couple of days ago, The Diffusion Group (an industry analysis house) suggested that a Microsoft handheld device could appear within the next two years. We at GamesRadar were also a little surprised by the noticeable lack of popular Xbox front-man J Allard at this year's E3... which leads to questions like, "What's one of the fathers of the Xbox brand doing these days if he's not at E3 playing games in front of us like usual?"

Of course, there is still no word from Microsoft on what their future handheld plans might be, but this pile of evidence mounting all around us is beginning to convince us that Live Anywhere might someday actually mean Xbox Anywhere.

June 1, 2006