With Nintendo dominating the handheld gaming market for years, and Sony trailing far behind, it comes as a surprise that Microsoft would even attempt to make a handheld gaming device. But wait, that’s not all, it’s also a so-called, portable media center. As a result, it’s been called a “digital entertainment handheld”.

Currently nicknamed as the “xYz”, the “x” standing for Xbox, and “z” for Zune. I can only assume that the letter “Y” obviously stands for “WhY would they do this? It’s said to have gaming, music, video, internet, and simply those things you would expect from an entertainment system. According to Team Xbox a source of theirs reported “the lines between the Zune, Xbox Live and Sky marketplaces will blur when the handheld launches.” In case you didn’t get it, the xYz will feature “Live Anywhere”, this is an online marketplace, most likely to be used for purchase of your “digital entertainment”.

Now, one question remains. Does Microsoft, regardless of how massive they are, really think they can pull off a successful handheld device? Nintendo has dominated for over a decade, Sony’s attempts weren’t able to be as successful. Yet if you take another look at it, Apple is a recent competitor to handheld gaming and has been a massive success, yet it’s still in a different league of “gaming and entertainment”.

Lets just wait for E3 ‘09, possibly one of the E3’s with the most large announcements yet. Hopefully something will be announced there, for now it’s just what we should call, “accurate rumours”.