This whole “Playstation Phone” reeks of half-assedness by Sony. Not to take anything away from the Sony Ericsson guys, but it sounds like theres not a whole lot of synergy going on with them and the Playstation folks. I mean, they’re refusing to put any sort of official Playstation branding on the thing! What does that tell us? Probably that the Xperia Play is doomed to be a first generation flop due to the fact that the Playstation team really hasn’t finalized their mobile platform yet.
They’re going to need a whole lot more than emulated Playstation One titles and ported iPhone/Symbian game titles from Gameloft and EA to come up with a compelling reason to pick this phone because lets face it, you’re only getting this phone because you want to play games on it. Otherwise you’d get an iPhone or any of the more advanced Android phones.
I think the only way we’ll see a decent Playstation Phone is after the NGP becomes a reality and Sony finally gets their platform somewhat mature. Ideally this would mean adding phone functionality to the NGP, but that’s clearly not in the cards anytime soon. We’re probably at least a year and a half away from a “true” Playstation Phone.
Xperia Play may well be the best phone to play traditional games on, but it seems unlikely to divert the mobile market away from its focus on simple touch-screen games – unless Sony Computer Entertainment puts its considerable muscle behind the platform.
Will SCE insist on Xperia Play support as standard for all Suite games? Or will Sony Ericsson have to chase down developers individually, as it has done for the phone’s launch line-up? Just how integrated are the plans of Sony’s PlayStation business and its mobile phone manufacturer?
via Eurogamer – Xperia Play Android Hands On – Page 3 | Eurogamer.net.