PlayStation-Based Mobile Handset a Possibility

Speaking with Financial Times, Hideki Komiyama, president of Sony Ericsson, raised the possibility of a mobile handset based on PlayStation gaming. The company has been struggling to find an answer to current smartphones, and they plan to release three new models within the next year which run Symbian, Android, and Windows Mobile. Komiyama likened a PlayStation-related handset to the music-based Walkman handset and the camera-based Cybershot handset. Quoting the FT: "He expresses interest in Sony Ericsson carving out a niche for itself based on Sony's strength in gaming. He says a PlayStation mobile, building on the Walkman and Cybershot phones, 'could happen.'"

Comments

PlaystationPhone or PhonePlaystation?

[meist3r]

Sony is not exactly known for it's technological strategies in the last years. They sat heavy on their butt with overestimating the consumers need for a gaming platform/media system with the PS3 and unless they come up with a serious mobile strategy including software platform, app store, innovative applications and some incentive for customers to want to use their stuff I highly doubt this will make it that far. It's clearly aimed at countering the iPhone's growing stance as a mobile gaming platform but the iPhone has one important advantage: It's a platform not just a device. Sony has been building too many devices lately. Those don't sell too well on their own.

Re:PlaystationPhone or PhonePlaystation?

[AKAImBatman]

I think the point is that the DS and DSi are focused gaming devices whereas the PSP is an unfocused, be everything to everyone, "device". Which I don't think is an entirely fair criticism.

IMHO, the PSP is not a game console. It just sucks as a portable game console. By the time you get your game loaded, you're already at your bus stop. Not to mention that the games tend to have the long-gameplay sensibilities of a home console rather than a portable system. I won't even get into the portability comparisons between the PSP and DS games.

The PSP is almost focused as if it were a Playstation that you could take to a friend's house. Or a portable DVD player. Or an emulator. In fact, it focuses well on just about everything except being a portable game console. (Whoops.)

Oddly, the DSi has bridged the jack-of-all-trades barrier a bit itself. It is not only a portable game system, but it is also a camera, music player, and portable web browser. It seems to succeed at these things not because it was so well designed for them, but rather because they were grown out of its existing capabilities rather than made a central focus of the system. In many ways the DSi does these features worse than the PSP, but the users appear to be happier with them. (Anyone notice that there is a DSiCade for the browser, but no PSPCade?)

Sony lacks focus. That is their core business issue, and why the PS3 and PSP have not been competing as well as they should.

Re:First Post

[lee1026]

Considering how well camera phones are doing, I really don't think the "just a phone" sentiment is really what is successful in the marketplace. The iphone did a lot, and it sold a lot. And what is the most popular apps on the iphone? Games. It is logical to think, therefore, that a good game playing cell phone would sell, and if it did not, it would not be because it have too many features.