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Why Has No One Made a Great Gaming Phone?

andylim writes "According to Engadget, John Koller, Sony's head of PlayStation marketing, recently said that 'Apple's entrance into the portable gaming space has been a net positive for Sony. When people want a deeper, richer console, they start playing on a PSP.' What's odd though is that everyone knows that the mobile phone gaming market is a huge and yet neither Sony nor Nintendo has made a gaming phone yet. Recombu.com thinks that Nokia could enter the space with PSP-like devices and it has come up with a concept phone called the Ovi Orion, which would bridge the gap between phone and console, 'If the iPhone is Wii, then Ovi Orion would be Xbox and offer Xbox Live style features. A serious gaming phone for serious gamers.'"

4 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. Because by brian0918 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because phones are for TALKING. :P

  2. meh. by milkmage · · Score: 5, Insightful

    serious gaming? on a mobile device? c'mon. games on a phone are at best, distractions or time killers (babysitters).

    the LAST thing I want to do is get heavy into a game and get a fucking call.

  3. Because .... by phoxix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can buy a DS/PSP without a freaking multi-year ass-rape contract.

    Buying a gaming console should never be a long term financial decision.

  4. Re:Now your pockets are bulging by grahamtriggs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Pockets full of devices? I can't see why. Two devices would be perfectly reasonable - one for things that demand connectivity (talk, text, net), and one for the other stuff (games, videos, music). Even if the 'other stuff' has occasional connectivity capabilities to download new music, etc.

    When people say phones are for talking, it's not a frivolous argument - they need to be available for talking. Which has two implications:

    1) What should happen when you have an incoming call? Do you lose your position in game, etc?

    2) The battery needs to stand up to the demands.

    As it is, 3G devices struggle to get through a day. It's not going to help matters by gaming on them for an hour or two - pushing the cpu, graphics, display to the limit. If your games console runs out of juice, it's generally less of an issue than if you suddenly can't make or receive calls.