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Sony Unveils First PlayStation Phone
KRK-TR writes "Sony Ericsson has unveiled the first 'PlayStation phone,' called the Xperia Play. The device resembles a regular smart phone but has gaming buttons that slide out from beneath the screen."
Eurogamer got some hands-on time with the device, and they had this to say: "The recessed digital controls are precise and responsive but have a hard, microswitch-style 'click' to them which contrasts with the soft, springy touch of a PSP or a Dual Shock pad. There are left and right shoulder buttons recessed into the handset – you need to find these with the tips of your index fingers, rather than the joints as you're used to. The most interesting inputs are the twin circular touch-pads between the buttons. These effectively replace the on-screen virtual analogue sticks that blight so many smartphone games – and they do the job well. ... Despite the nominal similarity to PSPgo, it doesn't bear any family resemblance to or design hallmarks of SCE products, and indeed is only passingly identifiable as a Sony Ericsson phone. It's very much an anonymous Android handset with the added novelty of game controls."
Fuck sony
Reminds me of this bit from "Objectified", quoting roughly:
"So the stats come, our average customer is a woman about 30-s early 40-s, has 2 point 3 children on average. I interrupted him. I said, don't give me the average, give me the extremes, the average will take care of itself naturally"
If you are a gamer enough that you'd want your phone to come with a thick joystick pad, wouldn't you rather go the extra inch, and get yourself a separate PSP, that is the solid experience, and then some phone, as you need.
I think most will.
Many phones make great casual gaming devices. But this poor hybrid will see the same sad destiny as other gaming phones we've seen in the past.
Oh and if you get it, don't get carried away playing for too long, or else you can't make critical calls on a wasted battery. Sucks, I know.
I don't see what's wrong with the name. It's part of the Xperia series of Android phones, and Play is obviously for Playstation as it supports the Playstation Suite framework.
Mada mada dane.
This is about two years too late, Sony. And while you were busy trying to pedal the Go, your chief competitor was putting tens of millions of their units in consumers' hands and building an impressive library of inexpensive games.
Oh, just got a phone call on my iPhone. Nokia and Palm want to know if you're free tonight.
If you are a gamer enough that you'd want your phone to come with a thick joystick pad, wouldn't you rather go the extra inch, and get yourself a separate PSP, that is the solid experience, and then some phone, as you need.
Except PSP can't run the specific game you want to play because Sony declines to give its developer a license to develop for PSP. Lately, Sony has even been seen to sue those who enable homebrew on its platforms. But this isn't Sony's platform; it's Google's, and the majority of Android-powered phones and tablets have "Unknown sources" and "USB debugging" switches that explicitly allow homebrew. This report on a forum claims that Xperia Play, like most Android-powered devices not sold by AT&T, is expected to have the "Unknown sources" switch.
So it's a new N-Gage.
And Sony thinks that THIS TIME it will be successful? They really have lost touch with reality.
You have no idea how disappointed I was when I found out it couldn't play PSP games - that I thought it would be able to based on it's name.
"So the stats come, our average customer is a woman about 30-s early 40-s, has 2 point 3 children on average. I interrupted him. I said, don't give me the average, give me the extremes, the average will take care of itself naturally"
You do realize that THAT is exactly where N-Gage came from? The very extreme value on the curve representing a normal distribution of mobile phone users.
If you are a gamer enough that you'd want your phone to come with a thick joystick pad, wouldn't you rather go the extra inch, and get yourself a separate PSP, that is the solid experience, and then some phone, as you need.
But if you are a gamer looking for a new "smart" phone, and along comes such a phone by a major manufacturer of phones AND game consoles, and such phone happens to also be a dedicated gaming console...
Yeah... you're absolutely right.
You should instead buy 3 iPhones and an iPad (make that 2 iPads), and 5 iPods and you'd be all set. I mean... we all know that iPad is actually the future of gaming.
And you should always have your gadgets completely separated. One for music, one for video watching, one for video recording, one for storage, one for audio recording, one for audio listening, one for a flashlight, one for a fleshlight...
Many phones make great casual gaming devices. But this poor hybrid will see the same sad destiny as other gaming phones we've seen in the past.
But, but, but... you just said that phones are great casual gaming devices. You mean to say all these phones were actually abysmal failures?
Or are you actually saying that it will be an iPhone killer?
Oh and if you get it, don't get carried away playing for too long, or else you can't make critical calls on a wasted battery. Sucks, I know.
Yeah... I know. I hate when Wi-Fi does that.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Use an OPEN OS, close the F%@K out of it, and sell it. Whay am I not surprised. As stated in post #1 F##K SONY and the Nintendo's success they rode in on
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Is there some epidemic of compulsive gaming going on? Honestly, there's nothing wrong with playing some games at home on a PC or console, then stopping that and doing something else for a while.
Go for a walk, hang out with friends, get something to eat, heck, even do homework or (gasp!) talk to your parents about life. It's okay, and possibly even healthy, to do non-twitch, non-adrenaline things while out and about each day.
We should have all learned of Sony's plan after the PS3. Sure, this phone runs android right now. They may even release it with android in the furture. But as soon as they figure out that people have android apps that Sony doesn't control, poof, and away it goes. At that point, we will be lucky if it still functions as a phone. Sony might try telling us that we only bought a piece of plastic, and they made no claim to it being either a phone or a gaming system, and to feel lucky that we get to keep the chunk of plastic we bought.
But don't think of hacking that now useless piece of plastic!