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Sony Unveils First PlayStation Phone

Posted by Soulskill on from the seeing-what-sticks dept.

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."

10 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. oblig by Osgeld · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Fuck sony

    1. Re:oblig by moniker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      On the bright side, because it is a phone, there is the DMCA exemption for jail breaking it.

    2. Re:oblig by DMoylan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      so a firmware update to remove the phone functionality? if they can remove the other os option... :-)

      haven't bought sony since 1997, not likely to buy for another 10 years. at least.

  2. Re:Terrible name by Narishma · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  3. Late to the Party by TheRedDuke · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

  4. N-GAGE 2 by allusionist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So it's a new N-Gage.

    And Sony thinks that THIS TIME it will be successful? They really have lost touch with reality.

    1. Re:N-GAGE 2 by chuckymonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except that they're opening with a nice library of games from playstation, something a lot of people remember fondly. They also have a nice framework for gaming programmers to use to make new games. The phone is also useful outside of being a gaming device, it runs Android something a lot of people are already invested in. So, this is more value add than anything else. You can use all the apps you already have on your Android device, play games that were on Playstation which so many remember fondly, and have a very powerful and useful smartphone. No, this is not another N-Gage, if anything the Playstation framework is a "killer" app.

      --
      "Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
  5. Disappointed :( by Zelgadiss · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Disappointed :( by Osgeld · · Score: 3, Informative

      why? some psp's dont even play psp games... and ... if you had not noticed with the many versions of the psp, sony is not that great about quality portable games, but strongly feels you need to rebuy all new cables / batteries every time they tweak it, or on the GO where they flat out said "eh just buy your games again if we feel like copying them to the website".

  6. It's a phone, for now . . . by muridae · · Score: 3, Funny

    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!