In-Depth Look At the Xperia Play

Eurogamer has done an extensive evaluation of Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play device, a smartphone that's also a dedicated gaming platform complete with controller-style buttons. Here's some of what they had to say: "On the subject of internal parts, gadget fiends are certain to feel aggrieved by the lack of a dual-core processor. Although the Xperia Play's 1GHz CPU performs admirably in general tasks, it lacks the future-proofing of a more advanced chip. ... The negativity quickly dissipates once you slide open those glorious PlayStation-style controls, however. Although we've seen gaming interfaces on mobiles before (on the N-Gage and the under-appreciated Sagem MyG-5), they pale into insignificance next to what's presented here. ... One aspect of the Xperia Play's gaming portfolio that so far hasn't been bellowed from the rooftops by Sony Ericsson's PR is emulation. Such reluctance is perfectly understandable, given the shady nature of ROM-sharing and the like. ... However, the fact remains that retro gaming emulators are freely available on the Android Market, and they open up an entire world of gaming brilliance."

Comments

Re:psp is obsolete

[webmistressrachel]

Can I have them please? Don't throw away good hardware just because you hate the people that made it...

ugh

[macshit]

"glorious PlayStation-style controls"

OK, they're almost certainly better than the ngage, but "glorious"?!

In general, Sony has an absolutely awful record with controllers... The (in)famous Sony "dpad of pain"... the awkward analogue stick placement on the dualshock and descendents.... the crappy PSP nub... the cramped and awkward PSPgo controls... ugh. Sony has many strengths, but designing gaming controls isn't one of them.

A quick look at the article isn't very reassuring: The "Xperia Play" has (1) the dpad-of-pain, and (2) some awkwardly-placed "touch sensitive disks" with no tactile feedback...

PSPgo2 anybody?

Re:ugh

[macshit]

The controller that they include with the PS3 is really, really bad. It's made for little kids and they've refused to offer a controller designed for adults. I get that there's a cultural thing about face in Japan, but ruining products with this sort of lack of attention to detail is ridiculous.

No idea what you mean by "made for little kids," but I think you're quite off the mark about "Japan": in most cases Japanese companies are insanely customer-focused, and very detail oriented, and go to great lengths to please the customer, even if it means swallowing their pride; they pay a lot of attention to customer reaction.

However, Sony -- or maybe more properly, SCE -- does indeed seem to have a bit of a stubborn streak. Some of that is probably rooted in the tendency of Japanese firms to tinker endlessly with details over a very long time trying to perfect them, but I think a lot of it stems from the somewhat atypical arrogance of SCE, which is due to both its astonishing but somewhat unexpected success in the mid-90s, and the personalities of its founders. I think some of this attitude in the greater Sony organization results from the lopsided influence of SCE.

[I work in Japan for a Japanese consumer electronics firm.]

Re:the law says you have the right to hack phone

[hedwards]

That's not true. Emulation isn't illegal and the DMCA didn't change that. ROMs themselves are a bit greyer in terms of legality, the last court decision making personal on that being a really long time ago and during a time when getting replacement carts was a lot easier. ROM private ownership

Re:Emulators won't be freely available soon...

[teh31337one]

Yes, psx4droid was removed, but it's freely available (with source) from his website. And it was probably removed because of the name psx4droid. FPseis still available in the android market.

Did we forget Sony are cocks?

[jiteo]

What happened to all those cries of boycotting them for their treatment of geohot?