Hardware Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Preview

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/mobile/2011/02/22/sony-ericsson-xperia-play-preview/1

 

both this and the NGA seem to have missed the mark about as much as the ps3

 

Not on my want list after the way Sony have treated GeoHot.

 

but the main question is : Can it play Crysis ?

 

Having a single core is so like 2010

 

NO

 

but if you think about it the sony psp is a 333mhz single core and this is three times the power especially as its in a phone

 

This is what the PSPGo should have been, the form factor looks right, the hardware is a bit old I suppose but thats never hurt Nintendo, keeping the specs at this level at least gives developers a platform that is likely to work for the wider market after all the Playstation App store is not juts for this device but all certified Android devices so it has the potential to access a broader market than the Xperia Play itself.

As to what handset guys will have to do to get certification who knows but as phone gaming platforms have been working with on screen controls for a while I would assume that the Playstation appstore games don't have to have the hard button access but also can use on screen controllers, some of the game screen shots from Xperia Play previews show this.

What this could mean for Android is that there is finally a stable gaming platform, if you phone is Playstation certified the games will work which is one of the biggest problems on andriod at the moment because of the diverse hardware/software setup you can't get a consistant platform and not all devices can run all bits of software or they don't work as expected.

Sony could be the guys to fix the Android gaming market!

Of course in 2-3 years the NGP will be able to work in this sort of form factor too, so there will likely be an upgrade path when your 2 year contract is up

 

It'll either work really well and be a massive success and revolutionise Android gaming.


Or it'll be like the N-Gage.

 

I was so hyped by the idea of this phone when it was first leaked...holy crap, it was leaked last summer!
Being a high-end phone junkie this phone fails for me on so many levels. The CPU/GPU, the shockingly low memory, the current pre-order SIM-free price (£520 are they insane?), the small battery, the list goes on.

However, damn it if I don't still want one. I sure as hell wouldn't pay £400+ for one and I'm not tying myself to an 18 month contract but I just love the idea. Sure maybe it's to thick and heavy for an 'everday' phone (no idea, never held one) but just the convenience of having such easy access to a solid gaming experience appeals to me. Hell if only for snes, megadrive etc. Problem with that though is the moment the N64 and dreamcast emulators come out and run like crap I will be kicking myself again.

Maybe version 2 will be a must buy for me but until then I might just get a 'real' smartphone and buy a gamepad for it. So much more powerful devices coming this summer, I think I should wait.
Realistically I think the 'ideal' future is a fantastic detachable gamepad anyway, that works on many different phones. We just need someone like SE to lead the way. No offense to the gamegripper or Icontrolpad.

 

Yeah, but nintendo has never pissed in the face of their long-term customers...in fact, they've pointedly catered to them through the years, at what I'm assuming is considerable engineering cost for a miniscule proportion of their customer base (allowing you to play original gameboy games on the DS...how many 12 year olds playing their DS in their mom's minivans have even SEEN an original GB game?)

Sony's not fixing the Android gaming market, they're breaking it further by introducing single-platform games, not encouraging quality cross-device titles. nVidia, if they play the Tegra Store (sic) correctly, could offer a reasonable alternative because it's not tied to a single device and should be vetted by nVidia, but I'm having trouble putting my faith even in Big Green. :/ Maybe I'm just being pessimistic this morning, though.

I gotta go with the masses on this and say it's yet another misstep by Sony. Bad Sony! Bad!

 

Its a sony phone that's why it will fail. Sony release phones and forget about them before moving on to the next big thing. Look at the x10, it was outdated on release just like this will be! Since the store is an app I can see them upgrading this year on year just attaching the keyboard to a new device with the next processor, put a skin on what ever version of android was big a year ago, make a half assed promise about upgrades which will never come and repeat.

 

PS3 didn't really miss the mark, took a while to get going but has pretty much caught up with the 360 in market share, with around 47 million PS3s sold compared to 50 million 360's, might even overtake in the next few years.

I got high hopes for the NGP, I doubt it will be a run away success but if it hangs on like the PSP did I'll be happy enough and in an age where console hardware has stalled in progress, it's good at least something is going next gen.

This phone though, I have serious doubts about and won't be bothering with it.

 

The latter

 

You are not paying attention, the platform is the Sony Store and games are not locked to this Experia Play device but to the Sony Playstation gaming portal that will run on certified devices, a Tegra device could be certified if the handset maker wishes to be certified, it also does not need the buttons as controls can be on screen like people are used to, buttons just make most gaming better.

This means the market doesn't have to be fragmented, only being Tegra compatible would be even worse as this would mean high end expensive devices only.

 

It's why apple has the correct approach anything 2 years old no longer supported, if you try to keep the world happy you will not succeed

 

If the Xperia Play is the only Playstation Suite phone then this whole concept will fail hard. If Sony follows on its promises of licensing Playstation Suite to other manufacturers then it can become very succesfull. Since PS Suite can not play PSP titles and it will NOT play NGP titles 100% (NGP is MUCH faster plus it has hardware built in that is not present in phones and likely won't be for the foreseeable future) developers will make games knowing they are PS Suite exclusives. IF Sony licenses PS Suite to Samsung, HTC, LG and others then I can see it becoming a massive brand for Android since gaming is the one area where it lags badly behind iOS and even Windows Phone 7. It will have the advantage of offering some more meaningful titles together with casual games, something the iOS fails at (with a few very rare exceptions).
One thing that does bug me a bit though is the support for PSP titles. Idk whether PS Suite and PSP use different programming languages, but deffinately Xperia Play has enough oomph to run PSP titles from a hardware point of view. IMHO Sony MUST enable all the PSP/PSOne content that people purchased through their PS Network accounts. Any other solution will feel like a massive rip off. Besides, for people who already have a decent library of games on the PSN, this will be an incentive to buy the phone.

I can see this becoming a massive success, but considering Sony's recent run with their software ideas and their historical aversion to licensing their stuff out there way too many question marks for me to buy this phone at launch.

Having said that, when my contract runs out in 6 months, if HTC is allowed access to PS Suite then my next handset will be a 4.3-4.5 inch HTC phone with Android 3.0 and access to proper games. Exciting times ahead.


Oh and for people complaining about the specs. the phone is plenty fast compared to anything out on the market at the moment. Besides you have to realise this is the basic spec for Android gaming if the whole PS Suite idea takes off. Say, the Galaxy S phones are pretty powerfull at the moment, but no game developer will create games that actually push it hard. Right now most people still use slower and/or older phones such as the HTC Hero/Legend. If you create a game that pushes the Galaxy S hardware then it won't run on slower phones (vast majority of the market at the moment) at all. Which means you don't have anyone to sell it to. Similar I guess to Crysis and PC market when it first came out. This phone raises the bar MASSIVELY when it comes to minimum spec. The only thing now, is to ensure enough manufacturers adopt it and promote it in order to have a strong customer base which can lure developers and hopefuly create a virtuous circle. I really hope this works since the way iOS approaches gaming just makes me cringe.

 

I'd say PS3 is in many ways more succesfull then the 360, at least from Sony's POV. In terms of sales the PS3 is not far behind at the moment and I wouldn't be surprised if a major part of Microsoft's lead was due to people buying new consoles after their warranty expired. Granted this has been adressed now with extended warranties and more reliable SKUs, but the first 2-3 years many users were playing a bit of a lottery with their Xboxes.
Most importantly though, I'd expect the PS3 to have a higher ratio of software per console since it is pirate free (though we will see in the coming months whether the current jailbreaks will spread on a wide scale). For console manufacturers the money is in licensing games, not hardware sales (unless you are Nintendo and you can push tens of millions of slightly upgraded Gamecubes). The only real advantage that MS has financialy over Sony is the Xbox Live which brings in billions in revenue compared to the mostly free PSN. Having said that, I'd say every current gen console has been a success with enough market share and great exclusive titles to keep the competition going. No obvious failures like the Saturn/N64/Dreamcast/Xbox/Gamecube.

Though I'd love to see a hardware refresh within a year or two rather than gimmicky motion controls to prolong the life cycle. Every developer will optimize their games for the most lucrative market and if that market is based around 5-6 year old tech..... Imagine what kind of push the industry would get if the baseline for the console market sudddenly became a 570 or a 6970. Oh well, one can dream.

 

Beat me to it. I was thinking the same thing. How would the Sony Store fragmant and break the market when it's a suite that will be targeted to phones certified to access/run the content. Where the Tegra Store locks out any non-tegra device. And there aren't many Tegra powered phones to begin with running Android.

I can't say how well the Xperia Play will pan out. But I think this is a huge gamble by Sony Ericsson. As it stands, the Sony Store is the best looking addition coming to Android on the gaming side of the house. This is a chance for Sony to capture the fast growing Android market which is mostly lackluster right now in the gaming department (Android will always be second fiddle to iOS for most developers) and spread the Playstation Network brand.

 

»someone up there ^ (sandys) sais that the phone's got old hardware... what did u think » it's like the 1st thing like that » of course they put older stuf into it it's a TEST version» they say it's just the beginning ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQqyUlQRB5g

so I guess there will be another version of it (if people like it)

))))