Hardware Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Preview

Let's be fair. This is not a long term investment for anybody. Not Sony, and not for the customer.

However, getting a new 18 month cheap contract to use this phone might just be worth it. By the time your 18 months is up, you can upgrade to the Xperia Play 2. (Which will likely run PS2 games).

Whatever, i am thinking of getting it. Even if the Playstation Suite games are crap, the PS emulator plays 70% of PS One games near perfect on this phone, and you have access to every Genesis/Snes/Master System/Nes/GameBoy Advance/Colour and probably a few MAME arcade games aswell.

Heck, this is a portable Emulation Wet Dream if you ask me.


Only 3 things annoy me.

1) Slightly Bulky
2) OverPriced (However, if you plan to use as an Emulator, it's grossly underpriced)
3) Poor Hardware considering whats about to come out.


Worth paying to use for 18 months?

Yes imo. Find a cheap contract. Play for 18 months. Throw away and upgrade.

 

i was expecting more from a bittech hands on TBH - granted it's still early days and you've included some lifespan speculation but what i want to know is how were the graphics, did it move responsively and how the controls anologue pads were (not even touched in the vid).

own an android phone myself and most of my use is playing GBA/SNES games in free time at work and the few good android games (zenonia, grave defense, not that birds one). i like the android platform because it's so open and without the limitations of just a few navigation buttons and the screen i'd expect more games and possibly even ps1 emulators to show up (not holding my breath for psp games on a this machine, especially as this seems to be the first of many play branded phones that may have psp support later).

really looking forward to this but it depends a lot on price - a phone that can be used for basic gaming ticks my boxes especially with proper controls instead of getting me fingers covering half the screen but i'll hang back and see how the concept turns out - give me real gaming controls, ps1 emulators and decent PS store mini support and i'm there but i'm not wanting a pspGO phone and a high contract/pricepoint .

 

Yea but a gaming based phone should be cutting edge ie 1.2GHz dual core, tegra2 etc. If they hope to be cutting edge and bring their own games why set the bar low since android and ARM update every 6months almost. If it released before christmas it might be consided good but releasing now with whats coming out is sony again dropping the xperia ball (x10 released with 1.6 as 2.1 was already out). Sony won't bring new games, their track record shows that on the mobile front, this is just a way of re flogging psone games to little kids who think smart phone gaming is the best thing since sliced bread.
With the hideous, performance sapping UI's that most companies throw on android I would want at least a dual core or even tegra2 on this.
Licencing aswell will prevent other companies taking this up and the relentless upgrade cycle and fragmentation of ARM and Android means these devices are thrown away every year at least. The fragmentation makes any hope of developing and giving a consistant gaming experience (If sony does bring its own titles) across all platforms a logistical nightmare.

 

If Sony doesn't bring it's own games like you stated, then what's the point of a tegra 2 chipset for a smartphone that is only going to play ps1 games on it?

No point.

What you should realise is that this phone will emulate 70% of PS One games. In order to emulate something smoothly you need approximately 3x the power of the original hardware.

That means this phone in theory will be capable of running native games at least the quality of PS2 games, whilst PS1 games will emulate very nice.


I do, however, agree with you. I think Sony Ericsson are going to take the cheap way out. They are simply going to emulate most releases, which means the Andreno 205 chipset will never reach it's full potential on this phone.

Still though, you have to realise that this phone will last 2 years maximum. MAXIMUM, before the next phone comes out with a d-pad (and trust me, they will).

I'm going to go with T-Mobile here if i buy this phone. £109.99 initial laydown for the handset, 300 minutes, 300 texts, 1 GB data for an 18 month £25.74 contract.

Pretty good deal if you ask me.

When my 18 months is up, I will literally throw/give the phone away and get the next best Android phone with d-pad. Just think, 18 months of almost every PS1/Snes/Gameboy/Megadrive (Genesis)/Many Mame games all for the offering and for FREE.

Plus you get a very decent browsing experience and a decent camera and a decent battery life. Not excellent, but decent.

Think of it as an 18 month hire, which, when expired you get to upgrade again, and it starts to get very attractive indeed imo.

 

You are correct, sir--I wasn't paying attention. In that light, Sony Store does indeed have the potential to be successful, and I retract the majority of my previous statement. If they play their cards right and put out some of their more popular semi-casual games (like Lumines and Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman), I'd buy the hell out of it!

 

Sure about that?

Pretty sure Apple still support a majortiy of their old kit.

The OSX updates work on all the Intel macs which have been around for almost 5 years now.

They still support the 3G/3GS iphone in so much iOS works on them, granted some newer apps need an iPhone4 but that is not them neglecting the older models.

So I am curious which product you refer to? That is two years old and Apple no longer support

Kimbie

 

Here you go Playstation Suite coming to Tegra 2 devices

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/11/playstation-suite-coming-to-tegra-2-devices-ps2-games-coming-to/