Handsets

Line Between “PSPhone” and Playstation Grows Thicker

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As the days go by it’s becoming more and more clear that Sony may be attempting to keep what has been unofficially dubbed the “PSPhone” and the Playstation brand, in general, two very distinct products that are related to each other only in parent company.
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Tuesday we discussed the possibility of the device being named the XPERIA Play, which was quite the change of direction by itself.

And now, a shot caller over at at Sony Computer Entertainment, gaming chief Kazuo Hirai had this to say about the rumored Android device:

We don’t want gamers to be asking, what’s the difference between that and a PSP, we have to come up with a message that users will understand. It would have to be a product that keeps the PlayStation’s strengths intact.

It’s a serious noodle scratcher and adds a lot of doubt into a pool of information that was small to begin with. At this point the only safe thing we can say about this device is the device exists, it’s powered by Android and it looks like a next-gen PSP Go but probably isn’t.

[via Mobile Crunch | Comment source at NYT]

Tyler Miller

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25 Comments

  1. we will see how this thing goes,
    either way im not gonna buy one.

  2. But it will probably have the same titles available (Gamingwise)

  3. It is most likely going to be nothing special other than a phone with a game pad. They seem to be going through lengths to make sure it’s not connected to playstation. But if it has a tegra 2 I’ll hop on board the controls would be nice for emus and what not.

  4. wikipedia says it has a cortexA8, so less than half the power of a tegra2

  5. Would it be technically possible to use this device as an I/O for a PS3? Device as controller, receives video from PS3 wirelessly. That would be awesome, but I don’t know if it’s feasible.

  6. Xperia Play: Android games
    PSP: PSP games, Mini’s, PSN

    so far there’s no overlap, but there’s definitely some opportunities for it… i’m looking at the Xperia Play as being more of an “Android phone with a dedicated gamepad” rather than a “PSP phone that plays Android games”

    it’d be a huge step for Sony to make Android games a part of PSN, or to make a phone small enough and powerful enough to play PSP games

  7. I think they should make this phone capable of playing the same exact games as the ps3. Not just gameloft games. That should dealt show the full extent of the phone. I mean the phone is targeting gammers. Not every phone needs to be made for one thing. Not eery phone will be a superphone. We need variety and phones for certain groups. I think it would need some Tegra 2 in at the least.

  8. Who cares! I’m not going to buy a PSP and I’m not going to buy a crap Sony Android phone either! Seriously, who would buy this piece of crap?

    I will say that I think Android phones should shift to being better in the gaming and camera departments. I would really love to finally see a combination of all portible devices in a single device. We’re almost there now, but the cameras and game controls are still lacking in the current crop of Android phones.

  9. I agree this phone looks stupid I feel sorry for whoever falls into this gimmick. You are never going to give the same expierence as the ps3 on a phone just wont happen and like i have been saying paying 600 bucks for this is stupid when you could just get a ps3 for 300!! On top of it your going to pay monthly for the phone so its double the cost its stupid people are dumb to buy this gimmick

  10. Cant Sony just come up something new and cool like they use to? Come on. How long are they going to try to ride the play station train until its wheels fall off? Havent they learned anything from the Sony Walkman thing? They even tried using that in their phones, it didnt work. Just focus on the phones, try to develop or work with chip makers to develop state of the art chipset and they already have camera’s.

  11. If this means Lumines for Android, I’m all for it!

  12. Well, isn’t it obvious that a corporate turf war is going on. It’s never good when companies start to nerf their own products to protect differentiation.

  13. How will this phone be considered a gaming phone when it won’t even have a Tegra 2 or other kind of dual core chip with high 3D performance. UniqueRate is right, it should be able to play games that are ported from the PS3 console.

  14. Very good chance this will end up on AT&T in the U.S. Currently, Xperia phones are only being offered by them. I’m glad too. Verizon and Sprint customers are spoiled as hell.

  15. The naming is likely a strategy they are imploying if the product fails. They don’t want to sully the PlayStation name if this product takes a nose dive. If it does well, then they will have a new product. It is the same thing Nintendo did with the DS line. They were afraid of failure, so they didn’t brand it “Game Boy” because they didn’t want to potentially sully the Game Boy name. Of course, the handset turned out to be a wild success and they don’t even currently have a Game Boy on the market as a result.

  16. I just read that some of you think this should play ported PS3 games. There is a shorthand for that… ROFLMAO!!!

  17. Why does anybody bring up the PS3 when talking about phones? The only reasonable comparison is a PSP.

  18. Its starting to sound to me like this phone is deemed internally as a failure before it even launches. Sony moves too slow and the market has moved out from under them. Where they were shooting to have this super gaming device the market has moved on to dual cores and Tegra 2’s where just about any phone released next year can be a gaming powerhouse. It would make little sense to develop games for this thing when you can soon get your high end games into the market with a number of devices out there capable of running them.

  19. Why are they making this suck?

  20. Sony has the same thing that I have in mind. This will run Android market games and PSPs will run PSP games. THey are different so the distinction should be diff.

  21. Boy do I feel like a clever fellow. I predicted the name monkier “Play”, because as has been stated above it is unlikely to have anything in common with any PlayStation devices, other than the controller buttons. I suppose a powerful enough phone could have a PSP emulator on it, but I can’t imagine they would do that… at least not yet.

  22. It looks like they will make an android powered playstation apart from the phone

  23. this better have a UMD or im not buyin
    this downloading game thing is bullshit
    (your parents know what games you have because it appears on the credit card bill if you got anything) PSP GO SHIT!
    under 18

  24. better have a UMD or im not buyin’
    downloading games is shit ur parents know if you got a game
    in a store you can buy games rated over ur age gta libert city.PSP GO SUCKS. IF IT HAS a UMD, MEDIS PLAYER, HIGH RESULOTION SCREEN, 5MP OR OVER CAMERA, WIFI, YOUTUBE,ANDROID AND UNDER 350 EURO I AM DEFINITLY BUYIN IT p.s
    [under 18]

  25. if this is like the psp go then it will be rubbish UMD rules
    HEIL HITLER

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