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Rumor: PS Phone to be called 'Xperia Play'. To hit shops in April [Update Post 108]

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
duckroll said:
gofreak, I think what you're failing to understand, is that Sony really isn't "doing" anything here. We know exactly why this product exists, and it has very little if anything at all to do with Sony Computer Entertainment. Sony Ericsson has been for the last decade desperately trying to get some sort of agreement to take advantage of the more popular Playstation branding to try and make their phone line stronger in branding. SCE has been saying no. This is the best result that SE has gotten thus far in reaching some sort of agreement to take advantage of a tiny part of the Playstation brand.

Sony is not actively trying to say this isn't a Playstation Phone. Because Sony has never said this is a Playstation Phone. Sony has in fact had very little to do with this at all. Sony Ericsson wants to try this, SCE doesn't really care to be part of it. This is the best they could eventually get out of a decade of begging and pleading. That's really all there is to it. Maybe you don't understand how the dynamics between Sony proper (not even SCE here) and Sony Ericsson work, but it's well known that they're very different companies, who are not always interested in mutual benefits.

I think all of what you say is true (although going by rumours I'm not sure if SCE's involvement is quite simply a licensing of the brand). Maybe I'm not expressing myself very well - but I'm simply saying that in terms of branding, enough 'Playstation' has been extended to this device to make it know as 'the playstation phone' and IMO, there remains enough for it to continue to be known as that going forward, whatever its official name. I think if SCE was hoping to keep this device distant from the brand, it's failed. It may well indeed be distant from SCE's own efforts - as a product it may well not be 'really' a playstation device - but I'm simply talking about brand association and whether they've succeeded or will succeed in a disassociation of the brand from this device. I doubt they have.

duckroll said:
Until you can actually prove this, I call bullocks.

That's the rumour. I think it's most people's speculation that there'll be a Playstation store on this peddling one or other kind of content.

On that note, what do you think this devices Playstation app is? It's not the one being released for iOS/Android etc. - from the video we saw, it appears to be a content manager. That suggests specific content (managed under a 'Playstation' umbrella app, so people will have plenty of brand exposure as they access their games), which suggests a specific means to get that content...

Let me put it this way - IF people are playing games on this bought from a Playstation store, through a Playstation branded management app (which we have already seen), on Playstation-icon-ed controls, then Hirai is dreaming if he thinks people won't think 'Playstation' when they see this device.
 

yurinka

Member
ezekial45 said:
Ok, i haven't really been following this too well.

So there are TWO new PSP products that Sony is developing? A phone and an actual successor to the PSP?
Nope.

One is a Sony Ericsson phone, with proper Playstation controls for games (maybe with PS1 and Minis games, and Android games). I suppouse targetted to improve Sony Ericsson sales with the help of the PS brand (as they did before with other Sony brands like Walkman, Cybershot, etc).

Walkman and Cybershot added good mp3 play and cameras to their phones, but weren't designed as "the future" of these brands. I think will be the same with this phone. Consider it doesn't even have the proper PlayStation logo.

I think Sony will use this logo for other 'PlayStation' devices that aren't consoles, like the PlayStation Pad.

The proper successor of PSP (same kind of games with more powerful hardware) I suppose is going to be PSP2, a proper handheld console developed by Sony.
 

Elios83

Member
gofreak said:
There's undoubtedly a distinction, and a deliberate, I'm sure, avoidance to put the Playstation name or its default symbol on the device. And I can totally understand it making all the difference in the world to people like you (or me for that matter, or duckroll etc. etc.) in viewing whether this is a 'real' Playstation device or not. But I do think it risks cheapening the brand - IMO, rather than diluting the brand presence they should have strengthened the product...but that's another argument...

My point is simply I don't think these subtleties will make a button of difference in broader perception of this product. If Sony wanted to disassociate the brand in general, IMO there's too much 'Playstation' on and in the phone to really do that effectively. If they wanted to try and avoid the wider confusing or associating this with 'Playstation', they've done a bad job. This will be the ultimate test of the association going forward - whether it will continue to be AKA 'the Playstation phone'. Tenner bets it will.

I have the opposite feeling, that they have tried to do everything they could to avoid brand association while still making the product.
This thing has no reference to PS in the name of the product, no reference on the front of the product. Many retailers won't even bother to show it in its open form.
I see the product as consistent with Hirai's vision. He wants all the networked devices connected to the Playstation Network, he doesn't want to mess the Playstation gaming experience with phones and mobile platforms.
With PSP 2 they will try themselves to offer Android/Iphones games like the new Minis while still catering to their traditional non casual audience.

Btw I don't really care about the marketing side of this thing and what it will do for Sony, I'm more wondering if this product has a sense and if Playstation Network will have what it takes to support devices outside of the SCE family. Hirai has been talking about expanding the Playstation Network to non-SCE products for more than a year.
First of all this phone should be compatible with a lot of games that can be controlled with Playstation controls. That means that the PSN has to offer those games (leaving PSP games definetly out of the equation we're left with Psone classics, Minis and mobile versions of PSN games).
PSN should also offer movies, music and comics for mobiles, they should offer services like a mobile version of their Go GPS Navigation system.
If they are ready to offer all these things then this product will be cool, otherwise it risks to be an Android Phone with a worthless addition used for a half-attempted (or allowed by SCE) marketing purpose.
 

FoneBone

Member
Weird - I think duckroll is overestimating Sony's competence here (and gofreak, for once, is actually being pessimistic -- correctly, in my view).
 

duckroll

Member
FoneBone said:
Weird - I think duckroll is overestimating Sony's competence here (and gofreak, for once, is actually being pessimistic -- correctly, in my view).

How can I be overestimating their competence when their competence has never come into the picture. I think SCE is completely incompetent right now. But they just don't have a ton to do with this at all. They're too busy being completely incompetent in other ventures, which will prove to be very entertaining for the rest of 2011.
 

Elios83

Member
Danneee said:
So this will probably just be able to download and play Minis? Well that made it a boatload less interesting.

It's just speculation atm. But those controls will definetly need to be used to play something :lol :lol
 

yurinka

Member
duckroll said:
How can I be overestimating their competence when their competence has never come into the picture. I think SCE is completely incompetent right now. But they just don't have a ton to do with this at all. They're too busy being completely incompetent in other ventures, which will prove to be very entertaining for the rest of 2011.
With gaming or with mobile phones?

I think excluding some mistakes like PSP Go pricing and the impossibility to dump legally UMD games they did a good work in both markets recently: slim, price cut, PS3 finally being profitable, new marketing (Kevin Butler), Move, 2010 and 2011 1st party games line-up, more than 100 million consoles sold this gen (PS3+PSP), etc.

In mobile phones they always had a great userbase (one of the top brands worldwide), with powerful devices and now embraced Android.
 

Omiee

Member
i realy hope we get to play psone classics and mini's on it.
and some psn games being ported to it would be good as well.
also playing fifa on the go like that or other racing games will be way easier than on my iphone
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Elios83 said:
I have the opposite feeling, that they have tried to do everything they could to avoid brand association while still making the product.
This thing has no reference to PS in the name of the product, no reference on the front of the product. Many retailers won't even bother to show it in its open form.
I see the product as consistent with Hirai's vision. He wants all the networked devices connected to the Playstation Network, he doesn't want to mess the Playstation gaming experience with phones and mobile platforms.
With PSP 2 they will try themselves to offer Android/Iphones games like the new Minis while still catering to their traditional non casual audience.

Btw I don't really care about the marketing side of this thing and what it will do for Sony, I'm more wondering if this product has a sense and if Playstation Network will have what it takes to support devices outside of the SCE family. Hirai has been talking about expanding the Playstation Network to non-SCE products for more than a year.
First of all this phone should be compatible with a lot of games that can be controlled with Playstation controls. That means that the PSN has to offer those games (leaving PSP games definetly out of the equation we're left with Psone classics, Minis and mobile versions of PSN games).
PSN should also offer movies, music and comics for mobiles, they should offer services like a mobile version of their Go GPS Navigation system.
If they are ready to offer all these things then this product will be cool, otherwise it risks to be an Android Phone with a worthless addition used for a half-attempted (or allowed by SCE) marketing purpose.

I've all the same questions as you about the nature of the product and what exactly will be 'on' it. And I wasn't making any argument about whether this was or wasn't involving SCE to a big degree (which I think is what duckroll perceived my argument to be). I've no idea. I'm just saying, for a broader audience, whether there's the full Playstation logo on the device or not, if the other variables I mentioned are true, I don't think they'll succeed in broadly disassociating it from the brand - that's why I said it was 'the same difference', from this perspective, whether or not the PS symbol or the full name was on the device.

I wonder too though, all the same things as you. I think it could be an epic indictment of Sony's inability to break down internal walls if at least certain things are not true about it though.
 

Elios83

Member
gofreak said:
I've all the same questions as you about the nature of the product and what exactly will be 'on' it. And I wasn't making any argument about whether this was or wasn't involving SCE to a big degree (which I think is what duckroll perceived my argument to be). I've no idea. I'm just saying, for a broader audience, whether there's the full Playstation logo on the device or not, if the other variables I mentioned are true, I don't think they'll succeed in broadly disassociating it from the brand - that's why I said it was 'the same difference', from this perspective, whether or not the PS symbol or the full name was on the device.

I wonder too though, all the same things as you. I think it could be an epic indictment of Sony's inability to break down internal walls if at least certain things are not true about it though.

Infact I think that although this product has not a lot to do with SCE, it's actually a big test for Hirai's Networked devices division. It will show if they're ready to make all Sony products connected around a common infrastructure which delivers contents and services.
Talking about incompetence it will a laughing matter if this product will end up having Playstation controls without games supporting them :lol :lol
 
i understand the seperation between ericsson and sce and all that. what confuses me is if psn or the ps store isnt available for this thing (at least ps1 games or minis), wouldnt that mean a whole new subculture of dedicated sw development and porting for this hardware?
 

yurinka

Member
Elios83 said:
I have the opposite feeling, that they have tried to do everything they could to avoid brand association while still making the product.
This thing has no reference to PS in the name of the product, no reference on the front of the product. Many retailers won't even bother to show it in its open form.
I see the product as consistent with Hirai's vision. He wants all the networked devices connected to the Playstation Network, he doesn't want to mess the Playstation gaming experience with phones and mobile platforms.
With PSP 2 they will try themselves to offer Android/Iphones games like the new Minis while still catering to their traditional non casual audience.

Btw I don't really care about the marketing side of this thing and what it will do for Sony, I'm more wondering if this product has a sense and if Playstation Network will have what it takes to support devices outside of the SCE family. Hirai has been talking about expanding the Playstation Network to non-SCE products for more than a year.
First of all this phone should be compatible with a lot of games that can be controlled with Playstation controls. That means that the PSN has to offer those games (leaving PSP games definetly out of the equation we're left with Psone classics, Minis and mobile versions of PSN games).
PSN should also offer movies, music and comics for mobiles, they should offer services like a mobile version of their Go GPS Navigation system.
If they are ready to offer all these things then this product will be cool, otherwise it risks to be an Android Phone with a worthless addition used for a half-attempted (or allowed by SCE) marketing purpose.
gofreak said:
I've all the same questions as you about the nature of the product and what exactly will be 'on' it. And I wasn't making any argument about whether this was or wasn't involving SCE to a big degree (which I think is what duckroll perceived my argument to be). I've no idea. I'm just saying, for a broader audience, whether there's the full Playstation logo on the device or not, if the other variables I mentioned are true, I don't think they'll succeed in broadly disassociating it from the brand - that's why I said it was 'the same difference', from this perspective, whether or not the PS symbol or the full name was on the device.

I wonder too though, all the same things as you. I think it could be an epic indictment of Sony's inability to break down internal walls if at least certain things are not true about it though.
As gamers, for us the game side of PSN is the more important, but I think Hirai's vision to merge PSN with more devices is mainly focused to the non-gaming side of PSN: movies, tv-series, comics, music, ebooks, etc.

This PSN non-gaming side has a ton of potential in tablets, mobile phones, tvs, laptops, etc.

Imagine you're a user of one of these devices, and you already bought a number of movies, comics, etc. If in the future you want to buy a device of other kind, you'll be more likely to choose a Sony one to carry all this purchased stuff. So I think his idea is to use it as cross promotion between their products.

But at the same time, keeping each one for its best capabilities (so to read comics, ebooks etc in the pad, listening music in the walkman, playing properly in the console, etc). So to share a basic experience of everything across all devices while expanding each experience in each device that is built to do it.

Remember Cybershoot mobile phones, they had great cameras for a mobile phone, but weren't good as good as a Cybershoot camera. Same with Walkman phones.
 

patsu

Member
Rollo Larson said:
i understand the seperation between ericsson and sce and all that. what confuses me is if psn or the ps store isnt available for this thing (at least ps1 games or minis), wouldnt that mean a whole new subculture of dedicated sw development and porting for this hardware?

I don't think anyone here said PSN and PS Store won't be available on the Phone. In fact, the blue logo at the bottom left of the key panel is the PS Store logo.

EDIT: Bah... not the PS Store logo. Just the 4 PS keys. Still no one said anything about PS Store availability yet.

Earlier photos seem to show PS friends list access.
 

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
Danneee said:
So this will probably just be able to download and play Minis? Well that made it a boatload less interesting.
Minis require PSP emulation. I don't see this playing minis, unless they are ported specifically for the system.
 

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
patsu said:
I don't think anyone here said PSN and PS Store won't be available on the Phone. In fact, the blue logo at the bottom left of the key panel is the PS Store logo.

EDIT: Bah... not the PS Store logo. Just the 4 PS keys. Still no one said anything about PS Store availability yet.

Earlier photos seem to show PS friends list access.
The problem is that, even if this can access the PSN and PS Store, it wouldn't be able to run much of the gaming content there. Probably only PsOne classics.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Rollo Larson said:
i understand the seperation between ericsson and sce and all that. what confuses me is if psn or the ps store isnt available for this thing (at least ps1 games or minis), wouldnt that mean a whole new subculture of dedicated sw development and porting for this hardware?

The latest Android SDK exposes these controls. Technically any vendor could make supporting phones with game controls now (as long, I suppose, as they adhere to the 'standard' specified by the SDK).

So, in other words, I would guess they'll be piggybacking on Android developers that Google (and Sony I guess) will encourage to use the new control SDK options.

But I do think Sony would be missing a beat if they didn't have their own marketplace for games that did specifically support the controls (whether you believe they'd call it a Playstation Store or not). IMO they should, since they can take a cut there if they want. They'd also be foolish not to peddle their own content on that store - i.e., at least, PSone games. People are already emulating Playstation games on Android devices. To release a 'Playstation' phone with proper controls and then NOT offer for sale that content would be amazingly silly.

There's also, building on that, another obvious step for them to take, but I'll zip my lip until I see Sony at least get to that point :lol
 

yurinka

Member
gofreak said:
The latest Android SDK exposes these controls. Technically any vendor could make supporting phones with game controls now (as long, I suppose, as they adhere to the 'standard' specified by the SDK).

So, in other words, I would guess they'll be piggybacking on Android developers that Google (and Sony I guess) will encourage to use the new control SDK options.

But I do think Sony would be missing a beat if they didn't have their own marketplace for games that did specifically support the controls (whether you believe they'd call it a Playstation Store or not). IMO they should, since they can take a cut there if they want. They'd also be foolish not to peddle their own content on that store - i.e., at least, PSone games. People are already emulating Playstation games on Android devices. To release a 'Playstation' phone with proper controls and then NOT offer for sale that content would be amazingly silly.

There's also, building on that, another obvious step for them to take, but I'll zip my lip until I see Sony at least get to that point :lol
I think it would be great if Android games supporting these controls would run in PS3/PSP/PSP2 as Minis.
To enlarge their market in this way would be great news for both these developers, Sony and Google.
 

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
yurinka said:
I think it would be great if Android games supporting these controls would run in PS3/PSP/PSP2 as Minis. To enlarge their market in this way would be a great new for these developers.
Sadly, PSP2 is the only likely candidate. And even that doesn't look likely at all, imo. :(
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
yurinka said:
I think it would be great if Android games supporting these controls would run in PS3/PSP/PSP2 as Minis. To enlarge their market in this way would be a great new for these developers.

Ding ding. Well, that's what I was driving at in the last bit of my post. If Sony isn't yet ready to bring the full shebang of their portable playstations to phones, then they should, IMO, at least bring this 'platform' to their portable playstation. It would also at least give this device, and any others like it in the future, some logical position in the Playstation heirarchy too.

It should be a reinvention of the minis platform, minis should be retired and replaced by Sony's 'window' onto the Android gaming world. It would be a nonsense to get behind Android gaming like this and keep the minis platform going separately.
 

patsu

Member
Lonely1 said:
Sadly, PSP2 is the only likely candidate. And even that doesn't look likely at all, imo. :(

PSP Minis look simple enough.


Lonely1 said:
The problem is that, even if this can access the PSN and PS Store, it wouldn't be able to run much of the gaming content there. Probably only PsOne classics.

Yap, limited selection at launch is my guess too.
 

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
patsu said:
PSP Minis look simple enough.




Yap, limited selection at launch is my guess too.

Is not how they look. PSP Minis run directly on the PSP hardware, so the PSP need to be fully emulated if you want to run them without low level porting.
 

Vinci

Danish
Obviously the controls logo isn't the same as proper PlayStation branding, but I sort of wish it were: I really like that logo. I think it's very basic and memorable compared to the 'PS' thing they got going now.
 

patsu

Member
Lonely1 said:
Is not how they look. PSP Minis run directly on the PSP hardware, so the PSP need to be fully emulated if you want to run them without low level porting.

So PSP Minis has no abstraction ? Can't recompile at all ? 8^(
 

krae_man

Member
It will probably also be able to do Remote play, which would actually be cool since you could do it from anywhere you have a cellphone signal as opposed to needing access to Wifi like the PSP.

The lack of Dual analog sticks(or any analog sticks for that matter) will hinder this for everything other then remote store purchases and accessing your friends list though unfortunately.

I would use this if enabling remote play on the PS3 didn't require you to basically leave your PS3 on 24/7.
 

yurinka

Member
Lonely1 said:
Is not how they look. PSP Minis run directly on the PSP hardware, so the PSP need to be fully emulated if you want to run them without low level porting.
Maybe Minis are asked to avoid low level coding, and just use a Sony's high level PSP SDK to improve porting. And then Sony is who port these PSP libraries and functions to other platforms optimizing them to each hardware, instead of stricly emulate the PSP hardware.

You know, more or less like Java for phones or Flash games (where I worked as coder) work but in another level. Not sure how they work, but I think these indie XBLive games should have something similar to run both in PC and the console.
krae_man said:
It will probably also be able to do Remote play, which would actually be cool since you could do it from anywhere you have a cellphone signal as opposed to needing access to Wifi like the PSP.

The lack of Dual analog sticks(or any analog sticks for that matter) will hinder this for everything other then remote store purchases and accessing your friends list though unfortunately.

I would use this if enabling remote play on the PS3 didn't require you to basically leave your PS3 on 24/7.
Not sure how they work, but as I remember some previous Sony Ericsson phone had PS3 remote play. So I suppouse they will add it to this device.
 

sajj316

Member
Lonely1 said:
Is not how they look. PSP Minis run directly on the PSP hardware, so the PSP need to be fully emulated if you want to run them without low level porting.

You sure? PSP minis also run on PS3. Does this mean that the PSP is fully emulated on the PS3?
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
sajj316 said:
You sure? PSP minis also run on PS3. Does this mean that the PSP is fully emulated on the PS3?

Apparently it is an emulator. But it's performance is - according to some reports here - only just about good enough for minis. Apparently there's a couple that even slow down on PS3, so...
 

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
yurinka said:
Maybe Minis are asked to avoid low level coding, and just use a Sony's high level PSP SDK to improve porting. And then Sony is who port these PSP libraries and functions to other platforms optimizing them to each hardware, instead of stricly emulate the PSP hardware.

You know, more or less like Java for phones or Flash games (where I worked as coder) work but in another level. Not sure how they work, but I think these indie XBLive games should have something similar to run both in PC and the console.
Sadly, that isn't the case. Running Minis in a higher abstraction layer made so much sense, that I was actually surprised when brainstew told me that it wasn't the case. The current minis platform is FUBAR.
 

yurinka

Member
sajj316 said:
You sure? PSP minis also run on PS3. Does this mean that the PSP is fully emulated on the PS3?
In addition to the PS2 (in BC consoles) and PS1 emulator, the PS3 has inside sort of PSP emulator. But only has been used with PSP Minis.

Some Minis had some minor performance issues in PS3, so I assume they don't sell retail or PSN PSP games for PS3 too because maybe they wouldn't be emulated at 100%.

Lonely1 said:
Sadly, that isn't the case. Running Minis in a higher abstraction layer made so much sense, that I was actually surprised when brainstew told me that it wasn't the case. The current minis platform is FUBAR.
Sad news, then. So unless this mobile phone is a huge beast capable to emulated PSP1 something I doubt, no Minis here.

In the hypothetical case it would be able to emulate it, it would have been great, because it would mean normal PSP games too in this phone, and additional SW sales for the PSP games developers (same goes for PS Pad and PSP2).
 

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
yurinka said:
In addition to the PS2 (in BC consoles) and PS1 emulator, the PS3 has inside sort of PSP emulator. But only has been used with PSP Minis.

Some Minis had some minor performance issues in PS3, so I assume they don't sell retail or PSN PSP games for PS3 too because maybe they wouldn't be emulated at 100%.
Well, according to reports, some have mayor performance issues, and some not run at all. And that's with the mighty Ps3's Cell. The Cortex A8 the Xperia Play has no hope.

yurinka said:
Sad news, then. So unless this mobile phone is a huge beast capable to emulated PSP1 something I doubt, no Minis here.

In the hypothetical case it would be able to emulate it, it would have been great, because it would mean normal PSP games too in this phone, and additional SW sales for the PSP games developers (same goes for PS Pad and PSP2).
The other option is to have the PSP chipset embedded somewhere. But that is also highly doubtful.

Of course, is never too late to retool the minis platform for cross compatibility with the Xperia Play, PsP2, Ps3 and future PS products.
 

yurinka

Member
Lonely1 said:
Well, according to reports, some have mayor performance issues, and some not run at all. And that's with the mighty Ps3's Cell. The Cortex A8 the Xperia Play has no hope.
As I remember today the only one who doesn't run is Tetris, because EA was working in the PS3 Tetris recently released.

The first day Minis were playable in PS3, only some of them worked. Following weeks (at least in the first ones) both the game support and their performance was upgraded until this virtual 100% (at least for the games released the first months).

I don't have the ones who really struggled in performance, they were mainly the ones with more 3D stuff. Maybe someone who own them can check how runs the performace now after the improvements in the emulation.

The ones I got recently only use 2D stuff (like Pacman CE), so they obviosly run ok in PS3.

Lonely1 said:
The other option is to have the PSP chipset embedded somewhere. But that is also highly doubtful.

Of course, is never too late to retool the minis platform for cross compatibility with the Xperia Play, PsP2, Ps3 and future PS products.
I totally agree.

If Hirai wants to add the same games to a lot of Sony devices, I expect something abstract, easy to implement and to port. It would be so dumb to need to emulate / to include PSP hardware.

Who knows, PSP and PS3 support Flash. So another option would be to do these games in Flash. When I started to work on it I was really surprised how Flash improved for games in terms of performance, even with the 3D support.

carlosp said:
did the hackers find the master key for this in the PS3 already?
Almost all PS3 keys. There is another thread in GAF talking about it.
 
gofreak said:
I'm just saying, for a broader audience, whether there's the full Playstation logo on the device or not, if the other variables I mentioned are true, I don't think they'll succeed in broadly disassociating it from the brand

It doesn't have the word "PlayStation" on the physical device anywhere. It won't be sold in gaming stores. It won't be marketed by carriers using the "PlayStation" branding. It won't be advertised on TV in a way that aligns it with the PlayStation products. It will probably receive zero coverage from any video game media sources post-release. Pretty much the entirety of the product's association with PlayStation in practice is a result of details leaking and being elaborated on by people who made false assumptions about the product's purpose, and those elaborations being debated by fairly dedicated gaming fans (i.e. the people who will also have the information needed to understand what the product actually is now.) I don't see how any average mass-market consumer is going to get confused or think this is "a PlayStation" in the sense that PS3 and PSP are, and it'll only be less confusing once this product is actually being marketed under its own name.
 

CrunchinJelly

formerly cjelly
Why didn't they just copy Apple's idea, and create one platform, two devices: one with phone functions, one without (both PSP2)?

At the moment this thing... Is just a thing. Some Android gaming device even though gaming on Android is a joke at the moment.
 
Nuclear Muffin said:
The phone does have some playstation branding (the buttons, the symbol in the bottom left corner) and it does actually have a playstation app that runs specialised "Playstation" games.

Certainly, SCE have clearly shown that they don't want to be associated with the device, but there is a definite push by SE to market this as "The Playstation Phone".

If anything, the lack of full on playstation branding (and the fact that this device exists seperate from the PSP2) is a clear sign as to how much Sony is split internally.

They should've really gone the whole hog and make this the PSP 2 (with a phoneless version also being avaliable ALA iPod Touch). As it is, it's doomed to fail and just sends mixed messages to everyone (Lord knows how confused consumers will be if we here on GAF are already this confused :lol)

This. I really don't what the hell this thing is supposed to play. Just ps1 games downloaded from psn? Because it's certainly not running psp, ps2, ps3, or psp2 software. So there would have to be games made specifically for this line of devices. And I don't know who the hell is going to to do that rather than just make regular android/iphone games.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
charlequin said:
It doesn't have the word "PlayStation" on the physical device anywhere. It won't be sold in gaming stores. It won't be marketed by carriers using the "PlayStation" branding. It won't be advertised on TV in a way that aligns it with the PlayStation products. It will probably receive zero coverage from any video game media sources post-release. Pretty much the entirety of the product's association with PlayStation in practice is a result of details leaking and being elaborated on by people who made false assumptions about the product's purpose, and those elaborations being debated by fairly dedicated gaming fans (i.e. the people who will also have the information needed to understand what the product actually is now.) I don't see how any average mass-market consumer is going to get confused or think this is "a PlayStation" in the sense that PS3 and PSP are, and it'll only be less confusing once this product is actually being marketed under its own name.

I think you view people's brand associations too simplistically. It's not a case of 'if it's not in the name, they won't make the association'. I could cite various examples here (particularly when it comes to software/content platforms).

Even when I thought this might be a "real" Playstation device, I argued that Sony would be unlikely to conspicuously brand it as such. That putting Playstation in the name would needlessly prejudice the market, that its Playstation-ality should reveal itself on the content/software side, not via in-your-face "this is just for spotty teenage boys" branding in the primary device name.

Similarly here, if the software side, the user experience of gaming on the device is laced with explicit use of the name 'Playstation', then even the Playstation livery aside, people will make the association. If all of that is the case - about content acquisition, playback, control falling under an explicitly labelled 'Playstation' umbrella - do you truly believe that when Sony Ericsson gets up to announce and promote this device, the name 'Playstation' will never be uttered? That stores won't use it when they promote it? Perhaps if 'Playstation' is removed from the software side, they've a chance of shaking the association, but otherwise...

The association has already become entrenched in the broader gadget community. It has nothing to do with whether SCE is or isn't involved or whether we think it is or isn't a "real" Playstation device. The association is there and (if rumours are true) there's precious little to discourage users of the device from making it. We will see - but I bet it continues to be AKA "the playstation phone" and later, perhaps if other devices like it are released, "a playstation phone".
 

Guevara

Member
The more we learn about this device the more it appears to be better suited for the Off-Topic side. This isn't a PSP phone and it certainly isn't a PSP2.
 

sajj316

Member
Could this device be a trial into a potential Playstation phone down the road? Why else would SCE let SE get this type of device in production?
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
cjelly said:
Why didn't they just copy Apple's idea, and create one platform, two devices: one with phone functions, one without (both PSP2)?

At the moment this thing... Is just a thing. Some Android gaming device even though gaming on Android is a joke at the moment.

There may yet be a platform-level relationship, that could help both Android and Sony, but who knows if Sony's smart enough to have figured it out :|

Sony should ditch minis and embrace Android for that tier of gaming i.e. adopt it as a platform that will also run on PSP2, as a replacement for a next-gen minis effort. That creates benefits for Sony, benefits for Android (bring your game to android, add 'real' controls, get the Android market + 'Playstation' market in one). It would, in one foul swoop, solve ambiguities and questions around this device and it's 'place' in the bigger Playstation picture. I stress the should though, it's unfortunately not any more difficult to imagine this being the redundant product of thick silo walls within Sony :|
 

spwolf

Member
Guevara said:
The more we learn about this device the more it appears to be better suited for the Off-Topic side. This isn't a PSP phone and it certainly isn't a PSP2.

uhm, it will play games better than any other phone here, and we certainly have a lot of gaming on phones these days.

But this is will be like their Walkman and Cybershot phones of few years ago. Meaning it will be competent in what it does, probably best there is. But I doubt it will be more than that.

It would be amazing if it could play PS1 games and PSP Minis, but I dont think that should be taken for granted right now.
 
spwolf said:
uhm, it will play games better than any other phone here, and we certainly have a lot of gaming on phones these days.

Wouldn't android games have to be patched to support button controls?
 

Takao

Banned
cjelly said:
Why didn't they just copy Apple's idea, and create one platform, two devices: one with phone functions, one without (both PSP2)?

At the moment this thing... Is just a thing. Some Android gaming device even though gaming on Android is a joke at the moment.

If what we've heard about the PSP2 is true, if it was a phone, it would likely have less than 2 hours of battery life. The guts inside this phone aren't strong enough to make it a true leap over the PSP either.
 

DiscoJer

Member
yurinka said:
Maybe Minis are asked to avoid low level coding, and just use a Sony's high level PSP SDK to improve porting. And then Sony is who port these PSP libraries and functions to other platforms optimizing them to each hardware, instead of stricly emulate the PSP hardware.

I really don't think so. There have been PSP titles that were released on UMD originally as full fledged PSP games, re-released as Minis. Maybe they re-compiled them using a different library, but I doubt it.

Beyond that, we also know they run on the PS3 on an emulator...several devs have mentioned it, as well as the PS3 firmware hackers talking about it.
 
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