Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Xperia Play (PlayStation Phone) - Media Flood

Gameplay Videos:
Compilation here
Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave here
Gun Brothers here
Bruce Lee here
Galaxy on Fire 2 here
FIFA 10 here

Devs speak out here, hereherehereherehere, and here
Promo video here

Specs thanks to a press release from Sony:
Available March
On Verizon network
Comes in black or white
Operating System: Android 2.3 Gingerbread
1Ghz Snapdragon processor
4 inch, 480 x 854 display

Stereo speakers
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
Capacitive, multi-touch touch-screen
Slide out controls; Standard Sony d-pad, triangle-circle-square-cross buttons, two shoulder buttons, touch-pad (given two circular partitions to imitate analog sticks)
5.1 Megapixel camera, flash, image, video
Approximately 5 hours, 35 minutes of playing games
Games can run at 60 frames per second
Sony promises 50 titles at launch
Xperia Play comes loaded with an unannounced PS1 title, and Android games Asphalt 6, The Sims 3, and Tetris
Packed in: 8 GB micro SD card (only 400 MB on the phone), AC charger, micro USB cable, user manual



My Thoughts:
The design isn't bad, though, like the PSP Go, I think it's a bit ugly once it's slid open, looking at it from the front. I don't personally care much about carriers, though I'm sure a number of people will be upset that it's Verizon only, for now. No price announced, but given the specs it shouldn't be a huge drop in the bucket with a contract. Games are programmed with both touch-screen controls and the slide-out controller, since they also need to work on "PlayStation Certified" devices that only have touch-screens.

Graphically.....hm, where do I start. Compared to a PSP, the high-resolution screen and high-resolution textures help it to look better in some instances. But some of the games seem a bit below what a PSP could pull off. Without the help of a GPU, most of what is being shown off doesn't seem to be as nice as a 3DS game (and obviously no where near the NGP games shown off so far). I will say that the racing game shown off, Asphalt 6 I assume, looks nicer than either of the 3DS's racers. They haven't named off many of the 50 games promised at launch, but I assume many will PS1 games (no word of graphical enchancements). Hopefully it will be a good selection from the PS1's great library.

I'm personally not that interested. Mostly because you can get PS1 classics through the PSP or PS3, and I'm not interested in the phone portion that is unique to the Xperia Play. I'm not currently with Verizon either, so that doesn't help. If you want an all in one phone, music, camera, and game player, and haven't experienced the PS1 library to a large extent, this seems like a really solid option.

Do you guys have any interest in the Xperia Play? Let me know in the comments.

4 comments:

  1. I'm not a huge mobile gaming guy, so I really don't have any interest in the Xperia.

    I'm just now getting back to playing Dementium II on my DS Lite, and enjoying it...but I don't bring it with me when I leave the house, and find myself playing it in only for about 30 minute sessions before bed...I guess if my "gaming" device was also a phone, I would have it with me all the time, and perhaps game more...but I don't do a lot of gaming even on my iPod Touch, so I doubt it.

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  2. Also to add, Sony confirmed that owners have to purchase games from PSN on the Xperia Play, even if you already bought the game on the PSP or PS3.

    I read a couple of comments on some sites and seems that they aren't taking it very well. I might have to get a new phone soon (I had my old LG Dare for five years now) but if I didn't have to pay for that $30/month data plan (Verison), I would get the Iphone4.

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  3. @Falco
    Ouch. Did you catch any info if the Xperia purchases transfer to all "PlayStation Certified" devices, such as the phones coming out in the Xperia line?

    @coffee
    Mind if I ask which iPod Touch you have? 3rd or 4th generation, and it would have access to high-end exclusives like Infinity Blade.

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  4. @WesFX:
    I think it's the 4th Gen...the one with the external volume button, and built in speaker.

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