Xperia Play Won't Be Another N-Gage, Says Sony Ericsson

Logan Westbrook

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Feb 21, 2008
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Xperia Play Won't Be Another N-Gage, Says Sony Ericsson


Touchscreen games aren't for everyone, says Sony Ericsson, which is where the Xperia Play comes in.

Now that the long-rumored "PlayStation Phone" has arrived, in the form of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, it's hard not to make comparisons with Nokia's ill-fated N-Gage. However, Sony Ericsson's Dom Neil-Dwyer says that history won't repeat itself and that the Xperia Play is unlike anything that has come before it.

Neil-Dwyer said that the reason that Nokia was unsuccessful with the N-Gage was that it tried to make it a games machine first, and a phone second. With the Xperia, he said, Sony Ericsson had taken the opposite route, and made a fully functional smartphone that could also play games. "As you can see from the design ... when you hold it in portrait it's a smartphone," he said. "When you've got the game keys hidden and you're just holding it like that, people wouldn't know what it is, but obviously when you pop it open it's a great gaming device."

He said that the target audience for the Xperia Play was younger smartphone users, who wanted something different from the more bite-sized far available on the likes of the iPhone and the Android markets. He said that the Xperia would be something that trendsetters would latch on to and embrace, and rejected the idea that it would only really appeal to a "techie" audience. "I think there's two types of people [who want the Xperia]. One is someone who's just in this because it's the only way they want to play games, because touchscreen games aren't great, and the other reason is a very kind of cool consumer. So I wouldn't say techie."

Neil-Dwyer also said that the Xperia Play provided advantages for developers, despite being the difficulty in porting a game designed for the Xperia's controls to other smartphone platforms. He said that early data from Verizion suggested that people who purchased the Play also tended to buy more premium Android apps, which, when coupled with the extra visibility gained from working directly with Sony Ericsson, made it much easier to monetize Android apps. All Sony Ericsson asked for, he said, was a limited period of exclusivity, as was the case with the Xperia version of Minecraft.

Neil-Dwyer says that Sony Ericsson's biggest challenge with the Xperia Play at the moment is building its install base. That's not going to be a walk in the park, as it has competition from both other smartphones and from dedicated gaming devices. That's not to say that the Xperia Play can't prevail, but it's going to be difficult.

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35298/Interview_Why_Sony_Ericssons_Xperia_Play_Is_Not_Another_NGage.php]


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icyneesan

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Feb 28, 2010
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To be fair I don't believe the PSP Phone/Xperia Play suffers from all the horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE (Did I say it was horrible?), problems that the N-gage suffered from.

Thank God it doesn't look like a bloody Taco either.
 

starwarsgeek

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Nov 30, 2009
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Logan Westbrook said:
He said that the Xperia would be something that trendsetters would latch on to and embrace, and rejected the idea that it would only really appeal to a "techie" audience. "I think there's two types of people [who want the Xperia]. One is someone who's just in this because it's the only way they want to play games, because touchscreen games aren't great, and the other reason is a very kind of cool consumer. So I wouldn't say techie."
Did he just insult the "techie" audience? And an entire type of control...that their next dedicated handheld is using?
 

Fasckira

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Oct 22, 2009
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Wait, is that Minecraft running on it or a Minecraft clone?

Minecraft can be pretty beastly on the old processor so if it Ill be pretty impressed!
 

rembrandtqeinstein

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Sep 4, 2009
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you mean a phone you had to hold like this failed?

[image src="http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/pp285/Blue5wirl/ngagephone.jpg"]side talking[/IMG]
 

Dys

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Sep 10, 2008
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starwarsgeek said:
Logan Westbrook said:
He said that the Xperia would be something that trendsetters would latch on to and embrace, and rejected the idea that it would only really appeal to a "techie" audience. "I think there's two types of people [who want the Xperia]. One is someone who's just in this because it's the only way they want to play games, because touchscreen games aren't great, and the other reason is a very kind of cool consumer. So I wouldn't say techie."
Did he just insult the "techie" audience? And an entire type of control...that their next dedicated handheld is using?
What they did to the xperia x10 was insult the techie audience, basically what he's done is acknowledged that it's going to take a lot more than mediocre hardware, terrible support and some gaming peripherals to win us back.

The xperia play will likely make the n-gage look like a runaway success. Gaming simply will not work without adequate support and a level of freedom, they completely butchered their last android smartphone in the name of DRM, and that was only really going to stop from (very) keen modders from porting their software to other systems (there is a small chance that users of competing high end android phones would have used those port for a small time)....imagine how bad it will be if there are actual products that they could potentially make a profit off of.

On a side note, I wonder how long it will take them to realise capacitive touchscreens can support multitouch this time 'round......
 

Avaholic03

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May 11, 2009
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Yeah, and I can say my shit won't stink anymore. Doesn't mean it'll happen.

It's not like people are clammoring over the new PSP. So slapping a phone onto it will suddenly make it good? Yeah, whatever you need to tell yourself Sony.
 

joystickjunki3

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Nov 2, 2008
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Fasckira said:
Wait, is that Minecraft running on it or a Minecraft clone?

Minecraft can be pretty beastly on the old processor so if it Ill be pretty impressed!
Xperia Play is the official mobile platform for Minecraft.
 

esperandote

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Feb 25, 2009
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They should have slaped a phone on the NGP and not make me choose between the two of them.
 

Alphakirby

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May 22, 2009
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icyneesan said:
To be fair I don't believe the PSP Phone/Xperia Play suffers from all the horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE (Did I say it was horrible?), problems that the N-gage suffered from.

Thank God it doesn't look like a bloody Taco either.
Just wait until Xperia Play 2.0,it'll be so much like a taco,it'll come with meat,cheese and a free packet of hot sauce.

OT:I don't care too much about the Xperia Play because I don't have Verizon,so either way I can't get it.
 

wooty

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Aug 1, 2009
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Just arrived? Ive had mine for near 3 months and to be honest im pretty impressed with the whole thing.

Wasnt expecting it to change the world but it does its job very well indeed.
 

Fensfield

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Nov 4, 2009
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Me, i'm optimistic about it. I really do hope it does well enough to be called a success, and from what little I can tell, I don't much doubt it will.

That said.. how does it acquire and run its games? For instance, I don't suppose it can run digitally purchased PSP games bought through PSN? 'Cause that might well sell it to me >.>
 

Shadow-Phoenix

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Mar 22, 2010
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I still find my phone decent and would just be happy using a PSP or a DS rather than buying a slapped together phone no matter how good it tries to become.
 

maddog015

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Sep 12, 2008
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Hmm, I was thinking about picking this up. Either this or a Droid 2. As long as it can play what I want it to play, I'll be happy.
 

joeman098

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Jun 18, 2007
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i am not geting this phone due to the fact its not 4g and phones comeing out will have better specs and nicer screens but mainly because its 3g