Monday 14 February 2011

Xperia Play: Software Software Software    [ 14-02-2011 19:03 ]

Author: Irina Turina     Translation by: Paul Smith     

At the Sony Ericsson event in Barcelona last night we finally saw the Xperia Play made official and you can read our coverage of the announcement and the handset itself here. In this article I'm going to say a few words about the gaming side of the handset and my initial thoughts from the event itself.

The first thing to say is that there was, in relative terms, little said about the games, the publishers or the platform itself. To say that I found this odd would be an understatement, but it's understandable too as Sony Ericsson are treading carefully here.

On the bright side the event saw the announcement that the Xperia Play would launch with 50 titles and that there were already 20 games publishers onboard, including the likes of Ubisoft.

That's all very well and good, and it is, but the overriding feeling on the night amongst several people I spoke with was that whilst the games present, like Fifa 10 and Crash Bandicoot, were fun to play and the hardware performed nicely, there weren't any titles present that made people go 'Wow!'.

That's maybe a little unfair to say after all we were playing around with just a fraction of the titles that will be available at launch and the word on the night was that we should expect announcements heralding new games within the week. There will be more games and there will be more publishers, but the Xperia Play really needs big titles, the sort that will draw gamers to what is being marketed as a gaming device.

There's another factor in the success or failure of the Xperia Play and it's perhaps the biggest of them all ... Sony. Asking around the event I picked up a vibe that Sony, whilst publicly onboard with the Xperia Play, indeed they had their own man up there on stage, are possibly concerned about their PlayStation brand. There is no clearer sign than the fact that despite there having been almost 100 million searches for the term 'PlayStation Phone' the actual device itself doesn't use that branding. Sure it has the familiar button logos and so on, but the device is called the Xperia Play, not the PlayStation phone.

Concern is not unfounded of course, after all Sony have their own dedicated gaming handhelds and there were plenty of people asking Sony Ericsson about possible cannibalisation of sales between the devices. Looking at the gaming titles available in that light one has to wonder if Sony might want to keep the really big titles for the PlayStation handhelds.

It's far too early to see how it will all pan out of course, but with more announcements of game titles and publishers expected imminently we should hopefully start to see a fuller picture emerging.

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