It's hard to say what makes a winning phone. Is it the games? The controls? The platform? The phone service? Hoping to follow in the footsteps of the iPhone (and not the Nokia N-Gage!), Sony Ericsson finally announced its long rumored PSP phone: the Xperia Play phone due out in March.
Here's a quick round-up of what we know:
- Battery life: 5.5 hours estimated gaming time and 6.5 to 8.5 hours talk time depending on network
- Colors: Black and white
- Screen: 4 inches
- Controls: Multi-touch display, dual analog touch inputs, left/right shoulder buttons and four-way directional buttons
- Camera: 5.1 megapixel with flash
- OS: Android 2.3
- Networks: Verizon only at launch
- In the box: Battery, stereo portable hands-free headset, 8GB microSD -card, charger and micro USB cable, plus preloaded games Asphalt Adrenaline 6, Bruce Lee, Star Battalion, The Sims 3 and Tetris.
- Launch titles: Sony says 50 games at launch though did not provide a list to back it up. In addition to the pack-in games (whuch may or may not be demos), Gameloft has confirmed Assassin's Creed, Brothers in Arms 2, Let's Golf! 2, Modern Combat: Black Pegasus, Real Football 2011, Spider-Man: Total Mayhem, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Uno. Other reported launch games include Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Dead Space, Dungeon Defenders Wave 2, Family Guy, FIFA '10, Galaxy of Fire 2, Guerrilla Bob, Guitar Hero 6, Gun Bros., Guns 'n' Glory, Infectt, Millionaire City, Reckless Racing and Super KO Boxing 2.
- Backward compatibility: None, at least on the Sony side of the house. Existing PSP purchases via the PlayStation Store are not supported, so you will need to repurchase your favorite games as they become available (at least in the short term). This seems like it would be a deal breaker for most existing PSP gamers, though perhaps they expect a whole new installed base on non-gamers to show up? Good luck with that.
So, anyone getting one of these?
Leave a comment