Throughout the history of the smartphone industry, there has been a constant struggle to marry up gaming with portable tech. Back in the days when Nokia ruled the market we had the iconic Snake, then the Finnish firm tried to take on Nintendo with the N-Gage, and failed miserably. Even when the smartphone revolution started, games were used as one of the main reasons to stay glued to your phone and today, millions play the likes of Clash of Clans and Candy Crush on their mobile. Despite this, phones have resisted being bent to the will of gamers from a design perspective.
It's also as if gaming and smartphones enjoy a love/hate relationship with one another; people are happy to spend hours playing games on their phones but don't like the idea of their phone being implicitly aimed at gaming. The N-Gage is a shining example of this, as is the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play.
Released way back in 2011, the Xperia Play remains perhaps the most obvious attempt to win the smartphone gaming war yet seen; Sony put its weight behind the Android handset and many proclaimed it as the 'PlayStation Phone' when it was first announced. A slide-out bottom section showcased the familiar PlayStation buttons (circle, square, triangle, cross) and a host of PlayStation games – including Wipeout and Jumping Flash – were made available for download. Surely, with the might of Sony behind it, the Xperia Play couldn't possibly fail?
Alas, that wasn't the case. Retailers reported that consumers were embarrassed to be seen with a handset that so closely resembled a portable games console, and the Xperia Play sold poorly. Sony's software library was minimal, and it was left to companies like Gameloft to give Xperia Play owners quality titles; many of the studio's Android games came with support for the phone's physical controls, a fact which drastically improved them.
Still, while the Xperia Play failed to crack the market, it was a godsend to certain players. The ability to run emulators and use the phone's gaming controls made a massive difference, and I still have fond memories of playing Super Mario World, Sonic, Shining Force, Fire Emblem, Windjammers and much more besides on my phone.
The Xperia Play certainly wasn't perfect – it had a single-core 1GHz processor at a time when everyone else was moving to dual-core CPUs, and the tiny amount of storage dedicated to app installs meant you couldn't load up many games unless you were willing to flash a custom ROM which allowed you to use your MicroSD card for app storage – but for well over 12 months it was my go-to device and I still have it in my drawer; even today, I marvel at how small it is and how well it plays retro games.
Sony refused to create a successor to the Xperia Play – an understandable move when you consider how poorly it did – but a sequel could have solved many of the phone's biggest problems and have given us the perfect mobile gaming platform. Sadly that didn't happen and all we have to remind ourselves of the promise of a 'true' gaming phone is this underrated and underappreciated little device.
by dmcferran via Featured Articles
Reviewed by Ossama Hashim
on
December 20, 2018
Rating:
Posts
No comments: