Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play has been on the market in the US for just under eight weeks; reviews of the combined cell phone / gaming handheld have been mixed. The Android experience has been generally good, but the screen is exceptionally dim, certain hardware functions are limited, battery life is lower than average, and the device’s game library remains anemic. This last has improved, but evidently not enough. Sony Ericsson has slashed the price of the Xperia Play to $100, down from the initial $200 price (with contract).

The dramatic price cut could be evidence that the Xperia Play isn’t generating anywhere near as much interest as Sony had hoped. Reviews of the device have been harsh in some areas, with Ars Technica writing “we’re close to calling this a gaming phone in name only. All the device has to offer in the way of gaming optimization is the addition of new physical controls, and only a smattering of games benefit significantly from them. Many of the games being billed as “Xperia Play-optimized” by Verizon originated on a touch platform and simply don’t need physical buttons to make the gameplay good.”

The phone may also be suffering from what’s often referred to as the “Osborne Effect.” The name refers to the Osborne Computer Corporation and the situation that developed after the company announced its upcoming Osborne 2 system. Legend has it that the Osborne 2 announcement caused Osborne 1 sales to collapse as customers and resellers cancelled orders in droves in favor of waiting for the next-generation system.* This drop off in sales crippled the company’s ability to fund Osborne 2 development and ultimately led to the demise of the manufacturer.

The Xperia Play was much more interesting when it was seen as the sole successor to the PSP. As things are now, we know the Playstation Vita will assume that role by the fourth quarter. Sony is also set to debut its S1/S2 tablets in Q3 of this year. The S1/S2 will outclass the Play’s relatively modest hardware, while the Vita will likely offer better gameplay and a brighter screen.

Cutting the XPeria’s price by $100 could be an attempt to determine how customers measure the value of the device. Sony intends to bring the Playstation library to all four devices, with the Xperia serving as a gateway. It’s not a bad strategy, but the company may need to be careful. The Xperia has the weakest hardware, which implies it may need the most focus and effort to squeeze maximum performance from its modest capabilities.

Sony has been trying hard to generate buzz for their upcoming S1 and S2 tablets, with a series of teaser videos that have been posted to YouTube. Getting slightly less vague with each one, the third one has now arrived and it gives us a couple more morsels of information. Chief among those is that the tablets appear to be playing Playstation One games (in this case, Crash Bandicoot) – much like the Xperia Play does.

This likely relates to the Playstation Suite, a hub for PSone gaming to launch on select Android devices sometime in 2011. It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about the launch, so it would make sense that Sony would be holding it back to introduce on its own tablets.

While no official statement was announced regarding the addition of PS2 games, Sony apparently hasn’t ruled it out and is “looking into every possibility.”

Releasing a new dedicated portable gaming system and porting ancient console titles to a tablet are a recipe for getting left behind. Devices are becoming more and more unified. As great as the Vita’s capabilities will be, it won’t likely be long before tablets are on par with its gaming horsepower. Then what?

The smart move by Sony – the move that thinks ahead instead of just throwing another novelty onto the market – would be to incorporate the Vita’s gaming abilities (and titles) into their tablets. Then Android would have a real gaming powerhouse that could shame the iPad’s lineup. Sony is one of the only companies that could do this, with its excellent lineup of Playstation-exclusive franchises.

Playing 15-year-old console titles without an emulator may make for an interesting blog post, but it ultimately isn’t much of a selling point on these tablets. Give us LittleBigPlanet, Uncharted, and God of War – then gamers will have a reason to buy the S1 or S2. Of course Sony isn’t likely to do this anytime soon, as they would be competing against their own upcoming Vita (PSP sequel).

It’s nice that we can play a console platformer from 1996, but any Android phone or tablet with a good PS1 emulator can already do that (even though they were pulled from the market they are still attainable). While PS2 games could be a nice perk (depending which of that generation’s classics could be licensed and ported), is this really something gamers are going to throw a few hundred bones down for when the iPad has games that are starting to show signs of rivaling current generation consoles?

The rivalry between Google and Apple continues to heat up as the two tech giants reported progressive development for Android and Apple App Store. Apple holds the lead with over 15 billion downloads while Android grew rapidly with over 4.5 billion. The increased number of Android smartphone and tablets flowing into the stores will attempt to even the playing field with Apple’s iOS devices.

Google has attracted developers with Android’s open source platform along with support from other technology companies such as Sony. Sony’s move to go with Android have shown positive returns in sales as their Google mobile OS powered devices are making a majority of revenue.

“Our shift to Android-based smartphones continues with smartphone sales accounting for more than 70pc of our total sales during the quarter,” said Bert Nordberg, president and CEO of Sony Ericsson

The Sony Ericsson Xperia smartphones continue to contribute to Androids growth with plans to release two new tablets by this fall. Their latest tablet devices, the
Sony S1 and S2, could bring in a fresh wave of Android users. Powered by the latest Google OS, the two tablets appear to be an innovative device that could alter the landscape of the market. At first glance, users will notice a new design that strays from the traditional flat rectangular slate. The Sony S1 integrates a design concept of a folded magazine while the Sony S2 can be folded to slip into your pocket. Sony’s S2 offers another unique design in having two touchscreens that can display multiple websites or pages from an e-book.

Not surprisingly, Google is now looking to Sony for adding onto the growth of Android users especially in the tablet arena where Apple’s iPad continues to dominate. Google has close to 135 million devices on the market, mostly smartphones, and is now looking to increase market share of tablet sales. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab has driven Android into head-to-head competition with Apple but can Sony produce similar results with their new innovative tablets?

Google can potentially see increasing number of device activations and app downloads to surpass iOS if the pace continues. Currently over 550,000 Android devices are being activated each day and developers appear to be streaming into the Google mobile OS open platform, though Apple has recently won back developers recently due to the iPhone 4 launch on Verizon.

“Studying the numbers, it’s readily apparent that Android has lost developer support to iOS. Specifically, Android new project starts have dropped from 36% in Q1 to 28% in Q2. Overall, total Flurry iOS and Android new project starts grew from 9,100 in Q1 to 10,200 in Q2…Of note, this drop in Android developer support represents the second quarter-over-quarter slide, which follows a year of significant, steady growth for the Google-built OS. Over the course of 2010, Android developer support had steadily climbed each quarter, peaking at 39% in Q4 2010, ” said Charles Newark-French, Strategy Manager M&A at Vodafone, in Flurry’s official Blog.

The study conducted by Flurry, that deals with statistics regarding developer applications, said majority of the developers spent their time creating apps for Apple’s mobile devices in comparison to the Android OS.
Android continues to hold high potential to overtake Apple if it can maintain the current momentum of new devices and improved OS functions.