Why the Xperia Play isn’t the PlayStation Phone

Like most high end mobile phones, it all started with a couple of decidedly blurry photos, and has graduated to clearer videos and higher quality stills. A Sony Ericsson phone sporting PSP like controls on it certainly would lead one to jump to the conclusion that Sony is coming out with the PlayStation Phone, or PSP Phone. That alone is enough to set many a heart aflutter in anticipation.

It’s highly unlikely this will be the PlayStation Phone though.  Beyond the registration of the “Xperia Play” trademark, there are a number of reasons why this probably won’t get full on PlayStation branding. The most obvious is that Sony Ericsson doesn’t seem to have a cohesive smartphone strategy.  This is a phone from Sony Ericsson after all, not a phone from Sony Computer Entertainment.

Looking back to the early/mid 2000’s, Sony (not Sony Ericsson) made a line of PDAs called CLIE running the Palm OS. By all accounts these were fantastic devices, certainly the best Palm OS devices ever made. In 2003-2004 when Palm itself was releasing the Treo 600, one of their earliest smartphones with a 160 x 160 screen, Sony had a number of PDAs running 480 x 320 screens, some with keyboards including the CLIE UX50 which looked like a mini laptop and the NZ90, which was the first consumer device with an OLED screen . In those days, fans of Palm OS were clamouring for Sony to release phone enabled versions of these devices. One only has to look at the decidedly slate-like CLIE TH55 to see where the Sony Ericsson could have taken a huge leap forward in the nascent smartphone wars.

Alas it never came to be, as Sony doesn’t do phones, that’s up to Sony Ericsson. While Sony was working with the Palm OS, SE was heavily invested in Symbian, which ended up being the mobile strategy that Sony adopted. Things haven’t changed much in the past 6 years, except for the OSes that Sony Ericsson now uses. SE just can’t seem to commit to a long term strategy when it comes to smartphones. Ever since the death of the PDA, they’ve toyed with Symbian, the QIU offshoot, Windows Mobile and now Android. That works out to a new mobile OS every 18 months. Heck, they’re even a Microsoft Windows Phone 7 partner, though only vague rumours of a WP7 Sony Ericsson device have ever briefly surfaced. It wouldn’t look good on SCE if their PlayStation brand was on an SE phone while SE is also selling Windows Phones with Xbox LIVE compatibility.  It certainly sends a mixed message with PSP/PlayStation branding.  SE’s history with Android hasn’t been too encouraging either. The Xperia X10, which was supposed to be their flagship Android phone, was officially still running Android version 1.6 up until only a couple of months ago.

SE has partnered with other divisions of Sony in the feature phone area with some great technical successes. Both Cybershot and Walkman phones have been released by the company. Unlike the camera and music divisions, SCE has much more invested in a mobile strategy, and would need more control over a smartphone with the PlayStation brand. They also depend on assuring game developers that they are committing to a long term strategy, and that their strategy offers security surrounding piracy concerns.  There are conflicting reports of whether it will actually even play PSP games, all of the rumour mill variety.  The latest suggest that there will be a dedicated marketplace for only this device.  This just adds more confusion into the mix.  There would have to be a strong roster of exclusive titles available at launch to make this a c0mpelling replacement smartphone for many.

The table stakes are pretty high to enter the mobile gaming arena, and most consumers will also demand a good operating system to be part of the package. While Android is a solid OS, it’s not something Sony Ericsson has complete control over. Taking this history into account, I’d find it highly unlikely that Sony Computer Entertainment would allow SE to take advantage of the PlayStation brand on something they don’t control. On the flipside, I’m sure SE doesn’t want to give up much control of it’s mobile strategy to SCE.  If this is to have its own marketplace, but running on the Android platform, then what’s the incentive for developers to make games that aim at a subset of a subset of an operating system?  As an alternative, it’s possible that Sony is making their own gaming marketplace available to all Android phones.  After all, Android has some gaming issues to sort out, which it may manage to do with the Honeycomb release, but that’s still a big if to risk a mobile gaming platform on.

There’s no doubt the phone is real.  I just don’t think it will be officially branded the PlayStation Phone, or PSP Phone.  Sure it has all the circles, squares and triangles that a PlayStation device would have, but that’s as far as it goes branding wise.  Unlike other consumer electronics, buying a phone often means buying/renewing a contract.  It would be best for Sony to make sure people knew about a PlayStation Phone and launch titles well in advance.  Unless SCE has been working in the background to make Android their mobile platform of choice moving forward, the Xperia Play is going to be just that:  an Android phone with game controllers and a game marketplace.  To make it work, there’ll have to be real momentum behind the device itself.

[Images from HKGolden via Engadget.  Additional rumours scattered across the inter-twitter-webs.]