Last week, Sony made the decision to terminate support for PlayStation Mobile, a platform that would allow PlayStation certified tablets and smartphones to access a catalog of games developed specifically for the platform.
While it aimed to draw in gamers, it had direct competition with the wider catalog of more known titles in the Google Play Store, and the obscurity of available titles paired with the lack of wider known games eventually lead to its inevitable long overdue demise.
To highlight the problem, I can list the 16 games I own on the platform – Beat Slider, Beats Trellis, Bullion Blitz, Cardboard Castle, Crystal Ice, Cubixx, Forevolution, Fuel Tiracas, Gunhouse, Lemmings, OMG-Zombies!, Samurai Beatdown, Tokyo Jungle, Tiki Rush, YU-NAMA-PUZZLE and rymdkapsel.
Throughout the history of PlayStation Mobile, I've obtained each and every one of these games free through various promotions, and even then my overall playtime is probably somewhere around the 10 minute mark.
Even the more attractive titles such as Lemmings and Tokyo Jungle could not justify the ‘needle in a haystack’ conundrum that plays out when attempting to navigate the store for something mildly attractive, and two well recognized titles is not enough to draw in any gamer.
By this point, it’s clear to see that the PlayStation brand existed in name only as far as PlayStation Mobile was concerned, and for a long time coming there was fathomable chance that Sony could, and would retire the platform at any time.
But sometimes, the end of one thing has to happen to make way for something new, something better. An old saying goes, when one door closes, another door opens. And Sony knows this only too well.
The Xperia Play Experiment and Other Hardware
PlayStation Mobile wasn't Sony’s first attempt at bringing the PlayStation and Xperia brands together – After years of speculation and anticipation, in 2011 Sony released the Xperia Play.Since Nokia’s NGage range, The Xperia Play was the first hybrid of Mobile Phone and portable games console to hit the market, and a daring one at that. After all, Nokia’s success with NGage was limited, and restricted to a niche audience.
While Sony had the PlayStation name to fall back on, it was still taking huge risks with the ‘PlayStation Phone’ as dubbed by the community, however these risks would be the seed of new ideas.
The Xperia Play is all but a distant memory now and will be joined by PlayStation Mobile in the logged history of PlayStation and Xperia’s union, however that’s not to say the union has been severed.
With the Xperia SP came new interactions between the brands, and for the first time ever a dualshock controller could be used to control games on android with official support from Sony. Would it be appropriate to consider the Xperia SP as the Xperia Play mark 2? Well, no.
The Xperia Play was a phone designed as a games console. The Xperia SP on the other hand was a phonedesigned to be a phone that could do what the Xparia Play could do, and more. Furthermore, like traditional consoles, the screen and controller was detached, allowing HD output from the device meaning the Xperia SP could double as a portable games console, or a mini-games console to be enjoyed on the big screen.
But most importantly, the key here wasn't the hardware, it was the software.
Sometime later, Sony released the Xperia Z2, and this is the phone I’m using now. By digging through the menus, I can still locate the same settings for DUALSHOCK™ wireless controller, allowing for the same enjoyable experience a generation later – and this feature has been enjoyed by a number of other Xperia devices.
This functionality has clearly evolved from the Xperia Play, however there’s more to it than that. The functionality has already evolved once more.
The Xperia SP allowed us to control our phones with our PlayStation controllers, but what if we would control our PlayStation with our phones? It became apparent that Sony had considered the same upon the launch of the PlayStation 4 that provided inter-connectivity between Android phones and the games console.
While Sony will likely have taken some inspiration from Microsoft’s Smart Glass, I’m a firm believer that had Sony not experimented with earlier iterations of PlayStation connectivity with android through the Xperia brand, it wouldn't be where it is today.
PlayStation Now, Xperia and the Future
Sony have several other gaming entities in play this generation, with PlayStation Now slowly rolling out and the imminent launch of the PlayStation TV (Vita TV in Asia).
With PlayStation TV’s intention to amplify and make easier the ability to play PlayStation 4 games, it’s hard not to expect some form of Xperia integration in the future.
Then there’s PlayStation Now, Sony’s attempt at entering the cloud console environment – that is, a gaming platform that exists without the requirement for dedicated hardware. Similar to platforms like On Live and to an extent, Steam, PlayStation Now will offer the ability to Play PlayStation Games from across various historic PlayStation consoles on a list of supported platforms.
While not exactly device agnostic, PlayStation Now offers the most accessible solution for gamers, with support coming to the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation TV, 2014 Bravia TVs and the expectation for the list to grow.
Sony have previously mentioned that PlayStation Now will be heading to Xperia devices though no news has been heard since. Despite this, I would see it as inevitable that, with a few tweaks here and there, PlayStation Now would be arriving on Xperia at some point down the road. There are however, questions that will no doubt be raised, and have probably already been raised among those involved in bringing the platform to Xperia. Questions such as, what devices will be supported? Will it be exclusive to Tablets, or will the platform be available on Smart Phones too? Will users have access to the full library? Will a physical controller be required?
I’d see the last one as most likely, particularly as this will be the case for Bravia TVs. The rest will, no doubt, be answered in due course.
What next?
Everything has an age, and everything must end. Eventually, PlayStation Now will be a thing of the past – eventually the love affair between Xperia and PlayStation will come to an end, whether prematurely, or at the fate of either brands.
One possibility is that in years to come, Sony decide to stop manufacturing consoles, a la. Sega, but continue PlayStation legacy in name across the Xperia range. Another is that both live happily ever after until inevitably the sun sets.
But the end is not nigh, and before such a day approaches, it would surprise me if this tethered relationship didn’t evolve even more than it has already.
Perhaps we’ll see Xperia devices being used as in-game items. Imagine a future Uncharted game where calling Elena or Sully from your phone (not just through an app, but through the phone’s own interface) to obtain a safe code will unlock an exclusive weapon or treasure.
Infamous: Second Son has already taken the game off screen through its Paper Trail missions, and some missions require tracking ‘conduits’ with Delsin's GPS receiver. But what if you could use Google Maps to locate whereabouts in Seattle the conduit was present?
With virtual reality on its way to PlayStation in the shape of Project Morpheus, the range of possibilities gets bigger still.
There are many ways to bring the two brands together. At the start of this section, I ran through some scenarios that could spell the end of Sony’s hand crafted love story. But what if I was looking in the completely wrong direction? What if the link wasn't severed through the demise of either brand, but what if it was the demise of both brands at the point where the two become so inseparable that neither can be told apart from the other – where both entities become one?
The end of one thing has to happen to make way for something new, something better. An old saying goes, when one door closes, another door opens. And Sony knows this only too well.
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