I was surfing the net today and came across this little article posted by Engadget.com detailing the posibble development of a PlayStation branded smartphone that runs on the up and coming Android 3.0 OS.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/11/exclusive-sony-ericsson-to-introduce-android-3-0-gaming-platfor/According to the article, a "reliable source" told the magazine that Sony Ericsson is currently developing a smart phone that is in the Xperia family (phones with 500+ Mhz processors) that will possess a D-pad and buttons instead of a typical QWERTY keyboard. In place of an analog stick, there will be a touch pad slider that mimics the motions of the stick (much like laptops). I don't know how that would work, but that sure beats using the nub. As for games, expect to see some rehashes of PSX/PSP games as well as releases from other Sony franchises like God of War, Ratchet and Clank, and LittleBigPlanet..If this is true then that means that it might be possible to develop for PlayStation and Android simultaneously. Running android apps on it would be a no brainer, but if it were indeed using a 1 Ghz processor than it could potentially emulate PSP games on the thing (since android can unofficially do that with an emulator). With Yoyogames developing the PSP runner and projects such as the Rokon game Engine (needs an IDE. hmmm) game development has never become this great. The possibilities are just endless. Personally, I am surprised that the PlayStation team agreed to do this at all. Wouldn't releasing a gaming phone steal the thunder of the PSP?
PSP never really had thunder imo.
I waiting for mah damn 3ds! lol
Sounds interesting, maybe they'll ditch the PSP since its doing lousy.
PSP never had any thunder whatsoever. It doesn't have any games that are must-haves, unlike the DS.
and 3DS will BLOW MY MIND.You guys really have no idea how much potential this device may have. Merely adding support to play downloadable PSP on an adroid phone will increase support for both platforms exponentially. In terms of game development, the only reason Android has had a hard time competing with the iPhone in terms of games Is the fact that peformance has been an issue(since the iPhone only runs one app at a time, it can use the systems resources to the fullest). Having dedicated space on the system for running games will make will make the quality of most apps much better.
@JujuF**K the early 90s in terms of game development. Back then you had to be a software engineer to make a game and you had ONLY 3 systems to work with (PC, arcade and consoles(the game boy was a glorfied NES btw))I was talking about the type of games that were being released. Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Starfox, Mario 64, Parappa the Rapper… Kids games that were still highly enjoyable for adults. That niche barely exists nowadays (Psychonauts is the only one I can think of).
@ juju
That market still exist, but on a smaller scale than before(look at the iPhone app store for example). By making use of already existing infrastructure such as PSN and Android market, a device like this would really help independent devs reach a larger(existing) base on the handheld as well as bring more games to the platform. The number of Android phones has increased significantly plus they are quite easy to work with.