61–68 of 68 posts
Very interesting approach to analog sticks. Looks like two circular touch pads with a button in the middle. One of the problems with touch screens is that you can't feel the center of virtual control sticks.
Sony has trailed in digital music, online video, and casual/social gaming. I'm glad that Sony is trying something different to get ahead of the curve as portable gaming converges with smartphones. There are several reasons, however, why I think this device may struggle in the market. For instance, who is the target market? Kids and teen gamers who buy a PSP or DS (I assume parents often pay) or young adults that curr…
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It should be trivial to run the built-in official 'console' software on another Android phone (with adequate hardware specs), correct?
I'd be surprised if they don't have custom graphics hardware, of some sort, in there - I imagine the last thing Sony wants is to commoditise themselves by providing the same hardware platform as normal Android phones. Even if they don't have custom hardware, I'd be shocked if they didn't have some sort of silicon DRM to stop the software running elsewhere.
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A controller might not be necessary, but for anyone that plays slightly more involved games than iOS has, it's a godsend. Playing a platformer on an iPod touch is rather annoying.
I can imagine an interesting control scheme employing the tilt detection and accelerometers. Do they incorporate those?
millions. boom.
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I can imagine an interesting control scheme employing the tilt detection and accelerometers. Do they incorporate those?
Some titles have. It doesn't work out as well as you might hope; those inputs aren't exactly precise, and tilting the screen can be a bit disorienting. The result is that level layouts have to be much simpler to maintain the same degree of challenge.
(It's a good game. I was expecting it would follow the trend of making games ever more casual. I was wrong. Mario Bros. Wii is hard.)
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1) Sony uses open source, they do like it. PS2 and PS3 could run Linux. 2) Sony-Ericsson already makes the Xperia line of Android phones. The Playstation phone is the same thing, with buttons. 3) Sony has another strategic partnership with Google Android in its new line of Google TV enabled televisions and Blu-ray players.
I don't agree with the first point. You can run Linux on almost anything. Sony recently dropped and deliberately blocked Linux support on PS3.
Besides. Compared to the rest of the Android OS field, Sony fits right in. Take what you can get for free and don't give back any more than necessary.
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PS2 Linux support was a massive joke -- they forced linux development to be perfectly orthogonal to the rest of the system, and I don't think anything that separates the PS2 from the typical desktop made it into open source (i.e., GPU drivers, and so on). PS3 Linux support was retroactively revoked via firmwear update mere months after launch.
"mere months"? I had my PS3 for over two years before Sony pulled the plug on OtherOS support, and I didn't even buy my PS3 at launch...