PlayStation Mobile: devices, development, and more
PlayStation Mobile — formerly PlayStation Suite — is Sony's effort to roll out gaming content to Android mobile devices, from PSOne classics to original content developed with its SDK. So far the service has been limited to old PlayStation games on Sony-made devices, but the company announced at E3 that HTC will be joining the ranks of PlayStation-certified device manufacturers. Follow this stream to keep up with the latest.
PlayStation Mobile titles go on sale October 3rd, Sharp and Fujitsu join as hardware partners
Back at E3 Sony rebranded its Playstation Suite mobile gaming initiative to PlayStation Mobile, and the company has now announced it will begin distributing content to certified devices through the PlayStation Store on October 3rd. Aimed at Android-based smartphones and tablets, PlayStation Mobile games will be available in nine different countries at launch, including the US, UK, Japan, Canada, and France. Around 30 different titles will be present to start with, from both Sony and...
Mobile
HTC One phones running PlayStation Mobile spotted at Sony's E3 booth
Yesterday at E3 Sony announced a partnership to bring PlayStation Mobile — previously known as PlayStation Suite — to HTC's phones. While no specific devices were mentioned at the event, the HTC One X on stage gave us an decent idea of what to expect. Sony has since revealed that HTC's One series will be the first third-party products to don the PlayStation Certified moniker, specifically, the HTC One X, One S, and One V.
Sony wasted no time showing off its new relationship with HTC. We...
PlayStation Suite is now PlayStation Mobile, HTC first third-party hardware partner
Sony has just announced it will be partnering with HTC to create PlayStation Suite-certified phones — a program it is renaming PlayStation Mobile. While no specific phones were mentioned, the new HTC One X was held up as an example of the collaboration, as well as being featured in a slide promoting the partnership. PlayStation Suite was announced last year, and the developer program went into open beta this past April. The focus up until this point, however, had been on Sony Ericsson —...
PlayStation Suite developer program goes into open beta
We were expecting the PlayStation Suite developer program to go into open beta this month, and sure enough it's happened. Developers can now download the free Suite SDK, which will allow them to create apps and games for the PS Vita and PlayStation Certified devices. Once the beta period is up at some point later this year, signing a $99-per-year contract will allow developers to sell their content in the PlayStation Store.
Sony isn't revealing much information on exactly how stringent the...
PlayStation Store comes to the Sony Xperia S, 14 PS One titles available
We weren't best pleased with the Xperia S' lack of gaming options in our review, especially for a flagship PlayStation Certified device. Thankfully, Sony has gone some way to rectifying the error by making the PlayStation Store available on the new phone, as well as its Japanese equivalent the Acro HD. To access the store, you'll need to enable non-Android Market apps in the Settings menu, run the "Let's start PS Store" application that's in the app tray, and finally download both the...
Android
PlayStation Suite SDK in open beta next month, more content on the way
Sony Android devices like the Xperia S and Tablet P may well be PlayStation Certified, but you wouldn't necessarily know it from looking at the meagre selection of content available. While the promise of PlayStation Suite seems yet to materialise, Sony is at least making efforts towards it today by announcing that the SDK for the platform will go into open beta next month. This will hopefully bring a range of new, original content to PlayStation Certified devices, going beyond the smattering...
Android
Sony Tablet P review
In a market riddled with similar slates, no one's going to accuse Sony of adopting a copycat tablet strategy. First the company released the Tablet S, a tablet seemingly inspired by a folded-back magazine, and now comes the Tablet P, which draws its design from some combination of a Nintendo 3DS and a Kyocera Echo. We’ve been hearing about the Tablet P for more than a year, originally as the Tablet S2, and now it’s finally available: the clamshell device has two 5.5-inch displays, a Tegra...
Android
Sony Xperia S review
The Sony Xperia S is the first product to emerge from the newly consolidated Sony Mobile group. Although it'll inevitably be treated as the bellwether for Sony's attempt at going it alone on the mobile front, this phone's design and development can rightfully be attributed to the former Sony Ericsson partnership. Whatever the logo at the top, the Xperia S comes with a clear mission to woo users with its dashing good looks and to keep them interested with a highly competitive spec sheet. Its...
Android
PlayStation Certified HTC devices rumored for second half of 2012
PlayStation certification for mobile devices has been an exclusively Sony-only affair up to this point, but today Pocket-lint is reporting that HTC will break that monopoly in the latter half of 2012. Citing sources in the know, the site suggests HTC will get approval to slap PlayStation Certified stickers on its products later in the year, though it's not entirely clear if that will apply retrospectively to devices already released or only to brand new ones. There's also no way to yet know...
Mobile
Sony exploring Vita OS smartphones and tablets, says AV Watch
Sony’s soon-to-be President and CEO, Kazuo Hirai, has hinted that the company is investigating porting the Vita OS to other mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Japanese site AV Watch reported on Friday that Hirai told reporters at a Q&A session that the company doesn’t want us to forget Vita OS as a mobile (i.e. not just gaming) platform. The report goes on to quote SCE’s Senior Vice President Yoshio Matsumoto as saying, "if you’re asking if we’ve made it in a way that’s...
Android
PlayStation Store comes to certified Sony Ericsson Android phones in Japan
The PlayStation Store is now open for business on a range of PlayStation Suite-certified Sony Ericsson Android phones in Japan. Sony released 23 original PS One games onto the store, with prices starting at 600 yen, and is throwing Minna no Golf 2 (released as Hot Shots Golf 2 in the US) in as a freebie for the next two months. The store can be used on Docomo's Xperia Arc SO-01C and Acro SO-02C, along with KDDI's Acro IS11S, joining the Xperia Play which has had the ability since its Japanese...
Gaming
Sony launches PlayStation Suite SDK closed beta
With the PS Vita's February launch drawing ever closer, Sony's working to get developers of all sizes and types on board. To that end, it just announced a closed beta for the PlayStation Suite SDK, which lets Windows 7 and Windows XP users start developing for the PS Vita, as well "PlayStation Certified" devices in the PS Suite, such as the Android-powered Xperia Play. You don't even need to own a PlayStation device to take advantage of this free SDK — it comes with an emulator for testing...
Android
Xperia Acro and Arc become PlayStation Certified in Japan
Sony Ericsson's Xperia Acro and Xperia Arc have been granted PlayStation Certification in Japan — the first devices to receive the certification after their respective launch, and still just the fourth and fifth devices ever to get access to the Android-based PlayStation Suite market after the Xperia Play phone and Sony Tablet S / Tablet P. (The sixth device, PlayStation Vita, is coming to Japan in December.) Both updates are now available over PC connections via NTT Docomo — again, Japan...
Sony's Kaz Hirai: We're breaking down barriers with software, networking, and Android
Sony's Kazuo Hirai took the stage this morning here at Asia D to talk about Sony's large portfolio of products, and while he didn't reveal anything brand new, there was absolutely a theme of Sony breaking down its internal and external barriers. When we asked Hirai about the fact that lots of Sony's products — TVs, phones, tablets, cameras, laptops— don't work well (or at all) together, he made it clear that he's actively looking to change that. "Now that I'm responsible for all of the...
Android
Sony S1 and dual-screen S2 Honeycomb tablets with PlayStation Suite coming this fall
It's been a long time coming, but Sony has just unveiled two Android 3.0-powered tablets, the "magazine style" S1 and the dual-screen S2. The former is a 9.4-inch single-screen device with a Tegra 2 processor, front- and rear-facing cameras, and a curve at the top — "it's like holding a magazine" says Sony's Kunimasa Suzuki at today's event in Tokyo (via The Wall Street Journal), and it's almost to the letter what Engadget had in a leak back in February. The tablet has a modified Honeycomb...
