INTERVIEW: Xperia Play

Who is the target audience for Xperia Play?

There are obviously different categories of gamers. On one hand you have the casual gamers, the sorts of people who are happy to pick up Angry Birds on their smartphones. On the other hand, you have your hardcore gamers. Those are the two extremes. What we are targeting is a group of about 9m people in-between.

What games come with it?

It will come bundled with six games pre-loaded. Those titles include FIFA 10 – which will be the first time FIFA will be multiplayer on a smartphone –Crash Bandicoot, The Sims 3, Star Battalion, Bruce Lee Dragon Warriors and Tetris. There will be over 50 other titles available for download from launch and we’ll add more every month.
They are not all PSOne games, some are new titles that have been repurposed for Xperia Play.

How do you access these games?

As soon as you slide open the phone, the screen will go into a game finder app that will show you all the games you own and all the games you can download. What we have heard about Android is that locating games in the marketplace is a struggle. So we have created this app to easily navigate through the games.

What about pricing?

The smaller, lower-tier games will be around 1 to 2 and a more complex game could be up to 10.

How do you hope to compete with iPhone?

The main thing is to offer something different. iPhone is a hugely popular product and Angry Birds on iPhone is a delight. But now the hardware allows you to play far more complex games. You don’t want to be playing these with your fingers all over the screen. You want full visibility and the ability to control the games with the sort of interfaces you have on your games console.

Would you like to see Xperia Play in game retailers?

We are still in commercial conversation, but I’d be surprised if we didn’t see Xperia Play in other channels. All the mobile operators and retailers are selling it. It is rare these days to get a product that is sold everywhere, but this is one of those.

Can we expect more PlayStation Phones from Sony Ericsson?

We will see how this one goes but there is the potential for this to grow.