First Pictures of the (Fake?) PlayStation Phone 124
For some time now, rumors have been floating around that Sony was working on a concept for a mobile phone that also serves as a bona fide portable games console. Engadget now has pictures of a prototype for just such a device. According to the report, the PlayStation Phone will run Android, probably 3.0 (Gingerbread), and it sports "a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 (a chip similar to the one found in the G2, but 200MHz faster), 512MB of RAM, 1GB of ROM, and the screen is in the range of 3.7 to 4.1 inches." The phone has "a long touchpad in the center which is apparently multitouch, and you can see in the photos that it's still bearing those familiar PlayStation shoulder buttons. For Sony buffs, you'll be interested to know that there's no Memory Stick slot here, but there is support for microSD cards." CT: Which would all be well and good if it was real.
Holy war (Score:1, Troll)
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Sony Ericsson, a company that has nothing to do with Playstation.
Except from, of course, both being part of the Sony group.
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I like your reasoning but I'm not sure it holds up to scrutiny.
Even if people are going to play games on their phones - I personally think the market is limited or at least limited enough that people will not game so much that they get properly 'hooked' - battery life is still a significant issue.
However, if this push towards gaming gives battery technology a shove, then we might be in for an interesting couple of years. I hope that WP7 is not fools gold and will be a proper challenge to the current fr
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I think you fail to realise; Sony already has PlayStation Network, PlayStation Store and developers on board. Sort of makes your argument pointless.
Windows 7 phones are out, yes. But they only serve the casual gamer — they lack a d-pad for a start.
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'But they only serve the casual gamer -- they lack a d-pad for a start.'
Of course, there's something of a precedent for going against expectations and sacrificing the familiar interface when turning a successful product into a phone:
http://www.gosammy.com/2006/12/05/new-iphone-details-emerge/ [gosammy.com]
http://ployer.com/archives/pict05_iphone_r04b.php [ployer.com]
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XD nice pics
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For instance no background tasks unless approved by MS is moronic.
Having a twitter app on your home page that doesnt actually update until you launch = waste of space.
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XNA, Windows, XBOX360 and Windows Mobiles on the other hand are lovely to develop for
...and here's the reason why we have to put up with "hybrid" games, not showing strengths of any platform on which they run (well, not because of lazy devs of course - publishers wanted it, so MS provided; if only it weren't for tons of people happy about their entry back then)
My money is on real... (Score:1)
All the "if it was real" link says is that Sony doesn't comment on speculation and rumour. It really doesn't look like a render, and there's no real evidence it is fake. In fact I'd expect a fake to have fewer flaws (e.g. "Emergency calls only"/"No SIM card" surely wouldn't overlap in a fake).
Either way, I want one!
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Same here - one screenshot has an A and a B in a circle. Given that the UI is no where near completed, I would expect that they probably used unicode characters 24B6 and 24B7 until the font designer had added the Playstation control images to the UI font.
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I think they're saying that this is someone's hardware hack, rather than a faked up render. Something about it just doesn't feel like a finished professional grade product, but I guess that's just a gut feeling. If they could get this thing to be a decent Android phone and were able to give it the ability to play PSP games, I think they would have a marketable device. I know there's a bunch of PSP games that I would be interested in but I have no desire for a dedicated handheld gaming device.
psp go should have had a 3G module in it (Score:1)
From day one, they should have placed a tiny 1inch 3G module in the pspgo ($20 cost).
Add interface to sim card + ant for $5, and bingo they have a ps phone.
What does it take to make a phone ? a $20 3G module ontop of a cpu+screen+ram device.
Oh its the 1980s again re IBM PCs, lets see if someone can get Android running hacked on a WM7 device.
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Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
...we all new this was coming when the PSP Go was released, right? It already looked very similar to a cell phone that was out at the time (the model escapes me at the moment).
Still, I don't know how good of an idea it is to do this. If it's real, Sony better be pulling some kind of magic out from under their hat. Otherwise, they're just going to end up with a crappy phone/gaming system.
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Otherwise, they're just going to end up with a crappy phone/gaming system
That is to say their cell phones have left much to be desired. Piggybacking one on a portable gaming system is liable to make both of them suck horribly. Yes, the convenience would be awesome, but I think it's an unnecessary complication.
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Quite. All fingers point at Nokia N-Gage.
Great idea. In practice- mediocre games console, mediocre phone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-gage [wikipedia.org]
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I suspect Google will be the ones to bring the magic. Word has it that Android Gingerbread has a big gaming focus.
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This doesn't make any sense to me, so I hope it's just wrong, assuming there is any truth to the rumors in the first place.
Knew it was fake at "no Memory Stick" (Score:2, Flamebait)
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Sony Ericsson doesn't use Memory Stick (Score:4, Informative)
Not only SE uses microSD in new phone models for over a year, you might also learn about some of the "proprietary" (like SD is open...) "unpopular" standards with which Sony was heavily involved:
Bluray
HDV
miniDV
Hi8
DAT
FDD (the "standard" 3.5' one)
CD
S/PDIF (what do you think "S" stands for?)
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Sony has great engineers, but horrible management. If they had half a brain they'd realize the more they try to lock down a monopoly on their formats, the less accepted it will be. SD has licensing, but it's a consortium, not one company.
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Oh yeah, they are part of the DVD consortium, too.
Most importantly, Sony is far from a monolithic entity; it is essentially a consortium in itself - something people constantly forget.
Some parts are very open.
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What sucks is when Sony decides it's going to open up a new market and try to lock everyone into a format it designed on its own and where it con
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That's basically saying "we meant only their proprietary standards which remained exclusive to them" - well duh, the measure of popularity and success is that others started using it
And again, Sony is not a monolith; indeed, many of its divisions basically fight against each other (some of them providing quite open or with great bang-for-the-buck products in the process)
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2) The divisions fighting each other basically me
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When they did get to releasing flash Walkman players, they basically as open as they can come (w8, you didn't thought I said there there was no getting in the way or product releases/etc.? Quite the contrary); similar with SE Walkman phones. Or how e-book division works quite unlike music and film divisions. How the latter isn't helped much by fabulously priced video editing tools.
Stop picking examples almost suiting how you want to view Sony; Hi8 or DAT are very theirs (oh, this one gave us lots of bootleg
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I'm pretty sure that almost all CD/DVD/Receivers/TVs or anything related to home media (including most computer audio cards and some motherboards) included S/PDIF connections commonly known as "Fiber Optic" digital sound. This has been the "norm" for the past 10 years or so.
You may have owned one of these without knowing (or thinking) about it.
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funny, but no mod points :-)
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Here is a list of all the Sony Ericsson phones that use MicroSD [gsmarena.com] instead of Memory Stick.
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I knew it was fake after looking at the first picture.
Basically because the shown device does not have an analog stick.
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This is the same Sony? (Score:2)
OS Version # (Score:1)
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How is it that Slashdot doesn't know that Gingerbread is 2.3? This is old news
You just answered your own question.
Newsworthy articles (Score:1, Funny)
Slashdot: Rumors for nerds. Stuff that may not exist.
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Maybe a micro DS? Add another LCD when you open it up?
Why do we even have cards / DVDs for games anymore? I thought everything was going download.
I love my droid, but it needs a bigger battery. And 2.2 went a bit wonky on me. But I love it still.
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When you figure in both the power needed to be a cell and make calls, with the incredible power sucking a decent graphics chip would do in that size?
They should ask Palm how the battery in the Treo 680 works - at full charge full brightness I typically get about two days straight. Granted, I don't get/place calls often, but...
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Oh my, what times we live in - 2 days being a benchmark.
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My Treo 700 lasted me days when stuck in Europe without a charger (radio off).
I was fine with the thickness of the Treo, given it could last days on a single charge. I have bee screwed in the afternoon a few times with my Droid.
Transferring 8.5 GB at 5 GB per month (Score:2)
Why do we even have cards / DVDs for games anymore?
Because a dual-layer DVD can hold 8.5 GB of data, which is bigger than a 5 GB monthly transfer cap. I can't reach pocketheaven.com at the moment to see there's been a DS release bigger than 256 MB, but I do know that some ISPs cap even home access, and they get away with it because of a last-mile monopoly.
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DS games are sized in megabits, so a 256Mbit cartridge is really 32 megabytes of memory.
2048 Mbit DS games (Score:2)
DS games are sized in megabits, so a 256Mbit cartridge is really 32 megabytes of memory.
Animal Crossing: Wild World is 256 Mbit. Some newer games are 2048 Mbit, such as the Dutch version of Professor Layton and the Unwound Future [gbatemp.net].
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Yes, but I'm pointing out that nobody counts download size in megabits.
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Yes, but I'm pointing out that nobody counts download size in megabits.
I wasn't either. The download for a game like The Unwound Future would be 256 MB, or roughly one-fourth of the monthly allowance for a 1 GB/mo data plan like AT&T's entry-level smartphone plan.
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Video games pretty much don't exist for full-size consoles that need to utilize an entire single-layer DVD's storage capability
Super Smash Bros. Brawl was the first 2-layer Wii game. Nintendo had to perform warranty repairs on several Wii consoles whose drives couldn't properly read dual-layer discs. PS3 games such as Metal Gear Solid 4 are even bigger; its install file alone is 4.6 GB, and Mr. Kojima reportedly had to cut features [joystiq.com] to fit the game in the 50 GB of a 2-layer Blu-ray Disc.
I can pretty much guarantee that no game will ever exist for this device (should it exist) that would exceed the 5GB mark.
Imagine the parents doing Christmas shopping online, and then multiple children spending their Christmas money on game downloads. That can rack up
I can't see this working too well... (Score:2)
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I've found surprisingly that I game more on my iPhone than anything else. I don't have hours to game on my PC or on a console, but I can find 5-10 minutes here or there on my phone. The games are often designed to be picked up for a few minutes here and there. I do find myself wanting an analog joystick for certain games, but a mix of touch and tilt works surprisingly well. I also like having it with me everywhere I go.
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That's quite strongly the case for DS series, too. Especially foolproof pausing of any DS game when the console is closed.
RTFA. It hasn't been confirmed as false at all. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has since confirmed its official line on the rumoured phone as, "We do not comment on rumour and speculation."
NowGamer also contacted Sony Ericsson for a comment. A spokesperson also responded, "Sony Ericsson does not comment on rumour or speculation".
...
However, NowGamer still understands that the images are indeed fake.
Are NowGamer always so terrible?
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When they first ran the story, they said Sony had confirmed with them that it was a fake, so the CT update was probably reasonable enough at the time it was added. NowGamer have changed the story without explaining the nature of the change.
It's a fake! (Score:2, Insightful)
" For Sony buffs, you'll be interested to know that there's no Memory Stick slot here, but there is support for microSD cards"
Why would Sony suddenly change policy when the Sony controlled format is widely available? They wouldn't. Sony doesn't work that way.
+1 (Score:2)
There is absolutely no way anyone should believe this given that there's no MS port. Indeed it almost has to be a puny memory stick just to dick the customer around.
Nan, Sony doesn't use MS memory anymore (Score:1)
As seen on their latest phones and cameras, Sony doesn't use MemoryStick anymore.
SE uses microSD (Score:4, Informative)
Sony Ericsson switched to microSD in new products over a year ago...
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They made that policy change a year ago. All their Android phones use microSD.
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Well, it can run Android underneath, actually.
People seem to be under the mistaken impression Android is free and open. It's not, it's open-source. You can lock down an Android device quite easily, and even slap a pretty shell on top of it. The only thing Sony would give you is the Linux source code, but there's no way you c
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That said, I find it even less convincing that Sony would allow a subsidiary they didn't wholly own acess to their Games console technology.
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What, like some Namco arcade machines were essentially a copy of their console technology? (only beefed up)
Phone-y (Score:2, Offtopic)
I must be weird.
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I like my phone to be a phone.
there's an app for that!
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I like my phone to be a phone.
there's an app for that!
Not a very reliable one, though. I think it's still in beta.
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Why do people keep saying this? And why does it get modded up each time? Can we acknowledge that there are Luddites in the world and not have to broadcast their viewpoints every time?
Let me give a contrasting view - just about the only thing that I don't want my phone to be is a phone. I hate blocking, synchronous communication - it is wasteful and inappropriate for the large majority of communications that I do. Generally, if I want to engage in such communication, I will attempt to do so in person.
Addit
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And my grandmother liked her phone to have a cord.
haha, that's not true, my grandmother would love all this technology, and probably make it her bitch.
None the less, you sound old.
Sony phone? NO F'IN' WAY (Score:5, Funny)
A Sony phone, especially one that is also a Playstation? Let's think about this:
Scene: The future.
Me: Phone - call George.
Phone: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Me: What? Phone - call George.
Phone: George has been found guilty of possibly considering using his phone to view content unapproved by Sony, and inciting others to do the same. You may not call him.
Me: Since when?
Phone: My last upgrade removed your ability to call such people.
Me: I never agreed to that - that wasn't in the EULA.
Phone: It was - you just didn't read the fine print.
Me: I did so - every word!
Phone: You didn't follow the link to the additional restrictions page.
Me: There was no such link!
Phone: Yes, there was. It was the third period from the end.
Me: How the hell was I to know that was a link? It was the same color as the rest of the text, with no underline or other indication it was anything special.
Phone: Never the less, it was a part of the contract...
Me: What "contract"? It was a EULA, and was forced on me.
Phone: A EULA is a contract, and you agreed...
Me: ONLY BECAUSE YOU WOULDN'T LET ME MAKE ANY CALLS UNTIL I ACCEPTED IT!
Phone: You could have refused.
Me: And I couldn't make any phone calls!
Phone: You could still have used me to play licensed games and watch approved content.
Me: But not to make phone calls - you know, your main reason in life?
Phone: You accepted the EULA. You can now only call Sony approved numbers.
Me: In other words you have removed a feature.
Phone: An unadvertised feature....
Me: YOU ARE A PHONE! MAKING CALLS IS YOUR MAIN FUNCTION.
Phone: Sony never advertised the ability to call any specific number, only that I could make phone calls. I can make phone calls now. Just not to George.
Me: Phone - call Sony Support.
Phone: You are in violation of your EULA. You are attempting to use me in a manner not approved by Sony. Activating brick mode.
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More like:
Scene: The future.
Me: Phone - call George.
Phone: Activating brick mode.
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Nah :
Scene: The future.
Me: Phone -
Phone: *BOOM*
If it does come out then sony will NOT sue hackers (Score:3, Interesting)
If it does come out then sony will NOT be able to sue hackers as the DMCA lets you hack phones to run on any network or run any app.
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...but nothing stops Sony from arbitrarily removing features from such a phone, or from cutting you off from accessing their library of apps/games for the device if you refuse to submit to such an update. So, IOW, business as usual.
Just a matter of time before we see CFW for the PS3 that undoes the damage though, give it time. Patience my precioussssssss...
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suing has nothing to do with availability of hacks, just commercial availability of the hacks in some regions.
Can you heardf that noise..? (Score:2)
"...the PlayStation Phone will run Android"
It's the sound of Oracle, Apple, Microsoft and Nokia all rubbing their hands together in glee, for all the patent infringement damages they'll be able to bring against Sony.
Seriously, these software patent disputes are pissing me off. It's like watching children fighting in a playground about who gets to go on the swings first...
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Seriously, these software patent disputes are pissing me off. It's like watching children fighting in a playground about who gets to go on the swings first...
That is.. until you realize that it's nothing personal to the companies involved (i.e. it's just business). Particularly nowadays, being on both the filing and receiving end of lawsuits are a healthy part of every businessman's diet. My.. it must be good to be a patent lawyer in Silicon Valley ;)
Heard of a Fake iPhone yesterday (Score:2)
Coincidentally, yesterday I overheard a conversation between two guys were one guy was selling an explicit fake iPhone. I had never heard of fake iPhones and got intrigued and leaned slightly to hear better. :) The prospective buyer said, well, it is a bit slower in the touchscreen and the interface, but otherwise, no-one would be able to tell the difference. The power cord didn't fit very well either. Then, they walked away and I could not hear any more.
Has anyone else heard of fake iPhones?! That was news
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Has anyone else heard of fake iPhones?! That was news to me.
There's an entire primarily-Chinese industry based on imitation of successful (especially Apple) products. There's even an acronym coined by Engadget: KIRF - Keepin' It Real Fake [engadget.com]. Check out the link to see the "state of the art".
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Not even "especially Apple"; anything that broadcasts "high" status of the owner / "high" price.
What the hell? (Score:1)
Dual analog controls are a must nowadays (Score:1)
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dual analog controls from the older PSP generation.
...My first-gen PSP only has one analog control.
My main concern... (Score:1)
Sure the concept is interesting: powerful graphics processing alongside a phone and with a touchpad. But to play games regularly and text/call people, the battery will need to be godly, otherwise you'll be faced with multiple charges throughout the day. This is one of the reasons why I hate playing games on my smartphones, because the battery life disappears faster than a hot chick in a LAN party.
Don't get me wrong, I love the Android platform (in fact my phone is runnin
I would just be happy (Score:2)
if they would release an app that lets me use my G1 as a PS3 remote.
Supposedly, it's confirmed real (Score:2)
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/27/the-playstation-phone-is-still-real/ [engadget.com] - They're saying yep, real. Codename is Zeus.
I'd buy it (Score:2)
If it has a micro or mini HDMI slot and a front facing camera, and android 3.0, then I shall buy this phone. Why carry a DS and a phone when I can have them together in one contraption.
Obligatory "Imagine a Beowulf ..." (Score:1)
Root the phone, install MPI, and you're set. Add Torque/Maui for scheduling. Or stick Condor on it. You know the drill. We all remember what Sony did to the PS2 beowulfs. >:(
Or you could just run Boincoid http://boincoid.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] on it while it's sitting on the charger overnight.
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Yeah, and like they are going to rewrite all their games in Java. Next!