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Cellphones PlayStation (Games) Portables (Games) Sony Games

First Pictures of the (Fake?) PlayStation Phone 124

Posted by Soulskill from the use-it-to-jailbreak-your-ps3 dept.
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.
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First Pictures of the (Fake?) PlayStation Phone More

First Pictures of the (Fake?) PlayStation Phone

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  • Holy war (Score:1, Troll)

    by weachiod ( 1928554 )
    It's a fake picture, but even if it was real I don't think it would be really succesful. For starters it looks massive as a phone. Secondly, Sony would be up for some serious battle. Even iPhone games are somewhat good, but the holy war begins when Windows Phone 7 devices start showing up. Why? Because of Xbox Live integration, XNA for developers, and the great integration with Microsoft's other gaming platforms and support for developers. For example porting existing indie games made with XNA or C# can be

    • 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

    • 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.

    • Windows Phone 7 has some potential but it is facing a large uphill battle and still lacks some key features. Even to those interested in the Xbox Live integration (like me) there are other factors that may turn them away to another mobile OS. In my case for example until proper multitasking is added it's simply not an option no matter how good the Live integration is. They'll have to do quite a bit to convince me to switch over from Android.

      • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sznupi ( 719324 )

      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)

  • 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!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by hattig ( 47930 )

      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.

    • 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.

      • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jandrese ( 485 )
      Funnily enough, the error level analysis suggests that the SIM card messages are fakes, but the rest of the phone picture might not. It's not definitive proof, but it doesn't stand out as immediately fake.

  • Well... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @08:53AM (#34036246) Homepage

    ...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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pojut ( 1027544 )

      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.

    • I suspect Google will be the ones to bring the magic. Word has it that Android Gingerbread has a big gaming focus.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jandrese ( 485 )
      Funnily enough, according to the rumors this thing won't run PSP games, but instead require the devs to build entirely new ones for the platform.

      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.
  • They'll keep beating that dead horse until pigs fly... or one of their proprietary standards becomes popular... which is the same thing.
    • Memory stick was one of the reasons I stopped buying Sony's consumer products that need removable memory. They lost the format war a long time ago, SD is the standard for almost everyone else and I prefer memory that doesn't lock me into using it in only one brand.

    • Sony Ericsson doesn't use Memory Stick (Score:4, Informative)

      by sznupi ( 719324 ) on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @09:26AM (#34036494) Homepage

      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?)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ejtttje ( 673126 )
        I've not owned/used any of those except the CD and FDD... not much of a track record, especially in the last couple decades. Bluray is still having trouble displacing DVDs, they barely won that against HD-DVD (and probably lost the war in the process).

        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.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sznupi ( 719324 )

          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.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ejtttje ( 673126 )
            True, but note that when they are part of a consortium then it's not really their own in-house design. For that matter, the CD was joint with Philips. And the 3.5" floppy was actually a consortium that took over a flopped Sony design [wikipedia.org]. This is a very consistent story: Sony doesn't wind up with a monopoly on successful formats, which is exactly why they succeed.

            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

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sznupi ( 719324 )

              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)

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by ejtttje ( 673126 )
                1) CD's, FDDs, etc., only became popular after they were developed by a group. The development group itself does not constitute popularity, and I'm not even sure Sony gets credit for putting these groups together. (e.g. Philips was already working on the CD independently of Sony) IMHO when Sony has exclusive licensing control it gets too greedy, but also the "standards" its promoting are corrupted as per (2) below, so other companies are rightfully wary.

                2) The divisions fighting each other basically me

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by sznupi ( 719324 )

                  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

        • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dnwq ( 910646 )
      The Sony Ericsson Android and WinMo phones already out do not use Memory Stick, and have not since 2008.

      Here is a list of all the Sony Ericsson phones that use MicroSD [gsmarena.com] instead of Memory Stick.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by xtracto ( 837672 )

      I knew it was fake after looking at the first picture.

      Basically because the shown device does not have an analog stick.

  • That put out a PSP commercial with a kid making fun of a guy for playing games on the same phone he calls his grandma on?
  • How is it that Slashdot doesn't know that Gingerbread is 2.3? This is old news... http://phandroid.com/2010/10/22/gingerbread-to-be-android-2-3/ [phandroid.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pojut ( 1027544 )

      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)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Slashdot: Rumors for nerds. Stuff that may not exist.

  • Personally I wouldn't buy one. Why? I already have a phone that I like a lot. If I'm in the market for a new gaming system I don't want to ditch the phone that I already have. And I'm not going to buy this just for the system, because that would mean paying for all the phone functionality that I'm not going to use. So basically I see Sony's market being people looking for new phones who wouldn't mind the bonus of getting a gaming system. However, the phone market has a bazillion different models all competi

    • 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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sznupi ( 719324 )

        That's quite strongly the case for DS series, too. Especially foolproof pausing of any DS game when the console is closed.

  • The article linked from the CT update is complete bullshit. The title is "Sony Comments On 'Fake' PSPhone", but reading the text reveals:

    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?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )
      The part you cut out that the images on the phone's screen are more likely than not shopped.
      • Because it's totally possible to take a picture of a phone and get a crystal clear screen. Even if you turn the Flash off it's pretty much impossible.

    • 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)

    by 91degrees ( 207121 )
    Funnily enough it ws this that convinced me it was a fake:

    " 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.

    • 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.

    • SE uses microSD (Score:4, Informative)

      by sznupi ( 719324 ) on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @09:17AM (#34036414) Homepage

      Sony Ericsson switched to microSD in new products over a year ago...

    • They made that policy change a year ago. All their Android phones use microSD.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by stms ( 1132653 )
      Really I knew it was fake at it runs android. A playstation phone would run some kind of playstation Firmware/OS. There's no way sony would run android on a "playstation" branded device.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Really I knew it was fake at it runs android. A playstation phone would run some kind of playstation Firmware/OS. There's no way sony would run android on a "playstation" branded device.

        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

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by stms ( 1132653 )
          My point wasn't that Sony wouldn't do it because android is open-source. Though that would defiantly be a deterrent for Sony. My point was that Sony wouldn't make a PSPhone based on android because it would cheapen the PlayStation brand. I know this is /. I shouldn't have thought about it from a business perspective.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Sylak ( 1611137 )
      Yeah, that's what tipped most of us off

  • Phone-y (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) *
    I like my phone to be a phone.
    I must be weird.
    • Hey, I like my phone to work like a phone also. Of course, the way things are right now, I cannot fall back on GSM dialup (this is disabled by my carrier), nor can my computer even dial a number for me to make a voice call, but my phone does feature an MP3 player, Java, and games!

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I like my phone to be a phone.

      there's an app for that!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by qortra ( 591818 )

      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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      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)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @09:16AM (#34036406) Homepage Journal

    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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Theoboley ( 1226542 )

      More like:

      Scene: The future.
      Me: Phone - call George.
      Phone: Activating brick mode.

      • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Nah :

        Scene: The future.
        Me: Phone -
        Phone: *BOOM*

  • If it does come out then sony will NOT sue hackers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Joe The Dragon ( 967727 ) on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @09:17AM (#34036412)

    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.

    • ...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...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      suing has nothing to do with availability of hacks, just commercial availability of the hacks in some regions.

  • "...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...

    • 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 ;)

  • 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

    • I've seen something like that, in Asia. It was the same dimensions as an iPhone, same layout, different screen and different OS/icons/layout, but you couldn't see that inside its box. They weren't advertising it as an Apple phone, but there again, they weren't advertising it as anything else. I was an iPhone dev at the time, and you had to look closely at the box in order to figure out that it wasn't a real iPhone. However, on this particular one, if you had used an iPhone before, you would have seen the di
    • Googling "buy fake iPhone" got me this link [zdnet.com]. Seems to be a pretty good look-alike for only $40.

    • 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".

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sznupi ( 719324 )

        Not even "especially Apple"; anything that broadcasts "high" status of the owner / "high" price.

  • If you click the "if it was real" link, you go to a page claiming it's fake with absolutely nothing to back up the claim other than "there's dirt on the screen"? And then in that article, you can click on a link to Engadget swearing its real and coming to market. Whats the deal?
  • Assuming they do everything else right... wIthout dual analog controls it will more than likely be another failure. I returned my PSP Go after realizing they didn't add dual analog controls from the older PSP generation. The gameboy franchise already has the touch screen with digital control scheme nailed down. Since the iPhone/iPad can do it now the bar has been raised. Sony needs to show some inovation to get people to switch to their mobile gaming platform. Anything less than dual analog controls wi
  • ...rests with the battery life.

    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

  • if they would release an app that lets me use my G1 as a PS3 remote.

  • 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.

  • 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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