Sony Ericsson ponders PlayStation phone

Even as PSP gets more like a handset

By Tony Smith, 12th September 2007

Sony Ericsson is considering the application of the PlayStation brand to a series of phones, the company's outgoing President has confirmed.

Sony Ericsson already uses a number of well-known Sony sub-brands, in particular Walkman and Cyber-shot, which it applies to music and photography oriented handsets, respectively.

Sony PSP handheld gaming... er... telephone

Company President Miles Flint - who leaves the company at the end of October - told the Finan cial Times newspaper that applying the same principle to the PlayStation brand was a "possible future activity". Ditto the use of the Bravia brand, currently adorning Sony's HDTVs.

Actually, Sony Ericsson has already begun using Bravia on certain handsets. As Register Hardware reported back in January, a bright red Bravia phone with an on-board digital TV tuner is already being pitched at the Japanese consumers through the DoCoMo network.

Getting the experience offered by a PlayStation phone right would be crucial to its success, and Flint admitted the design of such a handset was a long way off. Sony's Computer Entertainment division, already under pressure for lacklustre PS3 sales, wouldn't want to see demand for its PSP handheld console diminish as a result of a phone that did much the same job - not in the near future at least.

Ironically, SCE is already considering how to make the PSP more phone like. It's working with BT to develop messaging software for the handheld, due to be released in January 2008 as Go!Messenger. The console's also going to get its own GPS satnav module, Go!Explore.

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Posted Monday 17th September 2007 17:27 GMT

fred

Further market segmentation is not good for consumers

After the K750i, Sony Ericsson decided to segment the market and they started crippling hardware with this walkman or cybershot marketing crap. An example: buy a cybershot branded phone and lose the mega bass from mp3 playback, or all the walkman phones only had 2mp whilst cybershot had 3.2mp.

Now we face further hardware crippling market segmentaion beyond the Walkman / Cybershot branding. Throwing the Playstation brand into the mix means that if we want the best gaming phone, we have to buy a Playstation branded phone. If we want the best camera phone, then we have to buy the Cybershot branded phone, if we want the best MP3 player, then we have to buy the Walkman branded phone. Just like the K750i was in its day, it all should be in one phone.

I want a phone that had the best camera features and photo / video recording features. Also every generation of phone that I have bought has introduced many new features. That is new features and not just re-hashed / improved features from 3 years ago. Sony ericsson competitors include new features in their phones (eg WiFI and GPS) My housemates N95 GPS navigation works great, he doesn't need a separate GPS navigator hardware. My housemate can sit in the lounge room on my BIG tv, browsing the internet through WiFi or playing games with the N95 TV out. I am so jealous. Sony Ericsson is slipping and I would only admit that here because here I am anonymous and I have been such a Sony Ericsson fanboy to all my friends.

I lol at people who say that GPS / WiFI is not needed in mobile phones, they say just use a seperate GPS navigator. That reminds me of the old argument: oh you dont need a digital camera in a mobile phone, use a seperate digital camera hardware and oh you dont need mp3 player in a mobile phone, use a seperate mp3 player hardware. And we all know how that old argument went. Convergence of technology FTW!