Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play Confirmed For March - Verizon, Unity As Partners

Gamasutra

Exciting stuff! I hope Unity create an Android player plug-in/runtime for Android. That will reduce the .apk size.

 

Thats what unity already does. The engine - mono core is installed on the internal only once, hits at about 10mb

The internal memory, or the lack of size, is pretty shocking ...
Really welcomed googles move with the Nexus S to offer 16GB internal to get rid of the problems with installing applications at all cause the internal is full while the microsd has another 13GB free and now sony comes around with 315MB, when 1GB is already less than you reasonably need. Might work out for their games, but general android software will pretty surely desperately hate this device ... this is less internal memory than any other 2.x device has, isn't it?


That unity partnered up is great though
Question is whats required to get there as number throwing is sonys home field

 

I didn't know that, thanks for the info. If they can get a browser plug-in (like Flash), it will be even more awesome! Yeah, 320 mb is pretty pathetic... :/ SonyEricsson underpowered the X10 as well...

 

They trashed the X10, never saw one in the wild, only minis and mini pros and what they didn't trash with design and hw on the X10 was killed by their attitude on not providing updates and shooting down customers that somewhen got pissed by lacking multitouch implementation and 2.0 only.
Will have to be seen how xperia play works out as its $1000 price tag here in switzerland (649 Euro in EU) without contract kills the reasonable borders with this mediocre specs at best. Planned on getting one but when I saw the price it became pretty obvious that it will not happen anytime soon if ever at all. NGP by this price tag for xperia play can be expected to be in the range of an mbp 13" by its specs mentioned.

At that price tag the xperia play has I would have expected to see at least an MSM8655 at least if not even a MSM8x60, not an MSM8255 and even less a 512MB RAM device. Its weaker than the HTC Desire HD yet it costs a good 50% more without contract.
I'm pretty sure that the DualCore Snapdragons, the DualCore orion from samsung and the tegra 2 phones will make the price of this thing drop in less than 3 months as its worlds underspeced for the price tag and the time of release (6 months late for its price and hw)

 

So will this mean Unity will be able to make PlayStation Suite games? So potentially, Unity games can be on PSP2?

 

Here is the video of "Xperia Play" showing the Unity logo!

 

You'll be able to create playstation apps compatible with lots of devices including PSP2.

 

There is no pricetag available for the Xperia Play and the device is powerful enough with the Adreno 205 chip.
In reality this GPU should actually run PS2 quality games without a problem and could upgrade the graphics with advanced shaders.
Playing Crash Bandicoot with 4 times the resolution and Anti-aliasing says it all, this device is way more powerful then the original PSP.

I was at the unveiling and made a video where Unity showed off some games they ported over through Union:

If you want to see more games and get a hands-on, I have an article on my site:
http://androidpimps.com/games/xperia-play-hands-on/

 

Some interesting info here...

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/unity-partners-with-xperia-play

Unity Partners With Xperia Play

Union optimising platform and API for Xperia Play games which Sony Ericsson will actively promote.

Unity Technologies has announced that it has entered into a partnership with Sony Ericsson that will see Unity-developed games released for the gaming handset Xperia Play through its Union business unit.

Announced at the World Mobile Congress trade show in Barcelona, the partnership will see Unity “pre-integrate and optimise” its development platform for the phone that Sony finally unveiled on Sunday after years of rumours that a PlayStation phone was being worked on.

Three Union games are being exhibited on the show floor: Guerilla Bob by Angry Mob Studios, Luma Arcade’s Racer and Air Attack HD by Art in Games. All three have been optimised for Xperia Play using a dedicated API.

Unity says that the API and platform tweaks will be made available to its development community by way of an update in the coming months.

Brett Syler, general manager of Union, said: “Sony Ericsson has a beautiful, ground-breaking gaming smartphone on its hands. Through our partnership with Sony Ericsson and Union, we look forward to working with our developers to deliver mind-blowing gaming experiences for consumers, taking advantage of the Xperia Play’s brilliant input design and powerful hardware.”

The partnership will also see Sony Ericsson actively promote Union games through its game recommender application, with Union working to encourage its developers to produce games for the platform. The two will also work together on marketing initiatives.

Union gives its developers an 80 per cent cut of sales revenue, a departure from the industry-standard 70-30 split. Last November Unity announced that the number of users of its platform had grown from 13,000 to 250,000 in the space of 12 months.

 

Its indeed interesting.
But unsure what it is meant to imply. To my understanding it means that now and for the close future, getting to xperia play is only possible through Union as the general targeting isn't there but that it is intend to become available as a general targeting (unity android extension or unity android addon )

 

Bit more info here...

http://www.marketwire.com/press-rel...-Ericsson-Bring-Games-Xperia-PLAY-1395758.htm

Unity Technologies Announces Partnership With Sony Ericsson to Bring Games to the XperiaTM PLAY Through Its Union Content Distribution Service

BARCELONA, SPAIN and SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - February 15, 2011) - Today at Mobile World Congress, Sony Ericsson and Unity Technologies, provider of the Unity development platform for games and interactive 3D on the web, iOS, Android, consoles and beyond, today announced that they are collaborating to bring Unity-based games to the Sony Ericsson Xperia™ PLAY smartphone via Union. Union is a business unit of Unity Technologies dedicated to syndicating high quality 3D games on mobile phones, tablets, app stores, set-top boxes, connected TVs and other emerging new platforms.

Targeting the core gaming demographic and featuring a twin d-pad and analogue joystick-like controls, the Sony Ericsson Xperia™ PLAY will be displaying its gaming capabilities by showcasing three Union games at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Racer by Luma Arcade, Guerilla Bob by Angry Mob Studios and AirAttack HD by Art in Games have all been optimized for the Xperia™ PLAY through a special API created by Unity Technologies. Unity Technologies is pre-integrating and optimizing the Unity platform for Xperia™ PLAY, ensuring that a rich library of Unity-based games is available to consumers. The new API and platform optimizations will be widely available to Unity developers with a new update coming this Spring. The Xperia™ PLAY is the first such device that Unity has supported pre-launch, and Unity Technologies is the first game development platform Sony Ericsson has partnered with.

This announcement is part of a larger partnership between the two companies. As part of the partnership, Sony Ericsson will prominently feature Union games on the Xperia™ PLAY through its games recommender application, and Union will encourage developers to bring high quality games from all platforms to Xperia™ PLAY. The companies also plan to work together on marketing opportunities to jointly market Union games and cross-market to Unity Technologies and Sony Ericsson's developer bases online and at industry events, such as Game Developers Conference (GDC).

 

Hot damn.. that news made my day.... seriously - made my day!

 

More clarifications, good stuff
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...avid_Helgason_Explains_Xperia_Union_More_.php