Xperia Play Message Board

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has assigned Sony a patent for "electronic devices having multiple keypads and related methods," which when translated out of Patentese and into The Queen's English, means "cell-phones with two sliding keyboards and stuff."

The patent application is chock full of ballistically confusing descriptions like "a second slidable unit having a second keypad thereon, the second slidable unit being slidably connected to the upper unit and the first slidable unit," but the basic idea of the patent is fairly straight forward: Rather than having one slide-out keypad like the existing Xperia Play, this device would have two keyboards stacked on top of each other, and the user would decide which to slide out depending on the situation.

Obviously, the most practical application of this tech would be to equip one keyboard with a QWERTY layout and the other with PlayStation controls, but whether or not this patent will get any actual use remains to be seen. With phones getting larger, physical keyboards falling to the wayside and the PlayStation Suite still in beta testing, the chances of Sony taking a risk on a device that's market is slowly waning seems unlikely.

Our initial reaction upon receiving the announcement for King of Fighters Android was something along the lines of, "Yes! Finally, SNK Playmore must have read all our letters and decided to make a special version of King of Fighters XIII with the Cell Saga androids from Dragon Ball Z! Yes."

Well, it turns out that's not what this is. Instead, King of Fighters Android is King of Fighters game for Google's Android OS, which is probably a more reasonable business decision in the long run. Judging from the screenshots below, it appears to be based on King of Fighters XIII, or at least heavily influenced by its art style. The game features 20 fighters, five different play modes and unlockable bonus content like trading cards and concept art.

Available now for $4.99, the game is officially compatible with the Galaxy S 2, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Xperia Acro HD, and Xperia Play, which should be a good fit for the title considering it has actual buttons. Compatibility with other Android devices is untested and should be attempted at your own risk; two marketplace reviews already indicate the game does not function on the Galaxy Nexus.

#minecraft There is a thing called Minecraft Anywhere, which is not exactly something that lets you play Minecraft Anywhere. It's a marketing gimmick. A silly one, but a clever one, too! More »

The ESRB has rated Daxter, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, eight tables worth of Pinball Heroes and flOw for release on PlayStation Certified devices, including the Xperia Play and Sony Tablet series. It's unclear whether flOw is a port of the PSP version or the original PS3 version, but we feel safe in assuming that it's the former, considering the PlayStation Suite's track record with repurposing PSP titles.

We can't imagine that playing a Syphon Filter game on a capacitive touch screen would be a rewarding experience, but flOw and Pinball Heroes sound like they'd translate well to the tactile interface of the Sony Tablet. We'll keep our ears to the ground for pricing and release information as it becomes available.

You may have greeted the news that OnLive was playable on tablets with a certain amount of apprehension. "But how am I supposed to control complicated console games with a touchscreen," you bemoaned. "I know I could use the external gamepad at home but what about when I'm on the go? I'm a busy, important person."

We understand your frustration, but the OnLive wizards have concocted a solution, enabling full slide-out gamepad controls for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play or, as you may prefer to call it, the PlayStation Phone. So instead of virtualized buttons, a formula that OnLive knows doesn't work, and instead of carrying your smartphone and the not-so-convenient OnLive controller, you can bust out your gamepad-enabled phone for that console-gaming experience on the go.

#fifa In this video, two men are playing a game of FIFA. Or maybe Pro Evo. Doesn't matter, since they're not really playing what's on the screen. They're controlling real men playing a real game of football. More »

Sony has announced more details about the beta for the PlayStation Suite. That's the development program (similar to Apple's App Store or Microsoft's Xbox Live Indie Games) which will allow third-party video game developers to produce games that can be released, with Sony's approval, on to the PS Vita and other Sony and Android devices. The beta itself will be launched in "late November," with an SDK available to select developers then, and Sony will refine and clean up the program for a public release at a later unannounced date.

At launch, Sony says the PS Suite content will be available on PlayStation certified devices only, including of course the PS Vita, but also the Xperia line of mobile phones and Sony's upcoming "Sony Tablet" models S and P. Sony specifically mentions that the devices listed are currently only available in the Japanese market, and while it's probably true that we'll eventually see PS Suite content on the North American Xperia Play smartphone (and the Sony tablets, if and when they're released here), that's not yet confirmed. It's still very early in the process -- it will likely be a while before we see any third-party content up and running (much less available to buy) on these devices.

#sony For a while now, Sony and Ericsson have teamed up to run a mobile phone company. That company released the Xperia Play, a device we used to call the PlayStation phone. Today, Ericsson is selling up to Sony. More »

#playstation Sony's looking to expand its PlayStation game offerings to other mobile devices, Sony Computer Entertainment chief Kaz Hirai told a conference in Hong Kong on Friday. More »

EA is offering four big mobile titles for free for all the tens of people who own Sony's Xperia Play: Dead Space, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Need for Speed: Shift and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. The offer runs through Jan. 15, 2012, meaning you still have time to throw the PlayStation Phone on your holiday wish list and snag these suckers for free. If it helps, think of it as getting four games with a handy smartphone case thrown in for free.

Kristen Schaal is a funny lady with an adorable voice. She's been in some of our favorite 3D-animated movies and is a regular commentator on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart -- if any silly woman in Hollywood deserved a shrine, it would be her. So go forth and build, build her a shrine, loyal followers, and build it in Minecraft!

Schaal is the star of the very first commercial for Minecraft (cleverly disguised as an Xperia Play ad), promoting a contest to build something awesome in-game, such as a Schaal castle or her giant diamond face. The winner gets a trip to New York to meet with her and "share their Minecraft brilliance with the world." We suggest building an obsidian castle-shrine completely out of Schaal's giant, funny head.

Last year, Square Enix snuck Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light onto the iOS App Store. It's following that mobile release this November with a version for Android -- specifically, Sony Ericsson's button-enriched phone, the Xperia Play.

This is part of a newly announced partnership between Square Enix and Sony Ericsson, which will bring more of the publisher's "established hits" to the Xperia Play "in the coming months." As of now, only Guardian of Light has been announced. A look at Square Enix's iPhone catalog could at least suggest possibilities.

[Image: iPhone version; the Xperia version won't need those virtual buttons.]

Ever since introducing the PlayStation Suite back in January, Sony has been slowly meting out information on the cross-platform service. But Sony blew out the service this morning during the company's TGS 2011 keynote, revealing that the Suite's software development kit will become available for devs this coming November.

A brief demo was also shown of a basic sidescrolling shooter named "Zero Gravity," demonstrating the cross play between PlayStation Vita and the Xperia Play. Unfortunately, no price or exact date was given for access to the SDK, but Sony reps did demonstrate the ease of using the SDK for cross-platform development. A simple animation was created using a Sony tablet, which was then pushed across a variety of Sony and Android platforms -- "No play, no life," it read. We tend to be more of the "no food/air, no life" crowd, but we'll accept Sony's statement for the sake of demonstration.

Sony's Xperia Play smartphone will be available through AT&T on September 18, complete with PlayStation gamepad and running on Android's Gingerbread (2.3.3) platform. The Xperia Play has been available through Verizon since May 26, and AT&T is offering some exclusive content for its customers' patience, including 4G capability, a "stealth blue" paint job, and the Sony Ericsson Multimedia Dock DK300 and music cable.

AT&T's Xperia Play will come with seven pre-loaded games, in a slightly different lineup than we saw with Verizon's release:

• Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave
• Asphalt 6 Adrenaline
• Star Battalion
• Madden NFL 11
• The Sims 3
• Tower Bloxx: My City
• Crash Bandicoot

The Xperia Play will cost $49.99 with a new two-year agreement through AT&T, which is drastically less than Verizon's initial offer of $199.99 with the same agreement. However, AT&T's Xperia Play doesn't come pre-loaded with Tetris, which is totally worth the extra $150, in our opinion.

#xperiaplay Arriving in AT&T stores on September 18 for $49.99 with a two-year agreement, Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play 4G comes in an exclusive color pre-loaded with seven hot games. Unfortunately it also comes with AT&T service. More »

"But wait," some of you youngsters might be thinking. "How can those stickers I'm always seeing on Toyota Celicas and Mitsubishi Eclipses be coming to my phone? Why would I even want that?"

Take a seat, junior, you might learn something: Before R-Type adorned the window/bumper of every import with a fat pipe and under lighting, it was the name of one of the most iconic and ground-breaking shooters ever made. And now, retro-game refurbisher DotEmu is bringing Irem's historic xenophobic extermination simulator back to life on September 12, via the Android Marketplace and Amazon's AppStore for Android.

All of the items and power-ups from the original are said to be present and accounted for, with touch controls taking over for the obviously absent joystick and buttons. Remakes like this strike us as perfect candidates for the Xperia Play, however no details were given as to whether or not Android devices with buttons will be able to circumvent the touch controls. No price point or Android OS version requirements have been given either, but we'd be surprised if it required anything newer than 2.2.

#minecraft I like Minecraft's retro, blocky graphics. They work. But man, this phone is hideous. More »

If you're one of the lucky few who owns Sony's "PlayStation Phone," the Xperia Play ... now you have something to do with it. The very first release of the Xperia Play-Xclusive Minecraft: Pocket Edition is in the Android Market now, for $6.99. Go! Build!

Actually, that's all you can do at the moment. "Alpha 0.1" has 36 different block types with which you can build, alone or with another local wireless player. Other features will be built into the game later, as with the main game. Also coming later is a wider Android release.

While you think about whether to try this out, here's a miniature tragedy: That Minecraft-themed Xperia Play phone auction hasn't ended yet, so its new owner definitely doesn't have it in time for Minecraft's release.

#minecraft Minecraft - Pocket Edition hits the Android Xperia Play today exclusively for $6.99 with later Android versions hitting in the near future. The best part? Staying true to their roots, the game's first version is an alpha build. More »

#xperiaplay The Xperia Play, Sony Ericsson's first PlayStation-branded phone, hasn't exactly set the world on fire. Mostly because, for a PlayStation Phone, there aren't many PlayStation games on it. More »

#xperiaplay Late last month, Nintendo slashed the price of the 3DS. As website The Register asked, is this impacting other hardware, like the PlayStation Phone? More »

Markus "Notch" Persson is in a bizarre position, especially given his usual openness about his studio's first creation, Minecraft. "There's going to [be] actual marketing for the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft, so I've agreed to be slightly less transparent than usual when it comes to that version," he tells IGN in a recent interview.

But don't despair! Notch still offers a handful of new details, saying that the Xbox 360 version (announced during E3 2011) will have "completely different" crafting, and that the Kinect functionality will include a mode where "you wave your arms around to mine and use items" -- "it's just too silly not to include," he adds.

Hilariously, rather than respond to a question about console exclusivity and the possibility of Minecraft coming to PS3/Wii U, Notch simply draws the ridiculous (and admittedly adorable) sheep you see above. He also reveals that the upcoming Xperia Play version of Minecraft will cost $7 when it drops sometime "this fall," and that it was programmed "in a way that will make it easy to port to all sorts of mobile phones."

Despite slow initial sales, things are starting to look up for Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play phone/gaming device. Not only have games actually been announced for the platform, they're even starting to be released! In Europe, anyway.

WipEout and Syphon Filter 3 have been added to the European PSOne Classics Library, so if you're:

• in Europe,
• have an Xperia Play
• and are sick-to-death of Jumping Flash,

these new additions might hold you over through the cruel, unforgiving summers. Both games are available in the Android Marketplace for £3.99.

We assess Sony Ericsson's PlayStation Certified Android smartphone!