[Xperia Play General] MechaBouncer:
I continue to hope for a true successor to the Xperia Play. If they were to release one, I would buy it in a heartbeat to replace my current Play. I wanted a phone like this so much that I originally bought mine on eBay because I couldn't wait for AT&T to finally get it (which took them another 3 months after I did so). I still love it for the most part, but there were some glaring problems that Sony would really need to address.

First of all, SUPPORT YOUR PRODUCTS! The Xperia Play always felt like a half-assed gesture on Sony and Sony Ericsson's part. A handful of PSone titles that people already bought for their PlayStations or didn't want wasn't enough. The lack of a cohesive PlayStation Network connecting the two always made it feel like an outsider. PlayStation Mobile took forever to come about and by the time it did, the Play was already outdated too much to be a poster child for it. The telltale sign that Sony no longer cared for it was when they dropped the Icecream Sandwich firmware update for it. Thus solidifying that it could no longer stay up to date with current software from Google and others who have moved on. Now that PlayStation Mobile is out and there's more of a push for it, a new flagship gaming phone with physical buttons should be released to champion it.

But that also leads to the next big issue. The onboard storage was a joke and fills up incredibly quickly even without games installed. I'm constantly fighting to keep space free and having to play all sorts of tricks with it. This is one of the biggest problems I have. It's going to need 1GB+ and that's still a bit low in my view. You can't expect to push sales of software if you don't have enough room to install them on the device.

The processor, while adequate for a mid-level phone at the time, is getting long in the tooth these days and I get noticeable lag just trying to navigate around the home screen. A Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 should prove to be quite a bit better fit or even a Tegra 4.

The touch pads, while a nice idea, are not nearly as reliable as a pair of physical analog nubs would be. Something similar to the PSPgo would be ideal. I don't know about you guys, but I seem to have trouble with capacitive touch screens in general where they will not always register my presses. It might be calluses on my thumbs or something like it, but it ruins the gaming experience when the controls just stop working for you. Plus I will never be able to get away from actual tactile feedback for gaming. That's why I love the physical buttons of the Play.

All in all, I rather doubt Sony will ever really see this, but I just hope that they do attempt this experiment again and support it better than they did before. There is a market for such a device and I for one would totally be on board for it. Current smart phones on the market now do not meet what I want. They also don't meet the desire of gamers what with all the new Android-based gaming systems announced lately. People want physical controls for gaming. Touch screens aren't enough. The Xperia Play was a forerunner into this, but it wasn't enough. We need more and Sony can deliver such a device. The only question is, will they?