[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Rufoo:
Hi Forum,

I found my ancient Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and decided to fire it up. I'd totally forgotten that during the prime of this device I was a little obsessed with acquiring all sorts of obscure ports and games from several niche markets (mostly in Japan) and wouldn't you know it - I still had them on the device and had backups from Titanium Backup still stored on the SD. Sadly, most, if not all of these games do not run on modern Android and I'm hoping maybe some astute folks out there can decompile these things, work some magic, and repack them?

Many of these games include support for the Xperia Play controls which predates the modern usage of gamepads under Android. Alas, if this aspect could be tweaked to run on generic controls, that would up the radness!

Anyway, here's the list of booty I had on the device. I paid for each and every one of these back in the day. Some of them so rare, you might not believe it to be real! All of these have been long since abandoned by the publishers and don't exist on any storefronts anymore.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction HD - Acquired from Gameloft directly as the Play Store didn't sell the version with Xperia Play controls.

Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Acquired from the GGee Market, an obscure Japanese android Market. Game has EXE files?!

Devil May Cry 4 - Acquired from the GGee Market, an obscure Japanese android Market. Game has EXE files?!

Ghost n' Goblins: Gold Knights - Acquired from the Play Store, Android Market at the time, from Japan.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light - Acquired from the Play Store. I think a more modern updated one exists on the Play Store anyway.

N.O.V.A 2 HD - Acquired from Gameloft directly as the Play Store didn't sell the version with Xperia Play controls.

Silent Hill: The Escape - Touchscreen game. Pretty sure I got this from Android Market (Play Store) from the Korea storefront.

SimCity Deluxe HD - Purchased this from EA direct. Touchscreen only.

Spider-Man: Total Mayhem HD - Acquired from Gameloft directly as the Play Store didn't sell the version with Xperia Play controls.

Starfront Collision - Some shameless StarCraft rip-off I purchased from GameLoft. Touchscreen only.

Worms - Purchased direct from EA as Play Store version didn't have Xperia Play controls.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard HD - Acquired from Gameloft directly as the Play Store didn't sell the version with Xperia Play controls.

Star Battalion HD - Some game I got from GameLoft. Can't recall much about it.

Biohazard 4 / Resident Evil 4 - Acquired from the Android Market (Play Store) Japanese region.

Monster Hunter - Acquired from the Android Market (Play Store) Japanese region.

FIFA 10 and Madden 10 - Acquired direct from EA as their store had the Xperia Play control version.

And finally... probably the coolest one of the lot due to rarity alone (IMHO).

Ridge Racer Accelerated - This is the same game as the PSP / iOS port. I remember acquiring this was like pulling teeth at the time as only Namco's shortlived Banadroid Market in Japan had it. It was never sold on any regional front of the Play Store. The only port that existed on the Japanese Play Store was for a specific device the SH-009 or something... some stereoscopic 3D phone that had a Nintendo DS effect and that port was exclusive to the hardware. This port, however, was Android device generic. I even recall on the Xperia Play forum here on XDA years ago some members didn't think this existed and would attempt to "correct" me that the ONLY version was this SH-009 exclusive and it won't run. How wrong they always were...

The game did have two oddities. First, it would only run on Gingerbread. When I used CyanogenMod back then to jump to ICS and JB the game would boot but at the load screen it would draw some message about wrong android version (in Japanese), so this wasn't an Android OS error but some strange check by the game itself. Second, it would ask for a username and password which was used to quickly check-in with the Banadroid market. Obviously, my legit credentials don't work anymore as that market is long since dead.

Anyways, long winded crap over. Please let me know any thoughts that industrious souls amongst you might have.

PS: I'll have to dig around more but I also recall having Civilization Revolution 1 and a few other games which were acquired from the Korean storefront.