A new breed of PlayStation exclusive: Sony maps out Xperia Play's future

Sony is planning to woo developers to bring a new type of PlayStation exclusive to market in the coming months - freezing out the likes of iPhone to release mobile titles only on its Xperia Play phone.

The mobile is PlayStation certified, and carries the familiar d-pad and button design found across Sony's home console generations. And just like its older brothers, the device should soon boast a suite of exclusive titles which Sony hopes will be the envy of its rivals.


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Xperia Play launched last month boasting 60 games, including a bunch of PlayStation Originals, and one very noticeable third-party timed exclusive title - Trendy Entertainment's Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave. And according to Sony Ericsson UK marketing boss David Hilton, there's more where that came from.

When CVG asked if Sony was negotiating to get more exclusives onto the phone from its partners, Hilton replied:

"Yeah, totally, of course. We will continue to work with the developers like EA, Glu and Gameloft about what they can do, along with Sony Computer Entertainment. And there are these others as well that are working with us - and yes, we would hope and expect for the developers to give some more exciting stories like [Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave] in the future.

He added: "I can't comment on anything specific, but I mean yes that's the aspiration. We definitely want to create marketing stories and reasons for people to want and come to buy the Xperia Play - so exclusives are on our agenda and our wishlist. Beyond just pure exclusives it is also about making sure developers are making something special. Look at [Xperia Play launch title] Galaxy on Fire 2, you know. The [studio] CEO is quoted as saying they specifically built a version for the Xperia Play and they believe it plays better on Xperia Play that anything else. So its as much about having a better experience on Xperia Play, certainly than other Android devices, it is a key part of what we're looking to offer."

Discussing Second Wave itself, Hilton said that the title would eventually be available for cross-platform play over Xbox 360 and other consoles.

"Second Wave is currently exclusive to the Xperia Play," he explained. "It launched first on Xperia Play it will roll out for Xbox and other platforms later and they've gone to development and said actually it's multiplayer, multiplatform so you can be in the same game playing over wi-fi on the Xperia Play playing with your friend at home on their Xbox, so very clever stuff.

"But that's what that developer has done because they thought the Xperia Play is a very important product in terms of driving mobile gaming so yeah, and there's other examples of developers doing special things like that for Xperia Play. They see Android as a big shout and they see Xperia Play, rightly, as the leading device to drive Android mobile gaming."

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