Sony has just fully unveiled the PlayStation Vita, its new handheld that will arrive, complete with 3G mobile abilities, at the end of the year. So how does it stack up against the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, the self-proclaimed PlayStation Phone? Let’s find out!
We’re trying hard not to resort to metaphors about buses here. After all, we’ve been crying out for years for Sony Ericsson to lean on the portable gaming smarts present in the Sony part of the partnership and bring us a phone with PlayStation gaming abilities.
It finally goes and does just that, bringing us the Xperia Play, and then Sony itself follows up by revealing that its next-gen handheld, the newly christened PlayStation Vita, will be available in both Wi-Fi and 3G versions, basically putting it head to head with the Xperia Play.
So let’s stack up these handheld gaming superstars against each other, and look at where the key differences lie…
Screen size
From a pure gaming point of view, the PlayStation Vita’s 5-inch screen is obviously way superior to the Xperia Play’s 4-inch display. Yet the difference is about more than just an edge-to-edge measurement. A 5-inch screen is simply too big for any device claiming to be a phone, and serves as a neat reminder that the Vita is a games console, while the Xperia Play is a smartphone, and the difference is significant.
Power play
Under the surface of the PS Vita beats a formidable quad-core ARM processor, which manages to make the 1GHz processor powering the Xperia Play look just a little lightweight. For pure gaming grunt, there’s little argument that the Vita is the more powerful of the two devices.
Android or… not
In the world of smartphones and tablets, the operating system has become one of the most important features to look out for. Yet it feels strange looking at the PlayStation Vita in that light, as the operating system is no more a factor than it is, say, on the PlayStation 3. As a result, Sony might suffer from the fact that you’ll unlikely to trade in a smartphone or a tablet for a PS Vita, despite all the other similarities.
A big deal
It’s just not possible to make a grown-up handheld with a big screen and controls that sit either side and not have it be significantly bigger than even the chunkiest of phones. The PlayStation Vita is a massive 63mm longer, 21mm wider and 2.6mm thicker than the Xperia Play – that’s a lot for a device you’re carrying around everywhere.
More than games
Much of the PS Vita’s success will be down to just how successfully Sony uses the handheld’s hardware and 3G abilities to deliver features and services beyond the traditional remit of games console. That’s not to say a direct comparison with the Xperia Play will then be easier – Android’s hundreds of thousands of available apps and near-endless array of talents takes care of that – but there is a lot to be said for quality, not quantity, especially with such potent hardware waiting to take advantage.
Indeed, it’s this area the probably holds the ultimate answer to how successful the PlayStation Vita will be. We know what the Xperia Play offers, and we know the Vita will be a far superior games machine. But for a true comparison, we need to look at a far wider set of criteria, and at this stage there are still too many question marks against the PS Vita’s name to reach a clear conclusion.
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