Sony just dropped a bomb on the Japanese stage -- not a single PlayStation Phone, but a PlayStation Phone experience for everybody. The company unveiled a cross-platform software framework called PlayStation Suite, which sounds rather boring in those words, but what it amounts to is an official PlayStation Store filled with games for your Android tablets and cellphones. Sony's starting with an emulator for existing PSOne titles and is promising an Android game store later this year, but soon it might be much, much more: the company's calling PlayStation Suite a "hardware-neutral" development framework to make games portable for all sorts of handhelds, and says that "new and exciting content" is also on the way.

Sony will sponsor a first-party licensing and quality-assurance scheme called PlayStation Certified, and provide the marketplace as well, likely hoping to attract major game developers to build top-tier titles for mobile and get a piece of the action too. If your device doesn't have have a pop-out gamepad handy, it looks like PlayStation Suite will emulate touchscreen controls, and you won't necessarily need a phone to get in on the action, as Sony says the next-generation PlayStation Portable will be compatible with games developed for PlayStation Suite right off the bat. Doesn't look like we're getting any details on game prices or compatible devices, but we imagine one particular phone will change all that at Mobile World Congress next month.

Update: Looks like PlayStation Suite requires Android 2.3 at a minimum, and it's PSOne, not PlayStation Portable titles that will be emulated here, despite Kaz Hirai's quote during the festivities. PR after the break!

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I think this is a VERY smart move by them and can expand into something huge

yes japanese companies unite against apple!

The only issue is that all of this is already available through the android marketplace, so they should probably try and get that removed... which might be tricky

The emulator is a good idea in theory, but I can only imagine the difficulty of 'porting' a PS1 game to a phone, so to speak. (controls would be my biggest gripe) But, in my opinion, I like that Sony is trying to edge itself in the mobile phone game market, by making a framework for mobile game phones.

What they need to do now is make a system like LBP, where anybody can make games for the Suite. They can make some serious money if they required individual consumers to 'buy' a spot on the Suite to 'publish' their game, then give them like a quarter or so of the profits.

I hope it works with my Xperia 10

It requires 2.3, so unfortunately no (I am in the same boat)

I really like the approach Sony is taking here, I just hope it works out well. Especially because these games can be played both on android phones and the NGP, so there is some incentive to use it for developers.

Lame I only got this phone 3 weeks ago.

should have got the windows phone instead... Us WP7 owners have lots of fun things we can do with our phones...like...umm...solitare! And tip calculator...

This is practically free mass marketing xD (well not free but they will get there money back from games lol)