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EricHiggin on 22 January 2018
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potato_hamster said:
EricHiggin said:

Not tough for consumers, for PS/SNY. Why doesn't PS just make an app and put it on XB1 and have PS gamers buy an XB1, a separate DS4 if they like, and play the PS games they buy on the XB1, on PSN? That way, PS spends way less on hardware, and XB gets ripped off for doing all the hard work, only to have gamers buying many PS games and playing them on their hardware. This would also be great for PS gamers if they liked some XB titles as well, since they would also be able to play them, just like iPhone and Android users. XB gamers would also be able to easily play PS games on their XB1. PS clearly wants as much control over their ecosystem as possible, for many reasons, and by trying to make a controller that uses other phones doesn't fit that model. It also means PS and SNY would purposely be sharing their mobile gaming pie with the other mobile companies, and no business wants to share if they don't have to. Did XB allow cross-play between 360 and PS3?

If PS is so keen on sharing, and not worried about consumers who want to give some of their money to other companies, why haven't they allowed cross-play yet?

This seems like a pretty asinine argument. There's a world of difference trying to compete against Apple and Google whose phones sell combined sell over 250 million units a year vs the console space which might sell 250 million over 5 years. Apple probably spends more on their iOS development and maintenance in a year than Sony will spent developing and maintaining the PS4 for its entire life. Maybe that's why you can already get a PSN app, and a PSN app on iPhone and android, you can already get Nintendo's voice app, and mobile specific games on iOS and android, and you can already get Xbox apps on iOS and android. It appears Sony, Nintendo and MS already know what seems ridiculous to you - it's a fools errand to try and compete against the juggernaut that is iOS and Android.

Is it really less logical to take it one step further and develop an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy controller case than it is to make an entirely new phone from the ground up?

Sony is currently selling 1/10th as many cell phones per year as Apple is.

This has nothing to do with specifically trying to take down iOS or Android. It has everything to do with PS and their mostly closed ecosystem. Just like how you can't simply plug any device or add any app to the PS4 and get it to work. It also depends on how PS wants to design the handheld. With different phone sizes and dimensions, just taking any phone and being able to easily plug it in and have it be physically stable and reliable, isn't so simple. Maybe they could or would want to to do that, maybe the design they would want won't work for existing phones. PS much prefers a clean, sleek design. The point is more so the handheld experience, not the phone, but creating a phone that can easily work with the handheld controller design, as well as on it's own. It's about catering to the PS ecosystem, with the benefit of getting more SNY phones out there as a side effect.

If you also think about the younger kids who could end up experiencing a phone for the first time, since it's attached to their PS handheld controller, and that phone being a PS/SNY product, would help with brand recognition in that space over time. There are plenty of people who stay with whatever model/brand they come in contact with initially, as long as it does the job and is reliable. Again, it doesn't mean that PS/SNY will take over the phone market by any means, but it should help them grow that segment larger than it would otherwise.