Your comparison has a few flaws though. Smartphones as gaming devices is a fairly new idea, and have only begun to compete with the dedicated gaming handhelds in the last few years. So Sony trying to use these new devices to their advantage is a good idea, not to mention creating hardware that is designed for a better gaming experience (the upcoming PS Phone).

If Sony can make this connection work, then the PS Suite will be a good reference for quality games on Android, and will allow developers to reach a wider audience too.

@ Snesboy

Regardless of experience, Sony have an answer to the smartphone gaming market, where Nintendo is trying to shy away from it. 

Absolutely agree on this...I read a nice article on the matter on Eurogamer as well...Sony are positioning themselves very nicely now, Android market is expanding, way more so than iOS or anything, NGP plus Sony Suit is a very smart and forward thinking move on their part. Next few years are gonna be interesting

Exactly! Smart phone industry is not to be ignored now and it's not an industry that will slow down anytime soon either

Problem is that nobody actually buys anything on Android... even Google have said it... and I don't think that PSone games for 4.99 are going to sell on android.. too pricey for Android users.. developers won't port their old ps1 games to support anything like online play or thropies.. let alone optimize every game for every android phone out there.. And memory limitions and the lack of buttons on phones compared to a ps1 gamepad is gonna hurt.. they should have controlled it by focussing on Sony Ericsson Phones only.. but I know those don't sell in the smarthphonemarket so I can see why they try to aim everybody..

What'll be interesting is how Sony markets the PS Suite to Android users. Assuming the service launches with just PS1 games, which ones will they emphasise? Will they go for the people who bought Angry Birds in their millions by focusing on games like Kula World and Intelligent Qube, or will they try and move this towards the people who bought the classics back in the day, or people who want 'something more' from phone gaming, by saying "Hey look, Metal Gear on a phone!"?

The playstation suite is based on the android platform, which has the most market share to date with cell phones. I agree that the 40-50$ games might not make such an impact, but the suite allows user created games similar to the apples apps, so that alone might be enough if Sony does it right. Which i doubt they will.

It might be true if Sony had the first or the biggest dedicated Android game/content marketplace. I suspect Amazon will be the one to beat in this arena and if/when Facebook decides to take over the smartphones of millions of people they'll push Sony aside as easily as you'd push a sackboy.

Nintendo would never put their games on non-proprietary hardware, while it seems Sony doesn't mind doing that.

It will surely help them recover some good bucks if NGP is sold at a loss and if PS4 is pretty much the same as the PS3 on its initial 2 years, giving heavy losses to Sony.

PS Suite won't "compete" with the 3DS and not even the NGP. I'm sure sales for that app won't be counted as NGP sales. I predict that it will also not be a proper portable experience, I've already tried a PSone emulator on iPhone, while the game runs fairly good, it controls like shit. No way you can replicate a 12 button 2 analog pad on a single touch screen.

you need buttons.

In 2008 mobile gaming revenue hit the mark close to the size of DS software revenue. Here's your 'competition' that didn't have any significant effect on handheld market, which has grown over the last ten years. It might change in the future though, but my point was different. Android is relatively small market, plagued by piracy. I doubt Sony will be able to revitalize it so it can compete with AppStore first and foremost, let alone influence handheld market in any way.

Yeah, marketshare was basically the measure I was using. And even if Nintendo make a killing from the 3DS, I doubt they'll be happy to lose marketshare, and especially to strategies revolving around smartphones, since it may mean that Nintendo's own strategy is becoming obsolete.

And I agree about the games, but I think there will be sort of a duality to it. Despite the rampant piracy, the PSP still manages to have some high selling games, so I don't think the big games are going anywhere, there's just going to be a more clear distinction of what makes a $50 game and a $5 game. Some games that fit in the big price range earlier probably won't anymore because they're too reminiscent of the small games. But you'll still have the big sellers that do well.

@ Squilliam

Yeah, Amazon is going to be a big competitor definitely, but it kind of depends on the aim of the store. Sony are aiming to offer a place for people to buy quality games, that will play well on any PS Certified hardware, not to mention the NGP, whereas Amazon seems to aim for some one on one competition with the Android Market. I could see Amazon as heavy competition, but they seem to be aiming at quite different targets, so not necessarily.

@ Mr.Metralha

That's an attitude Sony are only now evolving after Kutaragi left, and one that is only going to help Sony in this case. All games being developed for the PS Suite will be playable on the NGP after all, so aside from giving Sony a presence in the Android gaming market, it helps ensure that the NGP recieves a bunch of games designed for portable play.

And I'm not saying that PS Suite sales will be counted with the NGP, but I'm saying that there a two sides to Sony's next generation handheld strategy, 1) the NGP and 2) the PS Suite. This means that Sony are using both a dedicated handheld and smartphones to bolster their marketshare and revenue, whereas Nintendo are using only one device, hoping that consumers will opt for a dedicated handheld over just using a phone for gaming.

And I agree that the PS1 games will probably make for a poor portable gaming experience on most phones (not the PlayStation Certified devices obviously), but these are just filler until the Suite gets off the ground. If it takes off and does well, you'll see many games designed for portability, which is what Sony is aiming at having in the end.