Here is an interesting story and a possible glimpse into the future of how all the Sony Playstation announcements for Android will all come together in one nice little package. Currently only available on the newer certified Android devices from Sony like the S Tablet, the PSN app has now been tweaked to run on the Xperia Play.
The PSN Store App versus the Xperia Play App
A little background is needed here for those of you still trying to piece together what Sony is trying to do when it comes to their Playstation certified devices for Android. While the original device to be certified was the Xperia Play, the app store that comes with the Xperia Play is strictly for that device and is solely designed and optimized to allow owners of an Xperia Play to buy classic PSOne games for that device. There has been no inter-connectivity between the Xperia Play app and the Playstation Network.
This isn’t the case however with Sony’s newer products, the S Tablet and P Tablet. Both of these tablets, which are also Playstation certified devices, come with a similar app that the Xperia Play has but with one exception, it’s connected to the Playstation Network just like the PSP or PS3 are. With the Playstation SDK soon becoming publicly available to developers to use, these developers will be able to create games for the platform of their choosing whether it’s the new PS Vite, the PS3, the Sony Tablets or future mobile products. They could also choose to bring a game they are working on to all of the platforms and not just one in particular.
The Xperia Play will miss out on this because the Xperia Play application does not have that connectivity with the Playstation Network, not yet anyways.
The PSN App Tweaked
Leave it to the brilliant people over at the XDA Forums for one of them to take the PSN app off of a Sony tablet and tweak it so it works on an Xperia Play. Currently though there isn’t much you can do with it but when you to launch it, it will ask for your Playstation Network credentials. This is currently only available on the Japanese version of the tweaked app and even still, when you’re logged in, you don’t have anything to choose from in terms of games.
Even if this is how Sony plans to bring more Playstation games to certified devices, the selection of games could very well be different for each device and will only show the appropriate list of games for that particular device running the PSN App. Considering Sony is currently considering bringing Playstation games to non-certified devices, this could be the method they will go with, a fully integrated PSN App available for people to download at some point.
This also doesn’t mean that your favorite PSP/Vita games will be compatible with your Xperia Play or S Tablet either.
For Right Now
At this moment in time, you can install the modified PSN Store App onto your Xperia Play and check it out but most people seem to be reporting an error after installing and using it the first time that the “service is not available in their country”. However, the app installs on both rooted and un-rooted Xperia Play devices without errors which means it could already be optimized for the Xperia Play and just hasn’t rolled out officially yet. Sony hasn’t rolled this out yet in any sort of official capacity aside from the few devices that actually come with the official PSN Store App. Still, if you want to check it out you can follow the download and install instructions over on the XDA Forum Thread dedicated to this.
For now though, if you’re expecting more Sony games whether PSOne titles, PSP titles or anything else, you’re currently stuck with the selection that is available for the Xperia Play for now although Sony has said they plan a big push of new content to happen shortly. That we will have to wait and see if it actually happens though.
Update Nov. 27th, 2011 1:50pm: We just got word from our friends at XperiaGamers that the UK Playstation Store is now open for business for the Xperia Play along with the PSN services. Check out the video below to see it in action.
Websites Referenced: XperiaGamer
