Bravo Sony Ericsson: The Xperia Play is coming
By The Prodigal Fool, published on 7 February 2011
Poor Sony Ericsson. The last time we remember being even vaguely excited about one of its products was the P990i smartphone way back in 2007. And what a dud that eventually turned out to be.
Since then, the Japanese-Swedish joint venture has gone from one misguided strategy to the next. It dumped Symbian in favour of Windows, then dumped Windows in favour of Android. And never really stepped up in the way we’d expect from a firm that used to be an industry leader. It seems to lack courage and clarity of vision.
And without that courage or vision, the results were damaging in two ways. Firstly, by the time the devices reached the shelves, the hardware was often underpowered and running outdated versions of Android. Secondly, Sony Ericsson’s products lacked any real differentiation compared to those from more able competitors like HTC and Apple. It didn’t have a compelling message for potential customers. Well, folks, that’s about to change.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play now has a firm launch and time date: Mobile World Congress on Sunday, 13 February.
We’ve never been particularly ardent gamers here at Prodigal Towers but we salute Sony Ericsson regardless. At last some class-leading hardware and software (that’s Android 2.3 under the hood), at last a clear differentiator (in the form of PSP-style controls built in), and at least a cool, witty marketing campaign to get the message out (you must watch the video below).
Bravo Sony Ericsson.
Bravo Sony Ericsson: The Xperia Play is coming
We’ve never been particularly ardent gamers here at Prodigal Towers but we salute Sony Ericsson regardless. At last some class-leading hardware and software, at last a clear differentiator, and at least a cool, witty marketing campaign to get the message out.
2 Responses to “Bravo Sony Ericsson: The Xperia Play is coming”
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I totally agree with you that it’s borderline creepy. And that’s exactly why I think it’s such a great ad and such a perfect way to communicate what makes this a different product to all the other Android handsets out there.
Sony Ericsson is stamping their own brand identity on Android. And in keeping with the PlayStation brand, it’s subverting the ‘goody two shoes’ image of Android with something rather odd, edgy and risky. That’s the great value proposition: with this phone you get all the sensible apps and ecosystem of Android but you also get something which is absolutely unique to Sony, you get the naughty, rebellious fun of PlayStation built in. I may be proven wrong in due course but I think that, to the right audience, that’s going to be a very compelling message.
P.S. I also agree with you about dissolving the Sony Ericsson joint venture. At this stage, I don’t see that the Ericsson brand is bringing anything at all to the party.
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Ivan Y
7 February 2011
I normally like Sony’s ads (even the weird ones when PS3 came out), but this is borderline creepy.
P.S. Xperia Play is one of the worst kept secrets… ever!
P.P.S. Sony would’ve probably been better off just dissolving SE and making phones under Sony brand. It’s hard enough to get all Sony divisions on one page, I imagine it’s even worse with SE.