The Phonehelds Thread

[Vardalis]

Did you ever own a Nokia N-Gage? A Sony Xperia Play? How was it owning one? Did it get much mileage as a gaming device or did you use it mostly as a phone?

I thought I'd ask because I've always had a fascination about these sorts of devices. The hybrid nature. The physical buttons for gaming. Not needing that extra device in your bag or pocket or needing to carry around an extra peripheral if you want to slot your phone into a controller or something. Just being able to boot into a game or slide the screen up then and there. They always just seemed so convenient and fun. No fuss with extra devices or pieces of plastic. While they may be considered obsolete by modern standards I'd still buy a modern iteration of something like that in a heartbeat.

 

[Miles]

I wish they still made phones like that. They would be awesome for emulation!

 

[Vardalis]

I wish they still made phones like that. They would be awesome for emulation!

Absolutely. I think the Xperia Play sounded like it got a good bit of mileage for PS1 emulation (and probably below) back when it was relevant and before the rise of the cheaper and more powerful stuff we have today. Of course now the version of Android is so old and it was only 3G, so you couldn't realistically use it as a daily driver in most cases.

 

[vulonkaaz's iconvulonkaaz]

xperia play self destructed itself the screen cable just break over time

i rember when the xperia play was like the official device to play minecraft pocket edition, it didn't last long that thing

they not making gaming phones like they used to, i'd probably use the Ayn Thor as my main phone if only it had a 4G modem

made that cringe meme few years ago still relevant i guess:

 

[Segadude113]

Wanted one back then for Tomb Raider and Sonic. It looked cool in magazines and they had one that was playable in the game store at my mall.

 

[Miles]

Absolutely. I think the Xperia Play sounded like it got a good bit of mileage for PS1 emulation (and probably below) back when it was relevant and before the rise of the cheaper and more powerful stuff we have today. Of course now the version of Android is so old and it was only 3G, so you couldn't realistically use it as a daily driver in most cases.

I find it crazy that there aren't phones like that anymore. Many people love to play emulated games on their phone, so I don't see why phones like that wouldn't do well today.

 

[Vardalis]

I find it crazy that there aren't phones like that anymore. Many people love to play emulated games on their phone, so I don't see why phones like that wouldn't do well today.

Yeah. I'd just assume it's not a priority for any of the bigger phone makers since they perceive people just use them for mobile games if anything, or use a bluetooth controller if they're dedicated enough. Or, another angle of the same argument, they likely don't see they'd make any kind of profit by doing something different.

 

[PhrawzT]

I had the Xperia Play back in 2012. It was great and could play NES, SNES and Playstation games. I wish I hadn't sold it back when I was strapped for cash and had gotten a new phone.