PlayStation Suite Bringing PlayStation Games To Android

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When then Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced Android back in 2007, he said that “Today’s announcement is more ambitious than any single ‘Google Phone’ that the press has been speculating about over the past few weeks.” That’s sort of what Sony did today at their press conference in Japan. Instead of announcing any single “PlayStation Phone”, the company announced the “PlayStation Suite”, an online gaming platform that will provide PlayStation content and games to multiple platforms, including Android. Droid Does PlayStation?

The PlayStation Suite will be offered on Android devices and will deliver (at first) games from the first PlayStation (PSone). Cool Boarders 2, Syphon Filter, Rally Cross, Wild Arms and MediEvil were all shown at the press conference, none of which particularly get my blood pumping. Hopefully Sony is working with third-party publishers so they can get some third-party games out there.

A few caveats. First, You’ll need Android 2.3 on your phone to make it work. Android 2.3 “Gingerbread”, as many of you know, is the newest version of the operating system and is right now only available on the Google Nexus S. Google has yet to release the source code for Android 2.3 and when I was at CES a few weeks ago, there were NO new gadgets coming with Android 2.3. So, expect PlayStation Suite not to be coming for a while.

Another caveat, Sony’s press release is sort of cagey about how you’ll be able to get the PlayStation Suite. It mentions working with manufacturers and licensing. This leads me to believe that you won’t be able to download the PlayStation Suite from the Android Market. Instead, it sounds like the PlayStation Suite will come pre-installed with phones. The press release mentions “SCE will offer necessary support … to ensure the delivery of PlayStation quality experience across various devices.” I believe that there were be some sort of hardware copy protection in play here, restricting the PS Suite to phones that Sony approves. I’d love to be proven wrong on this.

In addition to being on Android, Sony says that we’ll also see the PlayStation Suite released on the also recently announced NGP (aka PSP2).

(Image Credit: Engadget)