PSA: PlayStation Network content must be re-purchased on Xperia Play

by Ben Gilbert on Feb 14th 2011 4:00PM

The Xperia Play will be pre-loaded with an unknown "legendary" PS1 title (psst! -- it's Crash Bandicoot), along with a smattering of launch content -- but it won't be loaded with all that PlayStation Network content you've purchased. Speaking with GameSpot UK, Sony Ericsson UK managing director Nathan Vautier confirmed, "[Xperia Play owners] will have to repurchase the games, so it's not totally integrated."

Beyond the Android Marketplace, Xperia Play owners will purchase content through the PlayStation Store; access to said store will come via Sony's PlayStation Suite, launching "later this year." Unfortunately, it seems that content you've already purchased -- say, PS1 titles that will also be available for purchase on Xperia Play -- must be repurchased for use on the handheld. We can't say we're super surprised. Or mad, even, really. Just disappointed.

Source: GameSpot UK

Tags: android, mobile, nathan-vautier, playstation-network, playstation-phone, playstation-store, playstation-suite, ps1, psa, psn, sony, sony-ericsson, xperia-play

Reader Comments (127)

Playstation Plus continues to look like a waste of money to me.

@ZForce915
PlayStation Plus has nothing to do with this phone
Nothing's been announced as far as I know
Good job, you've made no point.

@UltimaChocochu Yeah, I got PS+ just for PS1 games....

Not a load of FREE DLC, PSN games, Early demos and beta access, New PSN features, Game trials, Themes and avatars.

@LEONLEONLEON

you sound like a salesperson. please stop. nothing will ever make me feel like i should subscribe to ps+

oh wait, free themes and avatars?! SOLD!

@LiquidFingers

It's a discount club. If you purchase a lot of content it easily pays for itself.

@Liquidfingers

stop sounding like a fangirl nothing you say will get me to subscribe to XBL...

simple multiplayer and not treated like a second class gamer, SOLD!!

--- see i can bring up something that has nothing to do with this topic cause i'm a ret@rted fanboy like you too

That is really lame, and i would imagine a deal-breaker for many.

@scratchh YEp. I wont be getting this phone anymore. I was really looking forward to it. I have well over 20 PS1 games downloaded from PSN. There is no way in hell im buying them all again. I wonder if people will be able to use their game saves from the PS3 PS1 games.

@scratchh It is for me.

@scratchh

*raises hand*

I see no point in this at all now.

@scratchh
Deal breaker indeed......

@scratchh

yes cuz anyone getting this phone wont be bothered with NGP (which was announced that your PSN downloads DO carry over. this is a phone that can play games... people who want a game device will buy NGP and those who want a phone that they can later download games to.. will get this.

(on the other hand... if youve already downloaded a smattering of PS1 games then you "may" have backups of said games allowing you to play them on an emulator? just play everything else on your PSP/PS3 like normal.) nothing is changed how many people carry a phone and a PSP currently or up to date? again... whats the difference now?

Why you had to do this to me Sony, on Valentines day :(

@Angel Mass

If it helps you recover, they said this yesterday. =p

Wouldn't be the first time we're not allowed to play things we already own!

@Crimsic

Wait...sorry. You mean content PSN and XBL and "graciously" allowing us to borrow and play.

@thisredengine

my thoughts exactly. digital distribution is the harbinger of doom.

Why? The 3DS will let you transfer DSi content. It shouldn't be that difficult. It should be able to access anything compatible with the device that's tied to your PSN account.

@ItsameMatt03
3DS is a DS
Xperia is a phone, not a PSP
I can see what you mean but, yeah there is a difference
Is it still lame that you can't use your stuff you purchased?
Yes.

@ItsameMatt03

Oh, it's not because it's too difficult for them to do.

@ItsameMatt03
Thank you, my thoughts exactly. What they are stating is a complete lie. The same way your psn Id is tied to your system once you login it should allow you automatically to be able to download compatible apps to the device. A complete fail on Sony, most users who buy the phone will most likely be current PSP or PS3 owners. Really like wtf are they thinking..?!?

@ItsameMatt03
Well Like I always say, keep remembering that Sony Ericsson is NOT SCE, so they dont have to play nice with PSN, especially if they're trying to make their own money. Heck, they probably even have to pay a licensing fee for the Playstation suite.

As crappy as this is, I was kind of expecting it since its pretty much a different format from all the other PSN stuff. Like most games that have a PS3 and PSP version

@KinseySS

still would have been nice to play minis and PSOne Classics on it tho

@KinseySS

meh, you're making things too easy for them. why is it ok? there are tons of programmers that work for sony. you're telling me that none of them could have possibly found a way to allow you to download your already owned content from the playstation network? to me, it just sounds like sony is being lazy here. it's almost like they know they COULD let you re-download your shit, but they would rather come up with some piss ass excuse that leads the public to believe that it's not possible due to "format" differences. oh, and because they want you to pay for it again.

@Liquidfingers

sony and sony erricson are different. different people run each one

@eat it

your point? they're both under the sony banner. seeing as how psn integration is a touted feature of the "xperia play", there's no reason why it shouldn't be integrated as well as it could be...what's most surprising is that this seems to be absolutely fine by sony.

@KinseySS / eat it

This makes absolutely zero sense from a technical perspective, account-wise. No one is saying that the games are the exact same. The point is that they are basically giving you a new PSN account to force you to re-purchase the same titles. I don't care if you have two divisions of Sony maintaining two different databases of customer information; there are plenty of ways to link up the two accounts and share the titles that are "owned" by each account. You could then download the platform-specific version of said title on whichever device you are on.

Yep. fail. No way I'm buying the same game twice.

Because what did we learn from the PSP GO?

Making everyone repurchase the same games for the new platform means A SUCCESSFUL HARDWARE LAUNCH.

And now I'm sticking with Sprint.

Well that pretty much killed any interest I might have had in the device.

So you can log into your PSN account, you can play downloadable PS1games...but if you've already bought any PS1 games on PSN (through PS3 or PSP), you have to buy them *again*?

I've purchased 15 different PS1 games on my PSP, thanks for killing my anticipation for Xperia, Sony!

@Sketchampm Good point... It actually makes no sense, Why cant we just re-download games up to 5 times like we can on PS3?

BAH!

This was the only reason i was choosing this phone over any other phone.

@Sketchampm

Not even Apple pulls that kind of crap. Funny how I can run all of my iPhone apps on an iPad... but if I sign into PSN with a lovely new phone my content won't appear?

For shame.

Oh Sony....

@Conzar

Yeah Sony seems bound and determined to sabotage every new device it comes out with an make it unmarketable.

Marketing news flash: consumers want their games to carry over from one device to another.

Dear Sony,

Do this with the NGP, and you will have lost a loyal customer and a potential sale.

Do not screw us over.

Sincerely,

Kenoji

@Kenoji Don't worry son, they already said all previous games on the PSP will be playable on PSP2.

Relax.

@edofyingfilms

Thats what they said when they announced the UMD program for PSP GO, yea talk about vaporware. They gonna have a hard time figuring out how to make UMD games transferable to PSP2 without a UMD drive. Luckily I'm more of a PSN guy and havent owned a single UMD game since Daxter that came as a bonus.

@edofyingfilms All those UMD games? Oh wait.

@Kenoji
Asuma LIVES ON!!!

@edofyingfilms

Don't worry son, they already said all previous games on the PS2 will be playable on PS3.

Relax.

Oh. Wait...

@Resident Evil 6 Puppie Madness -- Damn straight. He is my favorite character in the Naruto series. Even though I'm not to keen on him smoking (and it sucks that he died), he's still an awesome design.

Massive fail here. This whole Playstation Suite thing is going to crash and burn if they don't fix this. They said at the NGP press conference that the stuff made for Playstation Suite would work on NGP, and i'm going to assume that means you won't have to pay for it twice when playing on NGP at least.

But if Sony is using the Playstation Store UI and not the Android Marketplace to sell the actual PSone games to people then they should be a part of the one time pay package.

welp ill pass and just get a PSP2 as i intended. this pretty much is a breaker.

Just when i thought Sony got their act together... Theyve been doing so well recently, I guess a huge mess up was due...

I'm not surprised or disappointed by this. Sony has made it clear over the past few years that they do not know how to be consistent and creative in the marketplace.

It would have been more surprising to see that PSN is fully integrated into the phone and you could just carry over all your content, including movies, wallpaper and icons.

How is it possible that a company as large as Sony can be working on a new hardware and not manage to make it work with their current infrastructure? I dunno, but that's Sony for you.

To be fair, I'm not sure if it was mentioned that content purchased on PSN after Xperia Play is released with be cross compatible. The best quote from that article is:
"I think the exciting thing is that there are games which people are very, very aware of"

Yes, they are aware of them. So aware that they bought them on PSN. Now you are making them aware that they need to be bought again to play on your new device, and they will make you aware of their disinterest by not buying Xperia Play.

I can sort of see what Sony is doing here. This is marketed as a phone with gaming capabilities, not a full-fledged portable. However, this is LOW, even for Sony. I for one would not pay twice for something I already own- er, I mean have a license for.

Bastards.

Well they lost a future customer! i have alot of ps1 classics and i cant transfer them??? wtf!

i hope they dont do this with the Ngp

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PSA: PlayStation Network content must be re-purchased on Xperia Play

Reader Comments (127)

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:04PM ZForce915 said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:07PM UltimaChocochu said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:36PM LEONLEONLEON said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:43PM Liquidfingers said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 6:01PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 6:01PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:07PM scratchh said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:16PM LEONLEONLEON said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:37PM thelolotov said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:40PM ShadowXIII said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:55PM Barkley610 said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 6:43PM KiraXD said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:07PM Angel Mass said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:09PM xiLeShadow said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:07PM Crimsic said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:30PM thisredengine said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 5:13PM XperimntNterror said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:07PM ItsameMatt03 said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:11PM UltimaChocochu said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:34PM JasonA said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:44PM puerrican85 said

Posted: Feb 16th 2011 12:44PM PN04 said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:07PM KinseySS said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:09PM KinseySS said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:30PM Liquidfingers said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:36PM eat it said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:48PM Liquidfingers said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 6:11PM jchan said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:08PM dagamer34 said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:08PM copa said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:09PM JinZX1 said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:09PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:09PM Sketchampm said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:21PM LEONLEONLEON said

Posted: Feb 15th 2011 9:21AM Herbaceous Border Patrol said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:10PM Conzar said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 6:21PM Dizazter said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:10PM Kenoji said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:29PM edofyingfilms said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:47PM puerrican85 said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:53PM Flapjackal said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 6:14PM Resident Evil 6 Puppie Madness said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 6:24PM A Sandwich said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 10:05PM Kenoji said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:14PM Cartman86 said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:18PM KiDPANDA said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:22PM LEONLEONLEON said

Posted: Feb 14th 2011 4:27PM Lerkero said

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