10 PlayStation Problems Sony Want You To Forget
7. The PlayStation... Phone?!
In 2011, Sony released the Xperia Play: a Sony Ericsson slide phone with physical controls. The Xperia functioned as both a phone and a fully functioning handheld console, and should have taken the industry by storm.
Except... it didn't.
As usual, it was the brains at Sony and their bizarre decisions which led to the console's failure. For some reason the Xperia did not have access to the PlayStation Store, and had its own proprietary version of the Google Play Store instead.
This meant that anyone who purchased the Xperia was unable to access Sony's vast category of games. Not only that, but anyone could access the games on an Android phone, meaning there was no real reason to purchase the Xperia.
Moreover, in their marketing, Sony did not go all the way with their marketing to advertise the Xperia as a PlayStation and a phone.
Therefore, they did not capture the gaming community nor did they entice regular phone owners who found the Xperia unwieldy and unnecessarily bulky due to its slide out controls.
Ultimately, fans were put off and gamers chose to stick to established handhelds. Once again, Sony quietly decommissioned the Xperia Play and left it to be forgotten.