When you think back to the PSPgo (the bastard child among PSP owners), I think that was more of an experiment and guinea pig on making this phone. Just experimenting with the form factor and the online distribution. When Kaz Hirai shows up at the Xperia PLAY announcement in MWC to speak, you can tell SONY put alot of input and backing into this and not just only the Sony Ericsson division. By 2013 when the Xperia PLAY 3 is parallel to the NGP in power, you can almost see them co-exist even better than PSP and PSPgo.. Your digital gaming content can be put in your smartphone and handheld.
Remember, one PSN account can link up to 5 different devices. So all your digital downloads can be played on either device.
"this is just the start..."
What Sony is doing is planting the seeds for this new ecosystem. Xperia PLAY can just be a "modest" hit early on like the HTC G1 and then Sony just builds on that success. Right now, the phone is the most unique phone out there with a slide-out gaming pad in a sea full of touchscreen slabs. Every year, the content and devices will get updated and improved. Xperia PLAY will not be the only "PlayStation Certified" phone ever made. Just the first. Right now, the games and phone seems rough around the edges. It is no different than the HTC G1 before the Android revolution. No matter how popular Nokia is, they simply didn't know gaming the way Sony does. Back in 2004, people wanted flip phones and wanted ones that can also play mp3. RAZR and music phones was going to be all the rage by 2005. Tell me, are their looks, specs, and content between N-Gage vs Xperia PLAY even comparable? You might as well compare the WinMo phones w/ touchscreen + stylus or LG Prada to the original iPhone. iPhone was NOT the first phone with touchscreen, but Apple just did it the best. XPERIA Play is NOT the first gaming phone ever, but Sony can do it better than Nokia ever did. Even the most diehard Nokia fanboys back in the day would have told you the N-Gage was going to flop and people didn't have as much interest in gaming on their phone like most people do now.