By John Chan on Apr 19, 2011
Singapore-based SingTel has announced that it will be the first to offer theSony Ericsson Xperia Play gaming smartphone in the country. At the same time, the telco also announced its first foray into cloud gaming with its ESC (pronounced escape) service.
The Xperia Play will come bundled with six game titles including FIFA 10 and The Sims 3. Depending on your choice of mobile plan, it will be sold at an upfront price of between S$0 and S$348. Those interested can preorder now with delivery starting from April 22.
Those who don't want to sign on with SingTel will have to wait till end-May as that's when the Xperia Play will start to be available from other Singapore operators. Its retail price without operator subsidies has not been announced yet.
At the same time, SingTel announced Asia's first cloud-gaming service, powered by provider Playcast Media. This lets subscribers play titles on their PCs or TVs (with SingTel's exCite service) without having to install the games.
In cloud gaming, the heavy lifting is done by the servers and what the user sees on his screen is really a video of the gameplay. The quality of the Internet connection being used is therefore paramount as commands from the user's keyboard or controller has to reach the server, while a video of the action is continuously being streamed back to the user. This needs to be done in as short a time as possible to ensure fluid controls. We tried it out and felt a slight lag when playing Street Fighter IV. This will be unacceptable for expert players, but shouldn't bother casual gamers, who are the target audience for ESC. Another similar service that you may have heard of is OnLive, which was announced in 2009 and currently available only in the US.
The service will initially offer 20 games including the mentioned Street Fighter IV, Back to the Future, Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse and Toy Story 3. Two games will be added monthly thereafter. The service costs S$9.99 monthly or S$1.99 for a one-day pass. An unlimited trial is now on till the end of April.
Update (20/04 9.55am GMT+8): This article has been edited to reflect the correct monthly price of the ESC service.
The Xperia Play will come bundled with six game titles including FIFA 10 and The Sims 3. Depending on your choice of mobile plan, it will be sold at an upfront price of between S$0 and S$348. Those interested can preorder now with delivery starting from April 22.
Those who don't want to sign on with SingTel will have to wait till end-May as that's when the Xperia Play will start to be available from other Singapore operators. Its retail price without operator subsidies has not been announced yet.
At the same time, SingTel announced Asia's first cloud-gaming service, powered by provider Playcast Media. This lets subscribers play titles on their PCs or TVs (with SingTel's exCite service) without having to install the games.
In cloud gaming, the heavy lifting is done by the servers and what the user sees on his screen is really a video of the gameplay. The quality of the Internet connection being used is therefore paramount as commands from the user's keyboard or controller has to reach the server, while a video of the action is continuously being streamed back to the user. This needs to be done in as short a time as possible to ensure fluid controls. We tried it out and felt a slight lag when playing Street Fighter IV. This will be unacceptable for expert players, but shouldn't bother casual gamers, who are the target audience for ESC. Another similar service that you may have heard of is OnLive, which was announced in 2009 and currently available only in the US.
The service will initially offer 20 games including the mentioned Street Fighter IV, Back to the Future, Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse and Toy Story 3. Two games will be added monthly thereafter. The service costs S$9.99 monthly or S$1.99 for a one-day pass. An unlimited trial is now on till the end of April.
Update (20/04 9.55am GMT+8): This article has been edited to reflect the correct monthly price of the ESC service.
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