Well, Sony went back on its promise to upgrade “all 2011 Xperia models” to Android ICS and the first victim is the Xperia Play. Apparently, this device will stick to Android 2.3 Gingerbread and this news comes after Motorola announced that people actually don’t need Android 4.0 on some of its older models, yet another peculiar choice.
Anyway, as far as the Xperia Play goes Sony Mobile announced yesterday that the plans for updating it to Android 4.0 are dead, due to compatibility issues with the gaming features. Phone Scopp is saying that Ice Cream Sandwich demands too much of its hardware and apps require more RAM, processing power and bandwidth. The developer community feedback and internal testing also confirm these limitations on the beta ROM software release, so they tried to get Android 4.0 on it but didn’t succeed.
A decline in user experience is found when running newer games with better graphics. Since gaming is a vital part of the Xperia Play experience, crippling it with Android 4.0 wouldn’t be recommended. Sony’s decision applies to both AT&T and Verizon Wireless models, plus those in Europe. IT’s been a year since the Play launched on Verizon and it’s still sticking to the same OS…
