It turns out that the speculation was correct. Sony Mobile has cancelled the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for the Sony (Ericsson) Xperia PLAY. The company says that “after extensive in house testing with our developer teams and working with our partners, we have concluded that a consistent and stable experience, particularly with gaming, cannot be guaranteed for this smartphone.”
The rest of the 2011 Xperia line-up will see the Android ICS release on schedule. The good news is that this will start from next week. Moving on, we finally have some official timelines for the recently launched Sony Xperia NXT phones. The Xperia S will be updated from the end of June, as expected. The Xperia P will follow that, whilst the Xperia U will “receive it a little later in Q3”. The update rolling out will be Android 4.0.4 and this will also hit the previous handsets (Xperia arc S, Xperia neo V and the Xperia ray) that had already updated to version 4.0.3 of Ice Cream Sandwich.
Vindicating its decision on why it canned the Xperia PLAY ICS update, here’s what Sony Mobile had to say in full:
This decision (to cancel ICS for the Xperia PLAY) was also verified when we received similar feedback from the developer community; both experienced developers and advanced users, along with game content providers following our ICS beta ROM for unlocked Xperia PLAY smartphones.
Our priority has and always will be, to provide the best possible user experience on Xperia smartphones. In this instance the ICS upgrade would have compromised stability, where we look to ensure a quality gaming experience with games optimized and developed for Xperia PLAY.
Via Sony Mobile Blog.
