Sony announced today on its blog that it won’t update it’s Xperia Play handset to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The company says the complexity of the gaming environment makes its difficult to upgrade the handset. Rather than sacrifice performance, Sony has decided to keep the phone at Gingerbread. Other handset like the Xperia S, Xperia P and Xperia U will receive ICS as planned.
You can read Sony’s statement on the Xperia Play below:
In regards to Xperia PLAY, 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 on Ice Cream Sandwich – therefore, we will not make the Android 4.0 upgrade available for Xperia PLAY.
This decision 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.
I assume most Xperia Play owners are disappointed with this news.