Kazuo Hirai, the upcoming President and CEO of Sony Corporation, hinted at the idea that the company is interested in possibly porting the operating system of the PlayStation Vita handheld gaming console to other mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, reports The Verge. This information was revealed in a Q&A session that was reported on by Japanese site AV Watch.
"If you"re asking if we"ve made it in a way that’s expandable, so that it"s possible to apply to smartphones and tablets on top of achieving the high responsiveness we need for gaming devices - it is possible," Sony Computer Entertainment Senior Vice President Yoshio Matsumoto is quoted in AV Watch"s report. "That doesn’t mean that we"re applying it to smartphones and tablets at this point in time, but it"s been designed with expandability in mind."
The PlayStation Vita, which has been available in Japan since last year, will be released in America and Europe this week for early adopters and next week for the general public. Its operating system is controlled entirely by touch screen - the hardware unit"s physical buttons, including d-pad and twin joysticks, cannot currently be used to navigate through the operating system. While this might be something of a drawback for a handheld gaming system, it seems like a perfect fit for smartphones and tablets.
Sony currently produces smartphones and tablets that run Google"s Android operating system. These devices have not proved successful for the company, with Sony Ericsson posting a $325 million loss for the 2011 fiscal year.