PlayStation 2 games appear to be coming to Android

Some good news for gamers!

A Eurogamer report states that according to computer video component maker NVIDIA, PlayStation 2 games will eventually come to the Android platform.

Apparently, NVIDIA recently updated its Tegra Zoneapp to include an announcement about upcoming games on Sony’s PlayStation Suite, a service that Android users will be able to use to purchase old catalog PlayStation games for their devices. NVIDIA’s release related to the fact that devices with Tegra will be considered “certified” and work with PS Suite, opening up the service to devices beyond Sony Ericsson’s “PlayStation phone,” the Xperia Play.
The NVIDIA release also mentions that PlayStation 2 games will eventually start to circulate through the PlayStation Suite. According to Engadget, that might be a ways off, though -- the tech site doesn’t think any of the currently available Android devices have the power to handle PlayStation 2 games.

That could mean we could be waiting for quad-core processors to start appearing in Android devices before we get PlayStation 2 games, a prospect that actually doesn’t sound that far off, based on the high-powered devices that were shown at Consumer Electronics Show 2011 in Las Vegas in January.

No boom (at least yet) for Motorola’s Xoom tablet

The iPad 2 hit Apple Stores, Best Buys and AT&T and Verizon retail outlets today, and while it’s getting hyped like crazy, Android tablets aren’t getting too much attention.
Notably, the Motorola Xoom, a fairly well-reviewed Android tab comparable to the original iPad, is the subject of bad news today. The Xoom, it seems, is not selling too well.

This was to be expected somewhat. The iPad 2 has dominated the conversation for a while now, and even as the Xoom was hitting shelves, Apple was sending around press invites to the iPad 2 launch event. The event itself happened smack in the middle of the Game Developers Conference 2011 in San Francisco, and in fact took place right next door. Apple knows what it’s doing when it wants to torpedo a competitor.
A report from ZDNet states that Xoom’s sales just three weeks after its launch have been pretty underwhelming, despite it having a higher resolution display than both the iPad and the iPad 2, as well as a faster processor than Apple’s new device.

Peter Misek of analysis firm Jeffries said Motorola’s earning estimates for the quarter are going to end up being too high because of the Xoom’s current sales performance, among other things:
“Xoom sales have been underwhelming. While marketing has just started we believe MMI will likely have to cut production if it already has not done so. We believe the device has been a bit buggy and did not meet the magic price point of $500. We believe management knows this and is hurrying development and production of lower cost tablets. Importantly we believe management will likely have to make the painful decision to accept little to no margin initially in order to match iPad 2’s wholesale pricing.”

There are also a few other things hamstringing Xoom, like some bugs in Android 3.0 Honeycomb and the lack of Flash support at launch. And the iPad 2 hype certainly isn’t helping, but Xoom isn’t dead in the water -- just hitting a setback. As I’ve mentioned before, Motorola and Google still have an opportunity to regroup and fire back at the iPad 2, and that will be a lot easier once all the noise of Apple’s launch has died down a bit.