If Sony was too late in 2011, the Ayaneo Pocket Play is going to need a time machine to succeed

I'm intrigued by any device that promises me portable play, but when Ayaneo announced the Pocket Play last week, I was concerned. I've spent the last year testing the best gaming phones on the market, and not once have I lamented the fact that none of them called back to the Sony Xperia Play. We moved past physical buttons in mobile gaming years ago, and now Ayaneo wants to bring that pocket of history back. Sometimes though, memories are best left as they were.

The Ayaneo Pocket Play throws a sliding screen back into the smartphone market, itself hiding a small physical control panel underneath. It's a design familiar to anyone who lived through the early days of mobiles, when phones did whatever they damn well pleased.

This time, those controls consist of a recessed d-pad, full face buttons, two touch pads to act as thumbsticks, and a set of bumpers and triggers along the top. It looks slick, but it's exactly 14 years too late.

2011 was the year Sony took its face buttons to the mobile market with the Xperia Play. It was also the year a Rhode Island audio brand released the iCade Mobile. ION produced a third-party controller that housed your existing touchscreen device and gave it all those lovely buttons you were hungry for.

It launched at $69.99, compared to the Xperia's roughly $500 MSRP. Dedicated accessories were already adding controls to existing systems for far less than purpose-built devices could cost. Sony was too late even in 2011; in 2025, Ayaneo's going to have to fight the same fight with way less ammo.

Mobile gaming is far, far healthier now, and the call for physical buttons is louder than ever. Triple-A titles and emulated classics need these controls, but the core problem still remains. Why buy a whole new phone for its buttons when you can just add them to the phone you already have in your pocket?

The best mobile controller we've tested so far is the GameSir G8 Galileo. It costs $79.99, adds full-sized, Hall effect, physical thumbsticks, comfortable ergonomic grips, and larger triggers, and runs on your existing iPhone or Android device. I've been uncertain about a lot of things in 2025, but one thing I do know is that the Ayaneo Pocket Play will not cost $80.

There is a market for the integrated device. Anyone against carrying around an extra controller to the extent that they'd rather spend the big bucks to keep everything in one device is going to be delighted by the news. We'll have to see the specs to make sure the Pocket Play is going to deliver on their dream, though.

Ayaneo hasn't announced what's going on inside its device, but considering it's likely going to have to squeeze its internals down to accommodate that whole second control panel, it may not live up to the performance prowess of the RedMagic 11 Pro or Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro. If it does, it's going to cost a hell of a lot more than Nubia's $699 MSRP. If it yields, you're getting all bark and no bite. All the controls and none of the power.

We'll have to wait and see what Ayaneo does with its Pocket Play idea. The phone/gaming handheld is due to launch on Kickstarter in the coming months, where I hope my concerns will be alleviated. In the meantime, I'm keeping my PSP and my iPhone very much separated.

I'm also rounding up all the best gaming tablets and the best gaming laptops for more portable play, or check out the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories for something more Ninty flavored.