sony ericsson xperia: play
with a slide-out playstation-style gaming console, the sony ericsson xperia 'play', running android 2.3, is the first phone designed and certified for playstation gaming.
sony ericsson xperia ‘play’, the first smartphone certified for playstation
officially announced this week at mobile world congress 2011, the sony ericsson xperia ‘play‘ is the first phone designed and certified for integration with sony playstation.
in portrait mode, the device functions as a standard smartphone, running gingerbread (android 2.3) and with a 4″ capacitive touchscreen. beneath, a slide-out gaming control pad includes the classic four playstation icons, two touch pads, a directional pad, and two shoulder buttons, to immediately transform the phone into a mobile gaming system supporting both playstation network and android games.
front, profile, and three-quarters view of the unextended phone
the device will come preloaded with ‘crash bandicoot’, along with a few other classic games like ‘tetris’. unfortunately, however, ‘play’ is not backwards compatible with games already purchased from the playstation network.
close view of the prototype xperia ‘play’ image courtesy of daily mobile
the slide-out gaming control pad includes the classic four playstation icons, two touch pads, a directional pad, and two shoulder buttons image courtesy of daily mobile
additional hardware includes a 5.1-megapixel rear camera and 720-pixel HD video recorder with geo-tagging. while ‘play’ does not include an HDMI port, a docking station for the device can connect to HDMI monitors to provide a larger gaming screen.
the phone is wi-fi, bluetooth, and 3G (HSDPA) -ready, amid the standard google and android software features. ‘play’ reportedly offers up to five and a half hours of game play time, about eight hours of talk time, or over 400 hours of standby time on a single charge.
press photo of the phone in use
sony xperia ‘play’ is slated for a US release in april, with a possible european release predicted in march.
aaron duke, product manager of the xperia ‘play’, discusses the phone’s design and specifications
the company’s preview commercial depicts playstation games in play on the phone
