14 DAY TRIAL // Today, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Japanese-Swedish mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson officially announced the launch of Xperia PLAY, a new Android smartphone that includes a brand new gaming experience that any user would like.
Just as previously rumored, this Android 2.3 Gingerbread-based phone becomes a gaming powerhouse through a slide out game pad with a digital D pad, two analogue touch pads, two shoulder buttons and the four PlayStation icons: circle, cross, square and triangle.
According to the company, the new smartphone would be the first PlayStation Certified device, which means that its users would enjoy access to PlayStation game content via the PlayStation Suite initiative, which is in development at the moment and will be launched later this year.
“Living up to our vision of Communication Entertainment, Xperia PLAY will forever change the way people think about smartphones and mobile gaming,” Rikko Sakaguchi, Executive Vice President and Chief Creation Officer at Sony Ericsson commented.
The handset offers all of the features that any other Android-based smartphone from Sony Ericsson delivers, such as a large 4-inch touchscreen display, web browsing, social networking features, and support for various applications available in the Android Market.
The specifications list of this device also includes a 1 GHz Scorpion ARMv7 processor and embedded Adreno GPU graphics processor, a 5 megapixel camera, 400 MB of internal memory and a microSD memory card slot with support for up to 32 GB of additional storage space (an 8GB card included).
The Xperia PLAY also comes with support for 3G networks, Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Hotspot functionality, Bluetooth, DLNA, 3.5 mm audio jack, aGPS and support for a wide range of Google Mobile services. The handset measures 119 x 62 x 16 mm and weighs in at 175 grams.
At launch, the phone would enjoy a ecosystem of games, such as EA’s Need For Speed, Sims 3, GLU Mobile/Activision's Guitar Hero, Gameloft’s Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell, and more.
“Xperia PLAY and PlayStation Certified gaming are great examples of the kind of innovation that’s possible in the open Android ecosystem,” said Andy Rubin, Vice President of Engineering at Google.
The smartphone would also arrive on shelves with a pre-loaded application aimed at discovering and downloading games developed specifically for it, or for accessing recently played games and see information about the already downloaded games.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY is set to become available for purchase in select markets starting with March 2011.
Note: Fellow editors Cosmin Vasile and Alex Vochin are on the floor at the 2011 Mobile World Congress and are keeping us posted with pictures and live reports on the latest product previews and launches.
