The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play has just been made official at Sony Ericsson’s press briefing on the eve of Mobile World Congress 2011. The Xperia play has been doing the rumour rounds on many of the tech blogs over the past few weeks and even featured on Sony Ericsson’s Facebook page, but this is the first time we have seen anything formal on the device that is set to bring gaming to the mobile mainstream. The release date for the Xperia Play is set to be April and will be available on 3.
With slide-out gaming controls that emulate the original platform’s controls and a huge back catalogue of games, this is quite possibly the most exciting gaming handset since Nokia released the N-Gage in 2003.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play will come preloaded with one “legendary” PS1 game, although Sony are remaining tight lipped about which one that will be. Watch this space though, because as soon as we know we’ll blog about it here. The Xperia Play will also link into the Sony’s playstation store that is due to launch later this year and there will be 50 titles available upon launch.
Here’s the full text of the press release:
Three has announced it will be ranging the much anticipated Sony Ericsson XPERIA play in April this year. The first certified PlayStation phone is a high-end Android Gingerbread handset that’s been designed specifically with gaming lovers in mind. Straight out of the box, people can enjoy the best-in-class gaming controller complete with D-pad, four symbol keys, right and left shoulder buttons and two analogue ‘touchpad’ joysticks.
Sporting a 4” capacitive touchscreen it’s well equipped to make the most of the six pre-loaded games and the 1GHz processor allow users to enjoy first-class graphics.
Sylvia Chind, Head of Branded Devices said, “At Three we’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Sony Ericsson XPERIA play. We believe this handset celebrates a further step change in the way in which consumers use data, merging mobile communications and entertainment. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA play is perfect for gamers but above all, it’s a top-of-the-range smartphone which is why we are so excited to be ranging it on our award winning* network.”
Key features:
- Gaming controller: D-pad, 4 symbol keys, shoulder buttons (R/L), 2 analog “touchpad” joysticks
- Powerful processor running at 1GHz and delivering 60frames/second for true-to-life games experience
- 3-axis accelerometer & e-compass
- PlayStation dashboard launcher
- Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
- Dimensions: 119x16x62
- 5 MP AF main camera
- Front facing VGA Camera
- WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
- 3.5mm audio jack
*Three is rated as the best network for speed, overall quality, ease of use and customer satisfaction by UK Smartphone customers (YouGov).