The Sony PlayStation Phone known as the Sony Ericson Xperia Play was just a rumor for a long time – ever since information about it was leaked out and even a full video tour of how the device works was posted online. During the 2011 Super Bowl, Sony Ericsson made it official by running a 60-second commercial. The President of Networked Products and Services Group at Sony Corporation Kazuo Hirai stated that he was “delighted to see Xperia PLAY as the first PlayStation Certified smartphone to hit the market. Xperia PLAY provides a unique consumer offering and is yet another example of great products and services coming to market that leverage Sony’s strong assets.”

The very first PlayStation Certified Android phone offers you amazing graphics, Wi-Fi connectivity, a refreshed user interface, superb sound and real console controls, delivering the ultimate smartphone gaming experience.

The Sony PlayStation Phone with a slide-out controller features dedicated gaming keys, an analogue touch joystick and two shoulder buttons. The 4 inch multi-touch screen is powered by a Snapdragon graphic processor. Sony Ericsson’s ‘gaming ambassador’ Jonas Berg announced that the Xperia Play controller was specially designed to free up the phone’s display for game viewing so players wouldn’t need to utilize the on-screen joypad. Multi-player gaming is also supported.

The Sony PlayStation Phone uses Gingerbread, the most recent version of Google’s Android platform. The device is the first Google Android handset to conform to Sony’s PlayStation certification scheme, which means that it has access to a wide range of classic PlayStation titles. In portrait mode, the phone offers a large number of benefits such as incredible entertainment experiences, great social networking features, a built-in digital camera with screen viewfinder, Google Voice Search and much more. But slide out the gaming control and you enter a whole new world of immersive mobile gaming. Xperia PLAY users can expect long-lasting battery life and game time – up to five hours and 35 minutes.

The smartphone offers support for all top game publishers. It comes with several preloaded games, with dozens of titles available for download from the Android Market. It supports the popular Unity games development platform, which has been extensively used by developers to achieve fast 3D visuals in handheld devices. The Sony PlayStation Phone also features video recording, stereo speakers, TrackID music recognition, Webkit web browser, conference calls capability, instant messaging, Google Mail and much more. As you can see this smartphone is an impressive device, perfect for immersive gaming and your busy lifestyle.