Atlanta – Sony Ericsson used a
Super Bowl commercial to announce its intentions to offer a combination Android
smartphone and portable game player called the Xperia Play, which features
slide-from-the-side game controller.
The commercial also put in an appearance on
the company’s
, where consumers could see a picture of the phone with a direction pad
on the left and PlayStation-like control buttons on the right: circle, X, triangle and square.
Details of the product and
availability will be announced Feb. 13 during the Mobile World Congress wireless
trade show in Barcelona, Spain.
The phone will likely leverage
PlayStation Suite (PS Suite) software, recently announced by Sony Computer
Entertainment (SCE), to bring “PlayStation quality” game play to Android
2.3-and-higher-based portable devices. The PS Suite will enable the playing of
select PlayStation games.
SCE also said it would launch a
PlayStation Certified license program for hardware manufacturers to ensure a
consistent level of PlayStation quality across various devices. SCE also plans
to open a PlayStation Store, where users will be able to download content,
directly to Android-based portable devices.
SCE
expects to offer the first PS Suite software during the current calendar year,
starting with original PlayStation One classic games. PS Suite game will also
be playable on SCE’s planned NGP (Next Generation Portable), a dedicated
portable game player due sometime this year at pricing that wasn’t announced.
