BARCELONA - Sony Ericsson on Sunday unveiled the Xperia Play, also known as the "PlayStation Phone," as well as two more new Xperia smartphones, the Xperia Neo and Xperia Pro.
The Xperia Play will launch in the U.S. in March on Verizon Wireless, Sony Ericsson said during a press event here at Mobile World Congress. Pricing was not announced, but a Sony Ericsson spokesman said later that the device will be priced in a fashion similar to other Xperia devices, though it will vary from country to country.
"Working with Sony Ericsson to build the world's first PlayStation Certified smartphone to the nation's most reliable network builds on our commitment to deliver the best mobile gaming and entertainment experience to our customers," Jeff Dietel, vice president of marketing for Verizon, said in a statement.
The Xperia Play features a 4-inch screen, a 5-megapixel camera and will run Google Gingerbread. It is the "first mobile device to deliver an immersive gaming experience," said Bert Nordberg, president of Sony Ericsson.
At launch, the Xperia Play will have 50 titles available, which will increase on a weekly basis, Sony said. That includes "Guitar Hero," "Assassin's Creed," "Battlefield," and "Dead Space." It will come pre-loaded with up to seven games to test your gaming skills, including "Asphalt Adrenaline 6," "Star Battalion," "The Sims 3," and "Tetris."
The device features 4-way directional buttons and AB keys for smartphone navigation as well as for multi-key gaming commands.
It is powered by a Snapdragon, 1-GHz CPU and the Adreno 205 graphical processor, optimized for advanced gaming and allowing 60 frames per second play-back. It comes with 8GB of available space, which can be increased to 32GB.
Late last month, Sony unveiled the PlayStation Suite, which will bring PlayStation content to Android phones. The Xperia Play is the first phone to feature PlayStation Suite, which will provide content through a PlayStation Network Store that Sony plans to launch by year's end.
Sony also promised social-networking components that will allow Sony Xperia users to play against one another.
There have been rumors about the "PlayStation phone" for months, but Sony was mum until a splashy Super Bowl ad confirmed its existence. "The smartphone with everything you need and the one thing you want," according to the tagline. The ad takes place in dark room off a back alley where a man appears to be operating on someone. He eventually starts to pull gauze off the patient's hands, and we see that he has attached thumbs to the green Google Android character. The Android makes his way to the street, thumbs attached, apparently ready to start gaming on the Android-based Xperia Play phone.
At CES this year, Sony Ericsson unveiled the Xperia Arc, a big (4.2-inch screen), slim (only 8.7mm) slab phone running Android 2.3 on a 1Ghz Qualcomm second-generation Snapdragon processor. Sony said that device will start shipping worldwide in March, but also added some new additions to the Xperia lineup - the Xperia Neo and Xperia Pro.
The Xperia Neo features an 8-megapixel camera, and a mobile Bravia engine, Sony executives said. As a result, Sony talked up the TV-related features, including HDMI access and support for HD video as well as the ability to use the Neo as a TV remote.
The Xperia Pro includes a slideout QWERTY keyboard, inspired by the company's X10 Mini Pro. The Xperia Pro includes a feature known as "smart keyboard," which will intuitively guess what application you want to use. If you're looking at e-mail, for example, and slide out your keyboard, the Pro will switch to a "reply" function.
The Xperia Neo and Pro will both run Android Gingerbread. Pricing was not announced.
Stay tuned for more hands-on images from Sunday's event.
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 8:30pm local time with additional specs on the Xperia Play.
