Sony Unveils its PlayStation Phone: Ericsson Xperia PLAY

We knew that a “PlayStation Phone” was en ruote, but now we finally have hard details of what to expect in terms of hardware and software. The first official phone to feature support for PlayStation-esque hardware is the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY, and hopefully if it takes off, we’ll see similar options from other mobile vendors as well.

Although the Xperia PLAY features a full gamepad (D-Pad + buttons), the phone is still super thin, at 16mm deep, and it’s modestly sized at 119mm x 62mm. It features a full capacitive screen which runs a 480×854 resolution, and similar to the PSP, you’ll be able to play PlayStation games on the go in beautiful 3D. Game time? About five-and-a-half hours. That’s nothing to truly brag about, but it is about twice as long as the PSP’s battery-life.

The phone will run on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), and all PlayStation games will be purchased via the Android marketplace. It looks like the phone will ship with some games bundled in, but 50 or so others will be available at launch. To help store all these games, the phone will support microSD cards of up to 32GB.

As a PlayStation Portable fan, the idea of this phone excites me, but there’s one area where I think Sony needs to vastly improve in order for this to take off: its pricing. Brand-new PSP games are not cheap, and even a $20 game is going to look unattractive to those who are used to paying no more than $10 for an iPhone game. It’ll be very interesting to see how Sony handles its launch, and to see if it will be quick to release “mini” games at very attractive prices.

Sony is also very excited about the buttons on the device, calling them “dedicated gaming controls for real console quality game play, including four-way directional keys, recognizable ABCD keys with PlayStation iconography, left/right shoulder keys, and two analog touch inputs for joystick action.”