While there's been plenty of other videos and pictures of the phone, Sony has officially announced the Xperia Play at MWC. The phone's going to be released with Gingerbread, Android version 2.3, which is only out officially for the Nexus S right now. The device is a marriage of a phone with a mobile gaming device and from the videos below, it looks like you will be using the touchpad more to control the actions on the screen than the buttons. I guess this can take the place of an analog stick, but we'll see how well it really works once the device is in the hands of reviewers and consumers.
The one thing with me playing games on a phone is that I dislike covering up the screen with my thumbs. That's why I enjoyed playing games on the Touch Pro 2 more so than the Evo as the keyboard really helped out. That and the keyboard helped with more accurate controls in certain situations. With the Xperia Play, the dedicated gaming controls should be pretty cool for most games. I would miss the keyboard with many of the emulators I used though, but this device isn't aimed for that. For the folks in the US, Verizon will be carrying it in the Spring, but the phone comes out in March elsewhere. Check out the three videos released by Sony on the Xperia Play. Oh, and expect 50 titles to be available when it's launched.
