Sony launches PlayStation phone at mobile congress

Telecommunications giant Sony has launched the long-awaited PlayStation phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, in a move that highlights how gaming has transformed the mobile market.

The Xperia Play works as a normal smartphone but can slide out to reveal control pads and buttons for running games -50 of which will be available at launch. The gadget is a companion to the new PlayStation Portable device, the NGP.

“Xperia Play will be much better than Nokia’s old N-Gage,” Sony Ericsson chief executive Bert Nordberg told Dow Jones late last week.

“Since N-Gage was launched, technology has improved a lot and that will make gaming much more fun. For example, chipsets and graphics are much better now.”

The Xperia Play will run on Android software, which will allow users to access a wide network of apps.

But given the limited popularity of the PlayStation portable devices, it remains to be seen how successful the Xperia Play will be.