PlayStation phone 'out by October' [Rumour]

[Shrygue]

via Computer and Video Games


We could see gaming and communicating beautifully merged in the form of a PlayStation phone as early as October, according to reports.

According to Engadget sources, Sony Ericcson is working on a phone using Google's Android platform for release this year.

A trademark for a Sony device labelled 'PlayView' - which sounds very phoney/gamey indeed - was unearthed by CVG in June and now there are more mumblings about a Sony cross between a Captivate phone and a PSPGo.

The exciting bit is that the phone will apparently include side-slider gaming controls instead of a QWERTY keyboard.

"The D-pad is here, but instead of the small joystick, the device will have what was described as a 'long touch pad' for analog controls, along with standard PSP buttons and shoulder buttons," according to Engadget.

Also attributed to the phone is a large display, between 3.7 and 4.1 inches with WVGA or better resolution, a 5 megapixel camera and a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU is "likely".

The phone is mostly black with some silver highlights, and the gamepad area is white / silver in color, claims the source.

The device will apparently be running Gingerbread (Android 3.0) and there will be a new section of the Android Market specifically for games.

Way back in May the words of Sony Australia boss Michael Ephraim suggested that the PSP2 will actually be a smart phone when he said, "The handheld space is very crowded, not just in the games category but also with smart phones and so on."

We've left SCEE a message.

[symbal]

I always found SE phones cheap plasticy tat but if this can at least run Ps1 i'll be willing to overlook that, it would be better to run Psp as well but not such a big loss for the handfull of decent games on it and having to charge it probably 6 times a day to use it.

[ICE]

Nervous about "long touchpad"..