Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Offering Its Users Many Choices

Even though games have been available on mobile phones way back to the days of Snake on monochrome Nokia handsets in the 1990s, mobile phone gaming has never been a niche that has been properly explored. There was the Nokia N-gage which had a go in 2003 but it wasn't until the release of the iPhone in 2007 and the subsequent touchscreen revolution that mobile gaming really got the impetus it needed.

With the Apple App Store and Android Market there has been an explosion in the number of smaller developers producing interesting games for smartphones. The increasing popularity of these games, which often hark back to the early days of video games in their simplistic yet highly addictive gameplay, has led the more traditional console giants such as Sony and Microsoft to bring their knowledge to the mobile arena.

As both companies already have a presence in the mobile phone market this will be easy for them to achieve in a way that it perhaps won't be for Nintendo. The end of 2010 saw Microsoft release Xbox LIVE support on all of its new Windows Phone 7 handsets in an attempt to win support for the new touchscreen OS. Now is the turn of Sony, producer of the Xbox's main competitor the PlayStation, who are introducing their game franchise to their partnership with Swedish phone giant Ericsson.

The Xperia Play, also known as the PlayStation Phone, has a major advantage over its Xbox rivals. While the Xbox console is hugely popular the Xbox enabled phones are not designed specifically for gaming and so their Xbox titles are limited to touchscreen games only. The Xperia Play on the other hand has the benefit of coming with a PSP control pad which means that it can enjoy a range of gaming titles reminiscent of those found on the popular handheld gaming console.

The control pad is reveal through a sliding design where you would expect to find a QWERTY keyboard, and its presence signifies that this game is dedicated to gaming, unlike its main Windows Phone 7 Xbox rivals. Even though there is such amazing support for games there Xperia Play still performs well as an excellent Android smartphone and as such functionality is still provided via the fully touch sensitive screen.

Like most other Android smartphones the Xperia Play comes with excellent messaging options including threaded SMS, email, instant messaging and social networking support as well as featuring 3G and Wi-Fi for internet access whenever you need it. There is access to Android Market and the Xperia Play comes with great support for all forms of music and video entertainment online and offline.

The Xperia Play provides the same great smartphone functionality as all other phones within the Sony Ericsson Xperia range and would be a perfect phone even for people not interest in playing games. The PSP control pad and Android OS give the Xperia Play a real edge over their Xbox rivals and make the smartphone certainly the phone of choice for all serious gamers in the world, of which there are many. While this is the first PlayStation phone it certainly won't be the last and you can expect many more game titles to be released for it in the coming months to complement the scores of titles already available. You'll find the most effective mobile offers for Xperia Play deals from cheap phones web sites like Best Mobile Contracts.