Although leaked photographs of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play have been doing the rounds for months, Sony Ericsson only really acknowledged that it existed a few days ago.

Put simply, the Xperia Play is an Android smartphone with added PlayStation-style gaming controls.. Sony being one of the joint owners of the Sony Ericsson brand of course. Many people have been waiting for a device such as this since the foundation of the company in 2001, but it has taken some time for technology to catch up with the sort of requirements that are needed to deliver what they regard as satisfying mobile gaming experience.

The PlayStation style buttons on the Xperia Play are complemented by two analogue pads in the middle of the slide-out area that work as analogue joysticks. These additional controls give an immediately obvious advantage when playing a lot of games, compared to standard Android devices where the only input mechanism is the screen.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Sony Ericsson and Sony have worked hard with game developers to create games that will be exclusive to this device, and Sony Ericsson say that there will be 50 titles at launch, plus a remake of a classic PlayStation 1 game shipping with the handset. Of course, all standard Android games can be played on the Xperia Play, and many existing Android publishers will be enhancing their games to support “PlayStation certified” handsets such as this.. which could include phones from other manufacturers in the future.

If you look underneath the gaming features, the Xperia Play is a pretty standard high-end Android device, with a 4″ 854 x 480 pixel capacitive touchscreen display, 1GHz ARM7 CPU and Android 2.3, plus all the usual things like 3.5G support, WiFi and GPS. On the back is a standard 5.1 megapixel camera with autofocus and a camera light. An 8GB microSD card is included in the standard sales package. We’re slightly surprised to see that the Xperia Play lacks an HDMI port, which we would have thought to be very useful in a gaming phone.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Because this is an Android phone there are stacks of applications available for it, so the Xperia Play should be a very capable smartphone when you’re not playing games.. and the slider mechanism neatly hides the gaming controls away when not in use.

It’s a fairly heavy device at 175 grams, but it measures a pretty standard 119 x 62 x 16mm. Talktime on 3G is quoted as 6 hours 25 minutes with 17 days standby time, although we don’t know exactly how large the battery is in mAh.

Unusually for Sony Ericsson, this will be available in both a GSM model for carriers worldwide, plus a CDMA version available for the Verizon network in the US. Sony Ericsson say that the Xperia Play should start shipping from March and will be available in Black or White colour schemes.

We think that it is great to see Sony Ericsson coming up with something that thinks outside of the box. Of course, if you’re not a gamer then the Xperia Play is pretty pointless and you would be better off choosing another handset – but if you do like to play games on your mobile then this phone looks like a very attractive proposition.