Xperia Play: ‘Professional gaming’ acquires a whole new spin

Xperia Play

Gone are the days when the word “gamer” referred only to high-school or college students who spent most of their free time or, in some cases, most of their school time, at Internet cafes or at home playing Resident Evil or the Sims.

Many of those kids have now left their classrooms. They are now bankers, lawyers, accountants, marketers and the like. But deep in their hearts, they will always be gamers.

Sony Ericsson’s new Google Android-powered Xperia Play was made for this market of hardcore gamers that also demanded more out of their smartphones.

The Xperia Play is the first Playstation-quality gaming smartphone in the market today.

“The Xperia Play is primarily an Android smartphone that will have widespread appeal to a number of consumer audiences including casual and enthusiastic gamer,” Sony Ericsson Philippines general manager Dennis Manzano said.

The company said today’s gamers were the young kids that grew up when the first generation Playstation was launched.

“The average gamer is about 30 years old and a product of the Playstation generation,” the company said.

Xperia Play targets that segment of users who want professional functionality and entertainment in one device.

The new phone offers a 5.1-megapixel camera with auto focus and geo tagging, Google services, a sound recorder, a noise shield and a Sony Ericsson music player. It also supports conference calls and document readers and editors.

To satisfy gamers, the new phone comes with a 4-inch high-definition screen. Behind it is a sturdy Playstation controller that slides down and fits comfortably in the hands of users.

The phone runs with a 1-gigahertz snapdragon processor and an Adreno 205 graphics processing unit for fast and seamless operations.

“The optimized snapdragon processor is designed for minimal power consumption so Xperia Play users can enjoy long hours of battery life and game time,” the company said.

According to Manzano, a pre-loaded application “will enable users to easily discover and download titles that have been optimized for game play on Xperia Play.”

Users will also be able to access recently played games and see information about games they have downloaded.

But the best part of the new Xperia, for many, is its price. At P19,000, the Play is easily one of the most affordable high-end smartphones in the market today.