Sony has been putting out portable PlayStation devices for a couple of years now, and it looks like the company’s next step will be a Sony Ericsson PlayStation smartphone. But while earlier devices ran a proprietary operating system, it looks like the new phone (aka ZEUS, Z1) will run Google Android 2.3 – with a dedicated PlayStation gaming app.
A few leaked videos of the phone have hit YouTube, and while we don’t have a good look at the gaming experience, we can clearly see that the phone looks like a typical Android slider, but instead of a slide-out keyboard it has a slide-out gaming pad which is kind of ugly, but appears functional. There’s also a PlayStation app which you can pull up to view a list of games.
It’s not clear whether games will be available for purchase through the Android Market or a third party store. But given some of the high quality games already available for Android, I suspect we’ll see some titles with killer graphics and decent gameplay soon enough, and the physical directional pad has got to be easier than the touch-based controls for 3D shooters, RPGs, and other mobile titles which often feel like they were designed for a gaming console rather than a touchscreen phone.