Just in time for the holidays, the idea of a Playstation-branded mobile phone has come back to light with a new prototype image that has apparently surfaced.
Engadget has posted a picture of what it claims is a prototype of a Sony Ericsson phone running Google’s Android operating system. When folded up, it looks pretty much like a normal phone. However, when slid open, instead of a typical Qwerty keypad like most phones, there’s a very familiar looking layout of buttons.
It looks almost identical to a PSPgo system with directional arrow keys to the left, and the iconic Playstation buttons on the right. In the middle is a touch-sensitive pad for mouse-like controls.
Sony hasn’t made an official comment on whether or not it plans to make such a device, but Engadget claims to know it would run on Android 3.0, have 512 Mb of RAM and 1 Gb of ROM.
If it uses Android 3.0, that would mean early 2011 would be the soonest it could possibly be coming out. The current version of Android is 2.2, and there will be a 2.3 to hit first before Google makes the major leap to 3.0.
Playstation and Sony Ericsson have already linked together in previous handsets. There are a handful of Sony Ericsson phones that have PS3 “Remote Play” functionality built-in, allowing users to remotely connect to their PS3 console and check in with friends, watch locally-stored videos, and adjust system settings. However, it cannot play any PS3 games.
