Buggy Xperia Play delayed in Europe

Mobile customers wanting to get their game on with the unofficially dubbed “Playstation Phone” will have to wait a little longer.

The device was to be released this Friday in the UK, making it the first country to receive the anticipated gaming-centric smartphone. However, O2, set to be the exclusive carrier for the launch, said it “found some bugs in the software that, if they’re not fixed, means customers won’t have a great experience.”

As a result, Sony Ericsson will have to tweak the phone to correct the bugs found by O2. That won’t be possible by the end of the week.

The manufacturing part of the Xperia Play is finished, so fixing the built-in software won’t cause too much of a headache, hopefully.

Other parts of the world, as well as other carriers in the UK, haven’t received a launch date for the phone yet. However, a Sony Ericsson rep told us that it should be ready for the US in “early Q2.”

Over here, it’ll be offered exclusively through Verizon, a rare move for Sony Ericsson since most of its phones are designed for the GSM standard used by AT&T and T-Mobile.

Unfortunately, the Xperia Play doesn’t have 4G connectivity and runs on Android 2.2 instead of the current 2.3, and doesn’t offer online gaming over mobile data.

Nevertheless, with the classic look and feel of a Playstation controller, it should be the ultimate gamer phone when it does come out.