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Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play game phone moves to Verizon

Sony Ericsson said today that its Xperia Play game phone will be available on Verizon Wireless starting May 19.

The new smartphone combines a standard smartphone with PlayStation controls for a better gaming experience than a typical smartphone would offer.

The Xperia Play uses the 2.3 Gingerbread version of Google’s Android operating system and comes preloaded with seven games. You can download more than 50 more games via Verizon’s VCAST apps. You can slide out the keyboard to use a game pad with a directional keypad, dual-analog touch joystick, two shoulder buttons and four PlayStation keys.

The phone is available for pre-order starting tomorrow and in stores on May 26. It costs $199 with a two-year service agreement. Sony Ericsson announced the phone in March, pledging to make a bunch of games available on it. Sony is also launching its NGP gaming device later.

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.