Sony Ericsson Offers Xperia PLAY to Gamers

Sony Ericsson and Major League Gaming (MLG), the world’s leading professional video game league and provider of cross platform online videogame competition, have announced a partnership making Xperia PLAY the official mobile handset of Major League Gaming.

“Sony Ericsson is redefining mobile gaming with Xperia PLAY. It’s designed to give you everything you need from a fully featured smartphone and the one thing you want – the ultimate mobile gaming experience,” said Peter Farmer, head of Marketing for North America, Sony Ericsson. 

“We know that Major League Gaming’s community of gamers will put that gaming experience to the ultimate test and we’re looking forward to connecting with this highly engaged global community.”

In a similar mobile gaimg initiative, Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) has announced its next generation portable entertainment system (codename: NGP), which aims to deliver the portable entertainment experience. NGP will make its debut at the end of this year, 2011. (Read: Sony to Target Portable Gaming Market with NGP)

Sony is not the only company that is eyeing the portable gaming market. Interactive entertainment company Nintendo has also decided to offer portable entertainment in 3D – without the need for special glasses. The Nintendo 3DS system will be available in either Cosmo Black or Aqua Blue, and will have a suggested retail price of $249.99. (Read: How to Play 3D Games without Glasses)

MLG is the premier property for video gaming competition and is the exclusive sanctioning body for both competitive professional and amateur gaming competition.

It operates a rapidly growing digital platform with a community of approximately 8 million, as well as the multi-city Pro-Circuit tour.

The 8th season of the Pro Circuit will include competitions in six major U.S. cities and will be streamed live online. With more than $1 million in prizes and player stipends, this will be the largest season in MLG history, informs Sony Ericsson.

To showcase the capabilities of Xperia PLAY, each MLG Pro Circuit event will feature demonstrations, game challenges and giveaways, kicking off at the season opener on April 1 in Dallas.

Sony Ericsson will also sponsor MLG Pro Player Dave “Walshy” Walsh and MLG Coach Andy “JT Bravo” Dudynsky for the 2011 season. Later this year, Sony Ericsson will also sponsor a new video segment on MLG.tv highlighting must-have apps and games. 

“At MLG, we aim to showcase the latest technology that will benefit our community of gamers,” said Sundance DiGiovanni, CEO, MLG. “Xperia PLAY is an amazing smartphone and a stellar gaming device bringing the best mobile capabilities to our audience.” 

Xperia PLAY is powered by the latest version of the Android platform (Gingerbread version 2.3) and will also be the first PlayStation Certified smartphone.

This means it will have access to PlayStation game content provided through the PlayStation Suite initiative, currently under development by Sony Computer Entertainment and due to launch later this calendar year.

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In addition to the PlayStation content from the PlayStation suite framework there will be more than 50 games from various Android publishers optimized for Xperia PLAY available at launch.

Users will have a better gaming experience with many popular titles, including Asphalt Adrenaline 6, Bruce Lee, Star Battalion, The Sims 3 and Tetris.

Other leading franchises available at launch include, Guitar Hero, Assassin’s Creed, and Splinter Cell.

A pre-loaded application will enable users to discover and download titles that have been optimized for game play on the Xperia PLAY, access recently played games and see information about the games they have downloaded.

Photo courtesy: Sony Ericsson