Mobile phone industry puts renewed focus on games

MOBILE MAKERS have unveiled their plans for the industry this year, ahead of a major exhibition in Spain.

After months of speculation, Sony Ericsson officially unveiled its new PlayStation phone in Barcelona to attendees of Mobile World Congress.

The Android-based Xperia Play handset is part of Sony’s bid to regain ground in the portable games market, an area that mobile phones and tablets, particularly those from Apple, have made inroads into in recent months.

Yesterday, the phone giant outlined how. The Xperia Play will launch with about 50 titles, Sony Ericsson promises. It will run on Gingerbread, the newest version of Android, and has a four-inch display, with controls similar to that of the regular PlayStation controller, although it features touch pads for controlling movement.

The mobile maker also showed off the Xperia Neo and Xperia Pro at the event. The phones both feature 1ghz processors, run on Gingerbread and have 3.7-inch screens, but the Pro handset has a physical keyboard.

Sony is also offering a new suite of software for Android phones known as PS Suite that would allow users to play a selection of Sony PlayStation games on Android handsets. That is set to launch sometime later this year.

Tablets are also set to feature at this year’s exhibition. Samsung unveiled the follow-up to its Android-powered tablet, Galaxy Tab 10.1. The dual-core tablet uses Google’s Honeycomb operating system, designed for tablets, and includes an 8MP main camera and 2MP front-facing camera.

“Consumers all over world are showing explosive interest in tablet devices,” Samsung’s Andrew Coughlin said.

The company also previewed its second Galaxy S handset, the Galaxy S II. The new phone will also include four hubs – reader hub, social, gaming and music – along with voice control.

Elsewhere, Nokia continued to answer questions about its plans. Chief executive Stephen Elop, who last week announced Nokia would team up with Microsoft to offer Windows Phone 7 on its smartphones, said the company was not abandoning its previous operating system and would continue shipping Symbian handsets.

The company is expected to unveil the successor to its N8 device, the N9, at the Mobile World Congress. The mobile technology exhibition begins today and runs until Thursday.