The much-awaited Sony Ericsson Xperia™ PLAY rolls out nationwide on Friday, September 30 with a one-day store promo. Reservations are being accepted at Sony Ericsson Concept Shops and at the Sony Ericsson Philippines Facebook community (www.facebook.com/sonyericssonph), where buyers can indicate their names and the shops closest to them. The Xperia™ PLAY launches in Sony Ericsson shops in SM Cyberzones nationwide.

For registered buyers, the Xperia™ PLAY will be available on that day with a P2,000 discount off its regular price of P19,990. Buyers can avail of this Xperia smartphone at P17,990 only on September 30, and get freebies like a Sony Ericsson car charger, leather case and screen protector with their purchase. All units come with a one-year product warranty.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia™ PLAY will be locally released pre-loaded with six game titles, namely: Bruce Lee, Crash Bandicoot, FIFA 2010, Madden NFL 11, Star Battalion, and The SIMS 3. Content partners include Sony Computer Entertainment, Digital Chocolate, Digital Legends, Electronic Arts, Fishlabs, Gamehouse, Gameloft, Glu Mobile, Handy Games, Namco Bandai Networks, Polarbit, PopCap, Trendy Entertainment and Unity Technologies.

Currently, gamers can find over 400 Xperia™ PLAY games either from Android Market or the websites of the game publishers. Users will find these games optimized specifically for the Xperia™ PLAY’s unique keypad controls. More games are expected to be available in the coming months.

“The Xperia™ PLAY is first and foremost a smartphone, that has features and attributes from the Xperia™ portfolio and in addition, its superior and multi-player gaming capabilities will deliver a whole new experience to consumers,” said Dennis Manzano, Sony Ericsson General Manager.

In portrait mode, the Xperia™ PLAY offers all the benefits of the XperiaTM range of smartphones. It has a 5-megapixel camera with auto focus, geo-tagging, image stabilizer and photo light and video light. Video recording, video blogging and still images can be enjoyed over a brilliant 4” multi-touch screen. Great social networking features like Twitter and Facebook, plus other features like stereo speakers, Google Services, Sony Ericsson Music Player, and Track ID music recognition software add to its appeal.

The Xperia™ PLAY has a slide-out game pad that reveals a digital D pad, two analogue touch pads, two shoulder buttons and the four PlayStation icons: circle, cross, square and triangle. Qualcomm’s optimized Snapdragon processor with a 1Ghz CPU and embedded Adreno GPU graphics processor deliver smooth 60fps playback 3D mobile gaming and Web browsing with minimal power consumption so Xperia™ PLAY users can enjoy long hours of battery life and game time.

“XperiaTM PLAY brings a whole host of HD games, traditionally only available to consoles, to the mobile space. There is a board range of genres including action, racing, social, first person shooter, that address all consumer segments from the casual to the enthusiastic gamer. We expect the XperiaTM PLAY to be one of our top selling smartphones this holiday season,” Mr. Manzano predicts.

To register for the Sony Ericsson Xperia™ PLAY and find shop listings, join the Sony Ericsson PH community on Facebook (www.facebook.com/sonyericssonph).