Sony Ericsson, a joint-venture between Ericsson and Sony, reportedly plans to release a PlayStation-branded phone featuring Android 3.0 operating system in the coming months or quarters. The phone has already been pictured presumably by outsiders of the company, so the plan seems to be solid.

The first ever PlayStation phone will resemble PSP Go portable game console, but will feature Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8655 system-on-chip clocked at 1.0GHz, 512MB of RAM, 1GB of ROM and so on, according to Engadget web-site. The smartphone that will reportedly be based on heavily customized version of Android 3.0 "Gingerbread" operating system will feature 3.7" - 4.1" screen similar to that of PSPgo.

It is obvious that hardware-wise the SE PlayStation phone will be more powerful than the PlayStation Portable itself, which turns six years old this year, but it is unclear whether it will be possible to  play games developed for the PSP on the SE PS smartphone. The new device is based on an ARM SoC, but it should be possible to emulate MIPS4000 architecture that powers PSP or even integrate a separate chip into the gadgetThe PlayStation phone does feature PlayStation set of buttons, which implies that it should support games developed for PSP. Still, once such a device gets released, sales of PSP Go will stagnate unless it will be significantly more affordable.

Sony does need a mainstream gaming platform to compete against games for Android and Apple. However, the company clearly does not need a platform that will directly rival its own PlayStation Portable.

Earlier executives for Sony claimed a number of times that the company would only release a PlayStation phone under its own trademark. Nonetheless, the times are changing fast these days and for the sake of truth it should be noted that the test version of the phone does not carry "PS" or "PlayStation" trademarks, only the company's proprietary PlayStation controls.

Sony and Sony Ericsson did not comment on the news-story.

Tags: Sony, Playstation, PSP, Sony Ericsson, Qualcomm, Snapdragon