PSP phone ad surfaces

The Xperia Play may not pack the same gaming punch as Sony's NGP, but it does address gamers' long-held desire for a mind-meld of the company's gaming and communication divisions. With Sony Ericsson's "PSP Phone" expected to be formally announced later this month at the Mobile World Congress, images and video of the in-development device have proliferated on the Internet. Now, those leaks appear to include the gaming phone's first commercial.

Norwegian enthusiast website Droidnytt has posted to YouTube what it claims to be Sony's first broadcast ad for Xperia Play, one that echoes Sony's notoriously creepy launch ads for the PlayStation 3.

The spot begins with a young man navigating an urban souk, seemingly in a rush, after nightfall. Prior to entering a dank alley, the man is shown to be wielding a pair of scissors. He then appears to enter an underworld medical center and meets up with a shady surgeon, whom he gives the scissors to. The surgeon then clips a strip of gauze, before the shot cuts to Google's robot Android OS mascot that has had human thumbs surgically attached.

The disturbing scenes thus concluded, the ad cuts to the Xperia Play, which features a touch screen, as well as a sliding keypad that houses Sony's traditional directional pad and face button layout. The device's screen also shows a trio of games, including a fighter, a racer, and a space combat title.

According to previous reports, the phone will likely run the Android 3.0 operating system and will run games specifically designed for it. Hardware-wise, it boasts a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 CPU, 512MB of RAM, 1GB of ROM, and a 3.7- to 4.1-inch screen. The device also sports the four iconic PlayStation buttons, start/select buttons, a D pad, shoulder buttons, and a touch pad with what appear to be two sensors.