Remember at the beginning of the year, rumors were flying around about Sony’s PlayStation Phone that was coming out. For months, faux pictures and countless rumors about the phone were spreading across the internet. Well, a couple months ago, Sony Ericsson  announced the phone and where is it?

It was released in Europe on April 1st, and was suppose to be released in Canada some time this month. What about the United States? Finally, we have a date. May 26th is when we will have the Xperia Play available through Verizon. You will need to have a data plan for the phone, but the cool thing is: the phone will only run you $200. Preorders begin Thursday through Verizon’s online store.

The phone, which has a PSP-like controller on the sliding panel, will come preloaded with seven game. Some of the games included are: Madden NFL 11 (EA Sports), Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior (Digital Legends), Asphalt 6: Adrenaline (Gameloft), The Sims 3 (EA), Star Battalion (Gameloft), Crash Bandicoot (Sony PlayStation), and Tetris (EA). A total of 50 games will be available for download at launch. That sounds pretty slick. To me, it seems like Sony is doing this one right.

The Xperia Play runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system and offers full access to more than 200,000 apps on the Android Market. It supports Adobe Flash Player and sports a 4-inch multi-touch display. Camera-wise, it is equipped with a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera for shooting and a VGA front-facing camera for video chat and self-portraits. The phone can be converted into a mobile hotspot that will support up to five devices, like most Android phones.

I have to admit that this phone sounds very sexy for the guy that wants a phone but wants to play more than Angry Birds. Whether this phone will succeed in the states will determine whether people will flock to get this phone, which I think should have come out instead of the PSP Go. We will monitor this closely to see how it sells.