There's a growing trend of 'gaming' phones, should Sony resurrect the Xperia Play brand?

First there was the Razer Phone, one from a legendary gaming hardware giant, then today Xiaomi's fresh new sub-brand Black Shark hit us with its first affordable gaming phone, which is just the latest in the growing trend of such niche devices. There is an apparent market for these out there, and we surely appreciate that the Black Shark is not only a great gaming device, but also the cheapest (and the sole) Snapdragon 845-equipped phone with 4000mAh battery out there, yet there was one OG gaming phone maker that should take notice.

Yes, we are talking about Sony here, which is struggling to differentiate in the sea of Android handsets. The latest Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact are mighty fine pieces, but don't really have that defining feature that would make people pick them before, say, the popular Galaxy S-line, given their pricing range. You see where we are going with this, but did you know Sony was a pioneer in this market with the Xperia Play, way back in the single-core chipset times? 

While it did have its fair share of issues with memory and performance, as can be expected from a phone in those years, it came with the famous PlayStation brand reference, and was immediately recognizable via its slide-out gamepad controller half that immediately reminded you of the PS console, not to mention the huge amount of popular gaming titles Sony has under its belt. Hey, watch us even play C&D on this phone way back when, with the screen fully available to marvel at those awesome blocky graphics! 

With the big screens of today, and the screeching graphics performance of modern chipsets, an Xperia Play successor might finally take Sony out of its second Android tier, and catapult it into an instant hit among those who clamor for gaming phones. Heck, even the slide-out keyboard could be a better idea than the half-baked gamepad that Xiaomi concocted for the Black Shark, what do you think?