According to third-party online mobile phone retailer Wirefly, the recently confirmed Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Android gaming oriented smartphone will be launched on Verizon Wireless this year, after being confirmed for future sale by European carriers earlier this week.
What makes the confirmation stand out is that Sony Ericsson has not developed CDMA phones for sale in the US since the T608, released in 2003 in limited quantities on both Sprint and Verizon before Sony Ericsson ended all future US CDMA handset development after its release and gutted the US CDMA R&D team previously located at the venture’s former US base at Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.
With the Xperia Play being revealed for the first time in an official capacity this weekend at Mobile World Congress in Spain, the confirmation of a US version on Verizon Wireless would mark the first time since the saga of the T608 that Sony Ericsson has dedicated resources to developing a US CDMA version of a flagship handset. However, what is not known is whether the CDMA version was developed in Europe, the US or developed in Japan, as Sony Ericsson still maintains a CDMA R&D team for handset development with Japanese carrier KDDI, which also uses CDMA on a different frequency.
