Google’s Android platform could put further pressure on Apple with the announcement that Sony Ericsson are to launch a playstation-themed, gaming-orientated phone.

Android’s stratospheric rise in popularity has come despite its perception as being on the geekier and functional side of things rather than necessarily being built for fun. Though the Android marketplace is quickly expanding, gaming has never been Android’s strong point.

This is gradually changing though, and with many developers apparently shying away from Apple in favour of Android due to the more flexible and open-source nature of their software, the choice of casual and more complex games on the Android marketplace is rapidly growing.

And now it is emerging that Sony Ericsson are in the late stages of developing a gaming-based smartphone that will run on a new Android 3.0 platform.

The gaming aspect is a new platform in itself within the Android framework, utilised by a handset said to be not unlike the PSP Go handheld device, complete with slide-out gaming controls rather than the usual QWERTY keyboard on a landscape handset. There’s also said to be a ‘long touch pad’ for control, along with standard PSP buttons and shoulder buttons.

The Nokia N-Gage attempted this same mix of gaming and telephony before, but was a massive disappointment and a epic failure for Nokia. With the advances made in smartphone technology since then though, the gaming aspect of the Sony Ericsson Playstation phone will not be a huge technological jump from what is currently available.

The phone itself is expected to have specs comparable with the current cream of the crop of smartphone with a display of between 3.7 and 4.1 inches with WVGA or better resolution, a 5-megapixel (or better) camera and a 1GHz Snapdragon processor.

With recent news reports suggesting that many people’s favoured gaming platform is their iPad or iPhone, it only makes sense that Android are seeking to narrow the gap between themselves and Apple.