Summary
- Ayaneo is preparing a gaming smartphone with a sliding design, inspired by the Xperia Play.
- The teaser for the device was released on October 31, 2025, but contains little information.
- The Xperia Play design patent expired on June 21, 2025, allowing the creation of new devices with a similar form factor.
The Chinese brand Ayaneo published a teaser of its first gaming smartphone, and it could bring back the design of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, with physical controls that are hidden under the screen, on a sliding platform.
For now, there is little information about the device — the teaser published by Ayaneo on Friday (10/31) only shows very dark images. Even so, this is not the first time that the company has mentioned this device.
In August 2025, during a live broadcast, the company announced its plans for the 2025-2026 biennium. They include a smartphone, which was presented with the slogan “The magic lives in the swipes”, which would be an allusion to the device’s format.
Ayaneo is a company specializing in portable computers and mini PCs for games — and it wouldn’t be the first time it has been inspired by a well-known design to create a new product. On its website, there are devices that resemble the Nintendo DS, the Game Boy and the first Apple computers.
What was it like or Xperia Play?
Launched in 2011, during the time of the partnership between manufacturers Sony and Ericsson, the Xperia Play had a sliding format, which revealed a control similar to that of the PlayStation line, with a directional pad, two touch-sensitive areas and four main buttons.
The Xperia Play had a 1 GHz Snapdragon chip and Adreno 205 GPU to run Android 2.3 Gingerbread and games such as Crash Bandicoot, Madden NFL 11 and Tetris. Even so, the experience was limited: the games did not have the expected quality and, even so, the hardware was not enough to deliver good performance.
Despite this, the model still arouses some nostalgia, especially thinking about the potential of the format and what possible later generations, with more powerful chips, could achieve.
Ayaneo is not the only brand with an eye on this audience. The Anbernic brand launched the RG Slide, with the same format with sliders. This is not a coincidence: the Xperia Play design patent expired on June 21, 2025.
With information from 9to5Google
Source: https://tecnoblog.net/noticias/lembra-do-xperia-play-formato-pode-voltar-15-anos-depois/
