Well as the biggest fan of smartphones on this site (self proclaimed), nothing gets me more excited than seeing a patent like this!  Engadget just said that in 2010 Sony filed a patent for a Xperia Play smartphone that had both a full QWERTY keyboard, and a gamepad!  The device would let you slide out the keyboard, or the joystiq, from below the screen.  Who knows?  Maybe you could even use either for both?!?

QWERTY keyboards aren’t quite what they used to be.  I feel like they were almost used as a way to transition folk in to smartphones, but now that people have made the smooth transition it’s almost more of a option than a feature.  Still this would be a cool phone to see.  There’s no doubt there’d be a market for this phone, and I believe the market would be strong enough.  I think there’s a big future in cell phone gaming.  Maybe the Xperia Play’s not quite the answer… but it’s a head start over most companies, and that’s a good thing.  Sony could have the stranglehold on the handheld phone game market.  They just need to do it right!  I don’t think this step can hurt.

via Engadget