Sony teases Xperia gaming gear cooling system cutting short hopes for a new Xperia Play or PlayStation portable

Sony has an incredible amount of goodwill among smartphone and gaming enthusiasts, thanks to its excellent Xperia and PlayStation lines. So, it’s no surprise that when the company suddenly springs a product announcement video onto the world, there is a lot of excitement about what could be coming. This new clip from Sony reveals that an Xperia product “made for pro gamers and streamers” is going to be unveiled on September 12 at 13:00 Japan time (midnight ET, 05:00 BST, 06:00 CEST).

There’s even a quick shot of a gamer indulging in an intense bout of play while holding a mysterious Xperia smartphone in their hands, and, of course, this built up even more hopes that something like a PlayStation Vita 2 or new Xperia gaming smartphone was incoming. However, a lack of leaks, which would be untypical for such a major device launch, aroused some initial suspicion, and with some digging around it was soon discovered what the Sony “smartphone” actually is: A gaming gear cooling system for the Xperia 1 IV.

It appears when Sony actually launched the Xperia 1 IV back in May and even revealed the peripheral in the official announcement video (about 21:20 minutes in), almost everybody forgot about it. But a Twitter user called Maestrotaku pointed out the cooling system, which was in testing phase back in May with a promise to deliver it in autumn, was the likely teased device. A closer look at one of the scenes in the latest announcement video also confirms that this is the Sony Xperia 1 IV’s gaming gear cooling system, designed to boost gaming performance and live streaming. Of course, this sadly means no PlayStation 5 portable and no Xperia Play 2 or gaming smartphone is coming just yet.

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