The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play has been missing a killer app, that one game that makes the phone more exciting than competing handsets. That has changed with the news that the Android version of the ultra-popular Minecraft will be coming to that handset first, as reported by Gamasutra, complete with an optimized experience for the hardware's PlayStation-style buttons.

It will be a timed exclusive, with versions coming for iOS devices and other Android handsets in the future. Today, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Perrson tweeted an image of the game running on the Xperia Play. "This is the project Aron [Nieminen] and Jens [Bergensten] are working on," he explained.

"When playing on smartphones you will have a different screen size compared to PC, different hardware, different attention spans and thus the game needs to be customized to fit the mobile specifications," the company said. Aron Niemimen has been working on these portable versions of the game for some time, and they will reportedly will follow the PC version's strategy of "release early and update often."

To illustrate how important this game will be in selling the Xperia Play, take a look at Sony Ericcson's invitation to its E3 event:

The level of demand for this phone suddenly became much higher. This was a smart move on Sony's part, and will go a long way to legitimizing the Xperia as a device that's serious about games.