So, eight months after first reporting that games giant Sony is actively developing the unicorn PlayStation or PSP phone, The Wall Street Journal has confirmation from the horse’s mouth. Almost.

During a recent interview, Sony Ericsson’s CEO Bert Nordberg fanned the PlayStation Phone flames once more, responding to continued speculation by saying, “there’s a lot of smoke, and I tell you there must be a fire somewhere.

“Sony has an extremely strong offering in the gaming market, and that’s very interesting.”

Resistance is futile

Sony has historically been reluctant to lend its venerable PlayStation brand to Ericsson-powered handsets. On the subject of the company's enduring resistance to the concept, Nordberg hinted that intransigence may be a thing of the past:

"I haven't dug into that history, but the future might be brighter."

According to the WSJ, another person familiar with the matter has backed up earlier claims by Engadget that the PlayStation Phone will run Google’s Android operating system, though its suggestion that the handset will carry the Xperia moniker seems less credible.

Mobile World Congress unveiling?

As for when the PlayStation Phone may land in consumers’ hands, don’t rule out the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next February as the launch venue, for Nordberg wants to make a lot of 'noise' at the event.

Adding further fuel to the blaze, Sony Ericsson’s CEO played down any technological difficulty in bringing such a gaming-oriented device to market, bemoaning only the inevitable legal wrangling with game publishers over rights.

Luckily for Nordberg, his parent company is rather au fait with these types of dealings, adding, "I'm very glad that we work with a company like Sony, who actually knows how to do it.”

Whether the oft-rumoured Sony Ericsson-powered PlayStation Phone ends up looking like the handset photographed below remains, of course, to be seen...perhaps on February 14th, 2011.