Sony Ericsson adds its own Android Market channel, could help Xperia Play

If you're using a Sony Ericsson phone you'll soon be able to see apps built specially for your mobile in a separate section of the Android Market app store, the company says.

The Sony Ericsson section replaces the 'my apps' section in the Market. You'll still be able to get at your apps by tapping your phone's Menu button, but if you use it quite frequently, you might fight that placement annoying.

Another downside is that the channel's introduction will be operator-dependent, so while in theory the new feature is available from today, you'll probably have to wait for your network to get its rear in gear and enable it on their end.

Our first thought is this would be a better way to collect together games designed for the Xperia Play. One of our issues with the Play was it was more or less impossible to figure out which games had been designed to work with the phone's physical gaming controls. If this section could mark out games built for the Play, that would certainly help.

It wouldn't solve our other gripes with the Play -- that generally the game selection is weak and overpriced, and that the handset itself is very chunky -- but it would definitely go some way to improving the process of finding and downloading new titles.

We'll have to wait and see what Sony Ericsson makes of this new space. In the meantime, let us know what you think -- do you like to see manufacturers putting their stamp on the Android experience? Or did you like things just fine the way they were thankyouverymuch?