Thanks to reverse engineering, freelance programmer Yifan Lu has made it possible for the Sony Ericsson play to run PlayStation games ripped from their original game discs and saved into custom ISO image files.

The ripped ISO image files can then be made to run on the Sony Ericsson Xperia play using its native emulator for the PlayStation One. Yifan Lu succeeded in reverse engineering the emulator and has even managed to run Crash Bandicoot 3 on the Xperia play–and with almost seamless performance at that. Here’s video proof:

The hack is already fully functional, according to the developer, except for functionality for multi-disc games. The developer is also reportedly still in the process of writing a Java-based, multiplatform graphical user interface (GUI) for converting ISO images to Android Package (APK) format.

Playing PlayStation games on the Sony Ericsson Xperia play using the native emulator presumably provides a smoother gaming experience compared to running the same games on a non-native emulator.

Assuming that no legal transgressions are being committed by playing such games using Yifan Lu’s solution, don’t you think it’s a great thing to be able to bring your old PlayStation games back to life on the Sony Ericsson Xperia play?