Sony’s new PlayStation Studios Mobile team is making spin-off games for your phone

As part of Sony’s push into mobile gaming, the company has formed a PlayStation Studios Mobile Division that will operate separately from console game development. According to a press releasethe new team will create mobile games using “new and existing PlayStation IP”.

Sony’s move to form a mobile games division aligns with the company’s overall goal of extending its IP to PC and mobile games, as well as TV series and movies. Earlier this year, Sony announced it aims to have half of its games on PC and mobile by 2025, with Sony Interactive Entertainment president Jim Ryan saying this could result in “significant growth in the number of people playing our games.” . The company is also looking to expand into live service games – games like Fortnite, Rocket Leagueor Lot 2 that are constantly being updated to keep players interested – with the Bungie acquisition for $3.6 billion.

Image: Sony

To help flesh out its new mobile division, Sony has also acquired Savage Game Studios, whose co-founders previously worked at Zynga, Insomniac, and Wargaming. Looks like the studio hasn’t launched any games yet, but it received $4.4 million in funding for a mobile shooting game last year. The press release expands on this a bit, noting that the studio is currently working on “an unannounced new AAA live service action game,” but offers no additional details on what to expect.

Hermen Hulst, the head of PlayStation Studios, the company said “proud” of its “upcoming releases on PC”, which should give gamers without a Playstation console a chance to play games like Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection and Marvel’s Spider-Man. “Our mobile gaming efforts will be similarly additive, giving more people more ways to interact with our content,” he said, “and striving to reach new audiences unfamiliar with PlayStation and our games.”

More major game companies are looking to bring their games to mobile, a tactic that has proven profitable for some studios thus far. In June, data from Sensor Tower showed: that the mobile version of Genshin impact brought in $154 million in gross revenue, with PUBG mobile and pokemom go close behind. Take-Two took advantage of the mobile market with its January acquisition of Zynga, while Activision plans to Call of Duty Warzone also to mobile.