We got a further glimpse of PlayStation’s entry into the mobile market last night as part of a Sony business briefing.
Here’s what’s in the slides presented to investors:
- 10% of first party PlayStation output will be on mobile in Sony’s FY22, which ends in March 2023
- 20% of its first party output will be on mobile in FY25, which ends in March 2026
- It is partnering with “respected, established and successful mobile developers” on those titles
- PlayStation is also building a “network of internal studios and projects”
- It will “publish external games that fit within the broader PlayStation Studios portfolio”
- PlayStation will also continue to hire “leadership talent from top mobile companies”
- 34% of new titles in FY22 will be new IP, rising to 50% by FY25 – inevitably, some of that will be mobile
We’ve already seen plenty of leadership talent move over to PlayStation’s growing mobile division, of course.
Former head of App Store business management and Apple Arcade head of content Nicola Sebastiani was appointed vice president and head of mobile at PlayStation Studios in July 2021.
And last month we revealed that Kabam veteran Kris Davies was appointed senior director and head of mobile business development, and former EA, Disney, Zynga and Facebook/Meta product manager Olivier Courtemanche was appointed head of mobile product at PlayStation Studios.
Former Gamevil, Glu and EA producer Elizabeth Dumbrique and EA/Chillingo veteran Chris Spencer also joined PlayStation’s mobile team in the last twelve months.
In comments transcribed by our friends at VGC, SIE president Jim Ryan reportedly said of its plans in mobile:
“We have been thinking about how players enjoy our content and have had some early success with experimenting with mobile games and apps to provide more choice to gamers. Mobile is just one of the areas we are exploring to reach millions of gamers beyond our platforms.”
“PlayStation has a huge catalogue of diverse first-party IP that can transition to smartphone gaming and complement our AAA games or live service games,” he continued. “We are exploring the mobile market with some wonderful PlayStation franchises so please stay tuned.”
PlayStation has, thus far, failed to really nail it in mobile. Its Lara Croft GO-like Uncharted game Fortune Hunter was pulled from stores after making just $88k, according to Sensor Tower data. Its mascot runner Run Sackboy Run is still present on the iOS App Store, but has not been updated for seven years.
Wipeout Rush, announced by Rogue Games and Amuzo back in September 2021, has quietly been renamed Wipeout Merge, and is currently in soft launch in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Thailand.
