There’s no mention of mobile games at all in PlayStation’s latest investor deck – though there’s one sign of life for the games giant’s mobile division.
It appears to be making a mobile edition of MLB: The Show, and is currently hiring for a senior mobile product manager on the game. The role asks for applicants with experience in live ops, retention and monetisation.
Besides that, though, the ambitious vision for mobile it outlined in 2022 appears to have been effectively scrapped. There’s no mention of mobile at all in the 41 page strategy document Sony released last week, and in the slide about expansion and ‘evolving the PlayStation experience’, the firm only mentions PC, cloud, AI and its handheld Portal device.
Three years ago, PlayStation laid out its “aggressive growth plans” for mobile which included releasing 20% of its first party games on mobile by this financial year. To deliver that, it said it would be partnering with “respected, established and successful mobile developers” and continuing to build a “network of internal studios and projects” working in mobile.
Today, none of that has happened. PlayStation had hired a flurry of experienced mobile game execs throughout 2022, as well as acquiring mobile specialist Savage Game Studios for an undisclosed fee that summer.
It also signed a strategic partnership with NCsoft in November 2023 to work on new opportunities together, and specifically called out mobile in the announcement.
But there’s been very little else since. Also in November 2023, Savage Game Studios’ leadership departed, and it was renamed Neon Koi. Then, in October 2024, the studio was closed before it had chance to ship the “AAA mobile live service action game” it was working on.
“We need to be strategic in bringing our games to new platforms and recognize when our games fall short of meeting player expectations,” said PlayStation Studios boss Herman Hulst at the time. “While mobile remains a priority growth area for the Studio Business, we are in the very early stage of our mobile efforts.”
Hulst continued: “To achieve success in this area we need to concentrate on titles that are in-line with PlayStation Studios’ pedigree and have the potential to reach more players globally.”
Besides the as-yet unannounced MLB The Show Mobile referenced in the job ad above, there are no confirmed upcoming PlayStation mobile titles on its roadmap. The long-rumoured mobile edition of Destiny, subtitled Rising, has been positioned as a NetEase game, rather than a PlayStation one.
There have been leadership changes, too. Former Meta and Zynga exec Olivier Courtemanche was appointed PlayStation’s new head of mobile in November 2024, after sharing leadership duties with former Kabam exec Kris Davies, who has since moved on.
At the same time, PlayStation Studios promoted former Samsung, NCsoft, Scopely, Disney and EA exec Justin Kubiak to head of mobile business development and partnerships.
Davies and Courtemanche had taken over from former director of mobile Nicola Sebastiani, who left in June 2023 after two years at PlayStation.
A quick look at LinkedIn suggests fellow mobile leaders Aaron Yang (mobile business development and partnerships), Uyen Uyen Ton Nu (senior director and head of mobile marketing) and Amy Oka-Shek (strategic business planning) are also still in place at the platform holder.
Under new leadership since May 2024, PlayStation appears to have shifted to become rather more conservative. Its mobile ambitions, like its splashy plan to dominate live service games, seem to have departed with former boss Jim Ryan, who set out the plans in 2022 but announced his retirement in September 2023 before leaving in March 2024 after a handover period.
