Sony is making a comeback to mobile gaming and has bought an entire studio to reach a "new audience".
Now that the PSP and PS Vita have been (tragically) left by the wayside, Sony is looking at mobile for games on the go. It's also playing catch-up with Microsoft, which is better late than never. Microsoft lets gamers access and play their library as part of Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming so you can play on your tablet or smartphone, as well as PC or Xbox Series X.
PlayStation Studios Mobile Division is Sony's newly announced mobile gaming arm. And its first member is Savage Game Studios. Don’t worry; PlayStation isn’t shifting gears to focus solely on mobile games. Console gaming will still be Sony's forte. The company is simply expanding.
Mobile gaming going live
Head of PlayStation Studios, Hermen Hulst, says these new efforts will be “additive [by] providing more ways for more people to engage with [Sony's] content.” It’s a similar mindset to the PS5 games that made their way to PC, like Marvel’s Spider-Man. Such moves, by the way, seem to have paid off. God of War, for example, managed to sell over two million copies when it made the jump to desktop.
But unlike those ports, Sony plans to create brand new games for mobile with some titles being based on established PlayStation franchises. It’s confirmed that developers under the Mobile Division umbrella “will operate independently” from the console division, with Sony being fairly hands-off.
Savage Game Studios is a relatively new developer that was founded by a group of game industry veterans. Some of the team includes former staff from Rockstar, Rovio, and even the Sony-owned Insomniac Games.
It's first order of business is working on an a triple-A live service mobile action game, but that's the only tidbit Sony has shared for now.
