Launch of Playstation Studios Mobile to port Sony licenses to phones

The mobile gaming market is constantly evolving and there are many studios looking to get into it. This week, Sony is launching its new Playstation Studios Mobile division with 17 job openings spotted on LinkedIn by media outlet The Verge. Let's take a look at what this means for the future of Sony's license ports on Android and iOS phones.

Management of Android and iOS ports

The profiles sought for the launch of Playstation Studios Mobile are publicly available on LinkedIn. Therefore, it is easy to notice that the professionals sought will be primarily in charge of managing Sony's active and future mobile gaming projects and must have experience in launching free-to-play games with microtransactions.

This echoes Sony's announcement a few years ago that they would port all of their major licenses to mobile, 20% of which by 2025 according to their rectification last May. We're waiting to hear more about the next Sony licensed games to come to Android and iOS since the new in-house mobile gaming branch already brings together veterans from Zynga, Kabam Games, Netflix Games, Apple Arcade or even Super Evil Megacorp.

The future of Playstation Studios Mobile: Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted...

There are several possibilities for Playstation Studios Mobile after its launch and recruitment phase. First, Sony licenses like Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, and Uncharted could be entitled to a mobile version with unique content. This was for example the goal of Electronic Arts with Apex Legends Mobile and Battlefield Mobile which offered content independent of the original game on console and PC. However, this did not last as both games were shut down by EA. With the rise of crossplatform games, mmo's and fps on mobile, we can also expect Playstation Studios Mobile to face the choice to connect its future PS5 games to mobile games in crossplay.

None of these options have been confirmed yet by official announcements from Sony. However, a pure and simple port of existing Playstation games is not really on the agenda. We rather imagine that Sony will follow the same kind of path as Ubisoft did with Assassin's Creed Jade by offering complete adventure games on mobile and a big work on the phone gameplay.