The new independent division will "focus on innovative, on-the-go experiences based on new and existing PlayStation IP."
Sony has been looking at new ways to expand PlayStation’s horizons in recent years, from releasing some of its biggest games on PC to greenlighting major television and film adaptations of a number of franchises. The idea is to grow the brand and its audience, and another space that Sony has been eyeing as a way to do that is mobile gaming.
The company has spoken about expanding its presence in the mobile gaming space in recent years, and has now taken another significant step forward in that area. Alongside acquiring Savage Game Studios, Sony has also announced the establishment of a new PlayStation division, called the PlayStation Studios Mobile Division.
Writing in the PlayStation Blog announcement, PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst says that while the company will continue to focus on its console offerings and on delivering narrative-driven and single player experiences as it has in the past, its mobile gaming efforts will be “similarly additive.”
“As we assured you before with our plans to bring select titles to PC, our efforts beyond console in no way diminish our commitment to the PlayStation community, nor our passion to keep making amazing single-player, narrative-driven experiences,” he writes. “It’s been a tremendous year for games on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, with huge releases including Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, MLB The Show 22, and on November 9th, the highly anticipated God of War: Ragnarok. PlayStation VR2 is also on the horizon, and promises a huge leap forward in presence and immersion, bolstered by best-in-class software like Horizon: Call of the Mountain. We’re proud of our upcoming releases on PC as well, with Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection and Marvel’s Spider-Man giving gamers without PlayStation hardware a taste of our amazing library of first-party titles.
“Our mobile gaming efforts will be similarly additive, providing more ways for more people to engage with our content, and striving to reach new audiences unfamiliar with PlayStation and our games.”
Hulst explains that the newly-acquired Savage Game Studios will be part of the PlayStation Studios Mobile Division, which will be completely independent from what Sony is doing in the console space and will developer games “based on new and existing PlayStation IP”, which is something the company has spoken about in the past as well.
“Savage Game Studios is joining a newly created PlayStation Studios Mobile Division, which will operate independently from our console development and focus on innovative, on-the-go experiences based on new and existing PlayStation IP,” he says.
In October last year, Sony recruited Nicola Sebastiani, the former head of the App Store’s games business management at Apple, as its new head of PlayStation Mobile. Read more on that through here.