The general public may not know it yet, unlike the regular reader of Gamekult, for example, but Sony Interactive Entertainment has been gathering the necessary elements for the deployment of its licenses on iOS and Android devices for quite some time. This after accelerating the presence of its home exclusives on PC.
According to its strategic presentation last May, Sony Interactive Entertainment intended to focus on partnerships and co-development with external studios already specialized and recognized in mobile. But the best way to ensure that the mobile versions of PlayStation licenses are treated with respect is still to welcome studios within it. This is why the group is announcing today the acquisition of its very first studio dedicated to mobile games.
Founded in 2020 by Michail Katkoff, Nadjim Adjir and Michael McManus, Savage Game Studios has offices in Berlin and Helsinki. The founders of the studio, who have worked in Wargaming, Rockstar Games, Insomniac Games and Supercell, among others, explain that they were seduced by the prospect of being able to tap into the catalog of PlayStation franchises and benefit from the group’s assistance. Savage Game Studios is already working on a AAA action game, but we won’t know right away what license this game is based on. live-service.
PlayStation Studios Mobile Division, it’s official
By this acquisition, Sony is in any case sending a first clear message to the public concerning its intentions to make a place for itself on the mobile market, which implies once again reassuring console purists as to the fact that they will not be abandoned and that Sony is not going to abandon the kind of productions that have made it successful over the years and especially during the PS4 generation.
“We’ve assured you before when we planned to release some games on PC, and we’ll say it again today: our activities beyond the world of consoles in no way diminish our dedication to the PlayStation community, nor our passion for creating exceptional single-player narrative experiences“, therefore insists Hermen Hulst, the boss of PlayStation studios. “Savage Game Studios is integrating a new division of PlayStation Studios dedicated to mobile games, which will operate independently of our console development department. This new division will focus on creating innovative mobile experiences based on current and upcoming PlayStation franchises.“
I’m thrilled to welcome Savage Game Studios. They join a new independent PlayStation Studios Mobile Division whose mission is to reach even more new players around the world. Michail and his team are already working on something great; I can’t wait until they can show you. https://t.co/61HpPOmFvs
—Hermen Hulst (@hermenhulst) August 29, 2022
“It’s been an amazing year for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 games, with releases of major titles like Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, MLB The Show 22, plus the long-awaited God of War Ragnarok on November 9th. PlayStation VR2 is also on the horizon, promising a technological gap in terms of presence and immersion, which will be reinforced by exceptional games like Horizon: Call of the Mountain. Additionally, we’re proud of our upcoming PC releases, including Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which will give gamers without a PlayStation console a taste of our catalog of great games developed. internally“, he adds.
Remember that in July 2020, Sony Interactive Entertainment had gotten hold of its mobile director in the person of Nicola Sebastiani, a big recruit from Apple where he had been in charge of content for the Apple Arcade subscription since January 2018. This year, SIE notably recruited Kris Davis, who has just spent seven years at Kabam as head of business development, and Olivier Courtemanche, mobile product manager who spent 2 years at Disney and 6 years at Zynga.
As announced last May, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s determination to become a multi-platform publisher is such that its revenue estimates first party by March 2026 look like this: 53% for PS5, 28% for PC and 19% for mobile. As dizzying as it may seem, Sony therefore thinks that the console will only represent a little more than half of its total game sales before the end of this generation.