Return to August 29, 2022. Sony Interactive Entertainment then announces the acquisition of Savage Game Studios, at the same time coming out to the public: yes, PlayStation will spend resources in the hope of finding a place on the mobile market, in addition to more and more PC ports each year. Failing to unveil its first project for PlayStation, Savage Game Studios today announced its name change to Neon Koi. “ After reflecting on our values, our mission and the incredible growth we have experienced, we decided to adopt a new identity that better aligns with our vision for the future. Neon Koi represents our culture and the passions of our game project “, we can read. Based in Helsinki and Berlin, the studio’s mission is to produce “ action games with epic stories » without knowing if he necessarily has to draw on PlayStation licenses. This change of identity comes in any case following the departure of general director and co-founder Michail Katkoff.
The difficult diversification
The first signals revealing PlayStation’s intentions in mobile appeared in July 2021, with the recruitment of a big name like Nicola Sebastiani, former content director of Apple Arcade, named vice president of mobile at PlayStation Studios. The latter, however, left his post last June. On his LinkedIn profile, Sebastiani mentions having had the time to build the foundations of the business, the team and the partnerships.
One thing is certain, it is not only with games services that PlayStation is behind on its plans. During his strategic presentation in May 2022, Jim Ryan estimated that mobile would represent 10% of PlayStation’s turnover at the end of March 2023. However, it will have escaped no one’s attention that the year is coming to an end and that Sony Interactive Entertainment has not announced any projects on iOS and Android, whether at Neon Koi, at another internal studio or through a partnership with a third-party studio.
On page 27 of the May 2023 strategic presentation, this time we can see that the first iOS and Android games are finally supposed to be released and generate money by March 2024. Whether this goal is still relevant or no, the manufacturer’s plans to expand its audience are definitely taking a long time to materialize.