In an effort to push their presence in the expansive world of mobile gaming, Sony has announced that they will start rolling out mobile versions of some of their popular PlayStation titles in the coming year. These will include smartphone version of Playstation games like Everbody’s Golf, PaRappa the Rapper, and Arc The Lad. The new mobile games will be released initially in Japan and will be made available in other Asian countries eventually.
Sony’s decision may be indicative of the company rolling up their sleeves to enter into the mobile market competition alongside rival gaming company Nintendo, who began their foray into the rapidlygrowing industry after the Wii U console failed to secure a place in the market. But while Sony’s PlayStation 4 sales have surpassed the success of the Microsoft’s Xbox One in the past years, the company is facing the brunt of stiff competition from Japan, a country where mobile gaming claims more than half of the huge market, according to Reuters.
The move to venture into mobile gaming with titles that PlayStation users are already familiar with may prove to be a beneficial one for Sony. Mobile games, when successful with users, usually generate a significant amount of revenue by way of in-app purchases and payable downloads. However, analysts are wary about the company’s chances to score big with mobile gamers, as the games they are adopting for the platform are notones that haveseen lasting success.“Even if those mobile games successfully attract users, the same franchises cannot be played on current PlayStation consoles. There will be little synergy between mobile and console gaming within Sony,” says Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute.
However, this was not the only announcement that Sony made today. The company unveiled Project Field that introduces a new way to play card games. The new endeavour involves a specially designed pad and playing cards that can be connected to smartphones via Bluetooth. Project developerKazuyuki Sakamoto said in a statement, “We believe this is a brand new platform that will allow for a playing style that has not existed up until now. To sum up the concept in a few words, we want to add a digital spice to the experience of touching an analogue thing.”
