Early last month at Apple’s iPhone 7 conference, Nintendo shocked everyone with the announcement that Mario would be coming to iOS devices for the very first time in a new game, Super Mario Run. Now, it seems that Sony’s PlayStation division, Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc., is also looking to start riding the wave of mobile gaming. With the help of SIE’s subsidiary company, ForwardWorks, Sony is looking to release “five or six” smartphone games by March 2018 for both iOS and Android devices.
While ambitious, Sony’s goal should not come as too much of a surprise. The creation of ForwardWorks was announced earlier this year in March specifically for the purpose of focusing on smartphone games. The CEO of Sony, Kaz Hirai, even spoke to the Financial Times about how the company wants to “aggressively tackle” mobile gaming following the huge success of Pokemon Go. There is no definitive timeline right now, but we do know these “five or six” titles will initially be released in Japan, followed by several more Asian countries. There also is no information on when (or if) these games will be available in the United States and Europe, as western countries are not currently a part of Sony’s plans.
ForwardWorks is actually Sony’s second attempt to break into the mobile gaming market. The first came from the PlayStation Vita with a project called, ‘PlayStation Mobile’, which allowed people to play games on their Vita and Android devices. This cross-platform project came to a complete end, however, in July 2015 when previously purchased content was no longer available for download. Vita bounced back for a moment with an incorporation of Remote Play, but still the sales continued to decline amongst other handheld consoles, namely from Nintendo.
Sony has not said which games they plan to bring to iOS and Android devices yet, but The Wall Street Journal has stated that possibilities include their largely anticipated title, The Last Guardian, and the classic Hot Shots Golf.
