Sony is jumping into the mobile games business, the company announced this week, and will be launching a new studio in April to design games featuring well-known PlayStation franchises and characters.
Next month, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. will restructure and rebrand itself, bringing all of its PlayStation-affiliated brands and properties from around the globe together under the banner of Sony Interactive Entertainment. As part of that restructuring, Sony will open ForwardWorks Corporation, a new development studio based in Tokyo. The latest addition to the Sony family will begin normal operations on April 1 and Sony says ForwardWorks will “leverage the intellectual property of the numerous PlayStation® dedicated software titles and its gaming characters...to provide gaming [applications].”
Unfortunately for those hoping to see their favorite PlayStation games/characters make the jump to iOS or Android, Sony’s latest mobile initiative won’t focus on Western markets. While things could always change in the future, the publisher says ForwardWorks will focus on creating content for smart devices in Japan and Asia. In fact, there’s absolutely no mention of Europe or North America in the press release announcing the creation of ForwardWorks. That said, if one of the studio’s new mobile games were to find a large audience in Japan and/or Asia, it’s hard to imagine Sony not at least trying its luck in the West.
