What we’ve learned about Sony PlayStation’s new smartphone games team

Sony needs 20 p.c of recent video games to be on smartphones by 2025, and final August it introduced a brand new PlayStation Studios Cellular Division to assist make that occur. However you need to know that what Sony’s constructing doesn’t seem like a brand new recreation studio that may produce its personal video games, nor, say, a strategy to port Sony’s greatest video games to telephones the best way they’re getting ported to PC.

17 present and former job postings counsel that PlayStation Studios Cellular is extra of a cross-functional administration, technique, licensing, and help group.

They determine what PlayStation mental property would finest match a cell phone, assist dish out that licensed IP to inside and exterior recreation studios alike, oversee the titles, ensure that the ultimate video games stay as much as Sony’s expectations — and possibly make investments and even purchase exterior builders if there’s strategic worth in it.

Right here’s the outline for a Senior Exterior Producer function, for instance:

Be an envoy for PlayStation, collaborating with prime cellular recreation builders in evaluating, producing and releasing PlayStation Studios Cellular video games on the highest degree of high quality, on time and on price range.

And plenty of roles ask potential staff to have a “confirmed observe report” with free-to-play video games particularly. I’ve solely seen one recreation designer function to this point, and its major duty is: “Help recreation design for inside initiatives and supply session for initiatives with exterior companions on cellular F2P methods, economic system administration and retention options.”

Leaning on exterior studios wouldn’t be stunning: it’s a components that’s labored for Sony up to now. Many lauded first-party and third-party video games have come out of Sony’s PlayStation Studios (previously Sony Interactive Leisure Worldwide Studios), even when Sony did briefly attempt to faux the model was solely about its personal first-party exclusives when the PS5 first launched.

Moreover, that is the third time Sony’s tried to get smartphone gaming off the bottom, following its failed PlayStation Cellular platform and its WayForward studio that’s solely produced two video games (All people’s Golf and Disgaea RPG) particularly for the Japanese market. (Sony was additionally making ready to deliver its PlayStation Now cloud gaming service to telephones, I found in 2021, however let’s not depend that since Sony by no means introduced it.)

A number of the postings describe the group as a “small however shortly rising group” the place staff will “put on many hats and contribute to the nascent tradition for cellular recreation design at PlayStation Studios whereas championing the efforts throughout the corporate.”

The job postings do make it appear to be there’s actual curiosity in tapping Sony’s inside studios to provide the video games, too, ought to these efforts be championed efficiently. The corporate’s head of cellular product describes his job as together with each externally and internally developed titles:

Chargeable for supply of PlayStation Studios high quality cellular titles, together with internally developed inside current & acquired studios and externally developed by way of licensing, co-development and co-publishing partnerships.

Most present roles are for product managers and exterior producers in San Mateo and Amsterdam; the corporate’s additionally hiring a Director of Cellular Engineering and a product technique analyst. Beforehand, Sony additionally went on the lookout for a finance supervisor, administrators of cellular product administration, enterprise improvement and studio operations, and a Korean translator in Amsterdam.

In accordance with their LinkedIn pages, Sony’s hires presently seem to incorporate:

• Nicola Sebastiani as head of cellular; she previously was head of content material for Apple Arcade
• Olivier Courtemanche as head of cellular product; he was previously director of product for Zynga and briefly head of content material for Meta’s Horizon. Amusingly, Sony seems to have constructed the function particularly for him:

• Kris Davis as head of cellular enterprise improvement; he spent seven years doing that job for Kabam
• Uyen Uyen Ton Nu as head of cellular advertising and marketing; she spent eight years doing that for Tremendous Evil Megacorp (that studio, by the best way, is engaged on a challenge for Netflix’s cellular video games lineup)
• Justin Kubiak in licensing; he was former VP of cellular publishing at NCSoft and beforehand head of video games partnerships for Samsung

We’re undoubtedly desirous to see what they give you. Sony has beforehand mentioned that Savage Recreation Studios, the primary group that PlayStation acquired to provide cellular video games, already has “a brand new unannounced AAA cellular stay service motion recreation” within the works. Their job postings present they’re on the lookout for expertise with the Unreal Engine.

Nintendo additionally not too long ago stood up a brand new firm with companion DeNA (co-developer of Tremendous Mario Run, Fireplace Emblem Heroes, and so on) to doubtlessly produce extra cellular video games. And like Sony, Netflix additionally leans on exterior companions for its personal cellular titles, although it’s additionally taken the Apple Arcade technique of bundling video games you beforehand had to purchase into its paid subscription.