Sony has revealed it is experimenting with bringing some of its games and IPs to mobile to complement its triple-A titles.
PlayStation really added to its arsenal when it comes to exclusives and new IPs during the PS4 era. The expansion of God of War and the additions of The Last of Us and Marvel's Spider-Man were really just the tip of the iceberg. It has already signaled its intent to expand on that area even further since the PS5 launched six months ago.
Returnal has joined a long list of PlayStation exclusives, Rift Apart will build on Ratchet and Clank's rich history next month, and later this week a Horizon Forbidden West state of play will take place. This gen might see PlayStation bring those worlds to a new platform. Not a rival console, but the most used gaming platform in the world today.
During Sony's latest corporate strategy meeting, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan revealed the idea of its franchises coming to mobile is currently being explored. "Mobile is just one of the areas we are exploring to reach millions of gamers beyond our platforms," Ryan revealed. "PlayStation has a huge catalog of diverse first-party IP that can transition to smartphone gaming and complement our triple-A games or live service games."
Ryan doesn't mention which games might be getting the mobile treatment in the future, but it sounds promising. A Ratchet and Clank mobile game would certainly be a hit, and a franchise like Little Big Planet almost feels like it was made with an eventual move over to mobile in mind. Considering the amount of money there is to be made in the mobile gaming market right now, it's surprising PlayStation hasn't done this already.
The sticking point may have been PlayStation's guarded mentality when it comes to its platform and its games. It was revealed during the Epic vs. Apple lawsuit that PlayStation is the only platform that charges studios to enable cross-play. It has shown it is capable of easing up in that department, though. Kratos was added to Fortnite earlier this year which can be played on every platform apart from mobile, and PlayStation Studios title MLB: The Show 21 was added to Xbox Game Pass.