Expansion Plans Aplenty

PlayStation on Mobile: a Calculated, Necessary Risk

Brand power does not impress consumers all by itself, Sony should be extra careful

Sony’s plan to enter the mobile gaming market in a more coherent manner than before is simple to understand… and not nearly as simple to execute as it might seem at first. (Image: Sony)

Sometimes the most interesting stuff is hidden in the most boring of places and that is exactly what seems to have happened with Sony these past two days: the Japanese giant called its annual corporate strategy meeting in order for its leadership to give investors an overview of where the company is heading… and the information just casually mentioned within that presentation was worth more than ten press releases of the typical kind. Among other things, we learned that Uncharted 4 is coming to PC, that Sony is planning to introduce virtual opponents or companion characters in PlayStation games by leveraging the company’s artificial intelligence department, as well as that the PS5 is about to break even (already!), an achievement of some note.

Most important of all: we got confirmation, maybe in the most decisive way yet, that Sony wants to finally have a significant presence in the mobile space using PlayStation intellectual properties.

It is not the first time, of course, that the Japanese company has expressed this ambition. Sony had formed a company called ForwardWorks all the way back in 2016, in fact…