After finding troves of success bringing their biggest games to PC, it looks like PlayStation is looking to expand into the lucrative and ever-growing mobile gaming market next. The move is a logical next step for the company, even if they’re over a decade late to mobile’s steady overtake of the entire industry.
A new job listing on PlayStation’s website (first spotted by Tweaktown) reveals that the gaming company in looking to hire a “Mobile Platform Architect” to establish the company’s “platform for developing, publishing, and operating free-to-play mobile games.”
The person in this role would create the design and implementation of this platform, work with internal teams to connect mobile games to PlayStation services, and ensure that all mobile games meet PlayStation’s quality expectations.
The responsibilities that this candidate would take on include tracking “technical innovations, changes, and trends affecting mobile game development” and establishing “pipelines and processes to facilitate the delivery of high-quality software.” This suggests that the company isn’t just looking to significantly upgrade the PlayStation Mobile App experience, it’s preparing a full-on foray into mobile gaming in some capacity. PlayStation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While the listing was uploaded with little fanfare, it does make sense that PlayStation is considering all options for expanding its portion of the gaming market. While the PlayStation 5 has been outselling its direct competitor at Xbox, they are behind company projections by a few million. Roughly half of players on PlayStation’s online service are still playing games on the PlayStation 4.
The success of first-party games like Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima on Steam also suggests that the old model of sticking to the console market might not be as reliably profitable as it’s been in the past, especially juxtaposed to the rising costs of game development.
As of 2023, mobile gaming makes up nearly half of all gaming revenue globally. The near ubiquitous ownership of smartphones over the last 15 years have made the devices a universal entry point into the hobby regardless of age and access. It would be foolish to not try and capitalize on appealing to an entirely new, untapped audience.
PlayStation certainly wouldn’t be alone in this pivot. Earlier this month, Xbox President Sarah Bond announced that the company is working on a mobile gaming store that will launch in July. The library would include a wave of first-party games to start, like Minecraft and Candy Crush, and would be rolled out on all mobile devices around the world.
Xbox has been all in on mobile. Head of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer said that adding mobile game publisher King to their gaming portfolio was one of the key strategies behind the company’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Both companies have dabbled in leveraging the mobile market, but firmly on their own terms rather than offering traditional gaming software. Around the launch of the Xbox One in 2013, Microsoft heavily pushed their Xbox Smartglass app. The application was meant to be a second-screen companion for games and streaming apps, but has since become a way of managing their current slate of consoles on a smaller screen. Sony has also offered additional features via their mobile app, such as media tracking and remote play.
Strangely enough, Nintendo was ahead of both of their competitors in expanding into the mobile market. Despite downplaying mobile gaming’s growth in 2011, they’d start translating their beloved IP just five years later. Games like Super Mario Run, Miitomo and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Mario Kart Tour all found big success on Apple and Android devices. After just four years, however, the company decided to rollback their plans for mobile gaming.
With mobile gaming here to stay, it’s good to see some of the industry’s biggest players finally getting with the program. They’re coming to realize that it shouldn’t matter where customers are playing, only that they’re playing in the first place.
