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Jim Ryan: Sony will start bringing ‘some iconic PlayStation IP’ to mobile this financial year

DaGwaphics

Member
This news isn't going to go over well with some people on here today.

Bill Hader Popcorn GIF by Saturday Night Live


[Edited to remove a joke in poor taste]
 
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GymWolf

Gold Member
How was it the slogan in the 90s?! Do not underestimate the power of how much jimbo can fuckup or some shit...
 

The Alien

Banned
Hmm. Thought Sony's games during this 'separate and defined generation' could only be accomplished with the speed & power of the SSD.

Guess they partnered with Microsoft to figure it out.
 

DrAspirino

Banned
Finally!

Mobile gaming is the biggest gaming market in the world. It'd be stupid of them to not to take a bit of that cake. Every single gaming company has a foot on that market. I just hope they do it well (like Nintendo).
 

fallingdove

Member
I really don't see why people are upset by this news.

- Mobile versions of popular Sony IPs means more money for console development. I'm not interested in playing mobile versions of these games but millions probably will be.
- 4+ year old games going to PC? I wanted to play the game when it first came out, I wasn't interested in waiting years to play. For PC gamers, they can enjoy some of the best games on console. I don't see who this is "hurting". For Sony, it's a smart move — not only does it drive revenue (i.e. greater cashflow for future console titles), it increases the likelihood that a PC only player purchases a playstation console for the eventual sequel.

As a Playstation owner, I am still offered exclusive experiences at a rate much higher than I am with my Switch, or I have been with Xbox. Nothing has changed, nothing to see here.
 
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longdi

Banned
jimbo is over his head wrt to 'iconic ps ip', especially for mobile.

you need new quirky games, not ps ip. they tried with psvita and psp.
 

fallingdove

Member
jimbo is over his head wrt to 'iconic ps ip', especially for mobile.

you need new quirky games, not ps ip. they tried with psvita and psp.

Errr, do you have any idea how extensive and varied Sony's IPs are.

You think that the Little Big Planet, LocoRoco, Patapon, Vib Ribbon, Jumping Flash, Parappa the Rappa/Umjammer Lammy, Puppeteer, or AstroBot IPs couldn't be used for a quirky mobile game. Even if they wanted to avoid quirkiness and use some of their bigger properties, I imagine a quickly thrown together, zombie oriented, Last of Us title would do very well if timed to launch with their upcoming multiplayer mode or the HBO series.

This isn't Sony's first foray into the mobile space, they are publishers for one of the most popular/profitable mobile titles in Japan with Fate/Grand Order. It's not a stretch for them to find success with this proposed strategy.
 

Holammer

Member
On a serious note, didn't they show off a bunch of mobile concepts years ago? (quick google), yes they did and they actually released them. I had no idea.
In my defense, I don't game on mobile and I still use a flip-up phone just to fuck with my friends.

 
Who's gonna be making them? A new studio? Small mobile dev teams? I know that they struck gold with some of the titles developed under the Sony Music banner the last few years...🤔
 

sainraja

Member
Are they going to pay to develop ports of PS4 games to mobile, or are they going to go the easier route of porting PS1 to maybe PS3 games to mobile? PS4 games already work with PS Now. I can see PS1 and PS2 games making sense for ports though. Mobile game ports probably being a trojan horse for PS Now subs (especially in Asia), with PC ports being a trojan horse for console sales.
Creating content and bring their IPs to mobile does not necessarily mean they will take content designed for consoles and port it to mobile. Sony has published mobile specific games (e.g. Uncharted Fortune Hunter & Sackboy Run) so it's not like they can't take existing IP and create something that suits the mobile platforms.
 

yurinka

Member
They have been working on bringing PS Now to mobile for a while, and mentioned it in many places and patents. I wonder if they will release it this year or not.
 

Calverz

Member
No wonder Sony want to expand. I think they found a cap for audience in PlayStation 4 generation and if the want to have more revenue they need things like.
- If player are not willing to buy PlayStation the need to go after them - hence PlayStation games on PC
- they need more live service games for continuous revenue stream
- they need to go after most profitable market - mobile

Nothing about that is surprising.
100% agree. I think a lot of the hardcore Sony fanboys are going to be unhappy at some of the decisions this gen.
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
They can do it with virtual buttons.
They can do that, but ideally they'd have to go in there and change the games a little. That would work better. Although personally, I think it's not the best of ideas. But I get it, mobile is huge, and Sony have to at least try something.
 

Heimdall_Xtreme

Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member

"JIM RYAN DISCUSSES THE COMPANY’S JOURNEY TO TAKE FIRST-PARTY IP OFF CONSOLE"

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) boss Jim Ryan has elaborated on the company’s plans to launch its major franchises on non-console platforms.

Speaking during a Q&A session as part of Sony’s investor relations day on Thursday, SIE’s president and CEO said the company intends to bring some of its “iconic IP” to mobile during its current business year ending in March 2022 (FY21), following its “very successful” first steps into the PC market.

“We are beginning our journey to take PlayStation first-party IP off console,” Ryan said. “We started last year by publishing two of our games on PC, Horizon Zero Dawn and Predator, and both were profitable, and really had a very successful publishing debut. We will continue that in FY21 and we will continue that beyond.

“In FY21 we will begin to publish some of our iconic PlayStation IP on mobile and we anticipate that in 2021, that will not provide a significant profit flow, but we do anticipate that as we learn from that experience, and as we increase the number of titles that we publish on mobile, the contribution from both PC and mobile will start to become steadily more important as time passes.”

A job advert spotted in April revealed that PlayStation was opening a new business unit to adapt its “most popular franchises” for mobile. The successful applicant would be responsible for developing a mobile product roadmap for a 3-5-year time frame, although when games would start coming to market wasn’t made clear.

In a slide presented by Ryan on Thursday, Sony cited research suggesting mobile gaming generated $121 billion worldwide in calendar year 2020, compared to $62 billion brought in by the console market and $42 billion generated by the PC gaming market.

Speaking at Sony’s corporate strategy meeting on Wednesday, ahead of the company’s investor relations day, Ryan said: “We have been thinking about how players enjoy our content and have had some early success with experimenting with mobile games and apps to provide more choice to gamers. Mobile is just one of the areas we are exploring to reach millions of gamers beyond our platforms.

“PlayStation has a huge catalogue of diverse first-party IP that can transition to smartphone gaming and complement our AAA games or live service games. We are exploring the mobile market with some wonderful PlayStation franchises so please stay tuned.”

Ryan’s presentation also revealed plans to make Uncharted 4 one of Sony’s next PC releases.

Sony claimed on Thursday that the standard PS5 model will break even beginning in June 2021 and confirmed that it intends to launch its PlayStation Direct online store in Europe in FY21.
GTFO Jim ryan

Bring me my Japan Studio again dumb ass
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
I think anyone of these big devs could bring high quality games to mobile devices, but because if consultants and “ market research “. They never will.
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Jesus no.

They're diluting the value of owning a ps5 so goddamn bad. Frankly it looks like they'd prefer to be a third party rather than have the burden of a console.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
Games like Parappa, Loco Rocco, Journey will work well on Mobile

Tacticial RPG’s actually would work just as well on a touch screen. One of the few genre’s that convert well onto mobile
 
I think it makes sense really.

There will be a portion of mobile gamers who will no doubt never buy a console. So, it makes sense for Sony (and for Microsoft for that matter) to go hunting for that revenue in the form of streaming and/or specific games.

But also for many of us, we all no doubt have a half decent phone/tablet with us as well. So it may add for a wider diversity in the types of games you can play at home and on the go.

I will remain cautiously optimistic though. The mobile gaming market is a particularly kind of someone, and direct transfers of games from console over and slapping a £20 or sometimes £30 price tag on it isn’t the best way forward In my opinion. I wonder if they will take advantage of Apple Arcade and alike?
 
No wonder Sony want to expand. I think they found a cap for audience in PlayStation 4 generation and if the want to have more revenue they need things like.
- If player are not willing to buy PlayStation the need to go after them - hence PlayStation games on PC
- they need more live service games for continuous revenue stream
- they need to go after most profitable market - mobile

Nothing about that is surprising.
I think that there is a risk management aspect to it as well, if the company was to fail because one or two of their consoles failed hard (Sony can't afford to go one generation without games like MS).
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
No wonder Sony want to expand. I think they found a cap for audience in PlayStation 4 generation and if the want to have more revenue they need things like.
- If player are not willing to buy PlayStation the need to go after them - hence PlayStation games on PC
- they need more live service games for continuous revenue stream
- they need to go after most profitable market - mobile

Nothing about that is surprising.
Game makers got lucky with digital. They bank more money through digital cuts from third parties and selling games direct at full pop. And endless mtx adding to the pot. Not too many industries out there selling the old way suddenly getting the opportunity to cut off all the Walmarts, Best Buys, Gamestops and Amazons who helped grow game sale sales over the decades. But Nintendo, Sony and MS have.

The old disc model was getting small royalty cuts per disc, and every first party sale got dinged whatever the 25% cut is EB or Best Buy sells it at.

These factors have boosted revenue and profits a ton vs. old gens.

However, the actual console unit base is no different than generations ago. You'd think with tons of gaming now, console sales should blow past PS1 at 100M (20 years ago) and PS2 at 150M (15 years ago).

PS4/Pro sold about 120-130M. The hardware sales havent really budged at all.

So the biggest opportunities for growth now (since is digital trend is already baked into growth models) is going after more distribution. And that's PC and mobile, and even Xbox The Show 21. They could had cut the cord and say no more baseball games to prevent Xbox getting The Show, but they agreed to it because they want growth. Steam has what 200 million gamers and how many active smartphone gamers are there? 500M to 1 billion?

As weird as it seems the biggest era for console sand handheld sales was the 360/PS3/Wii/DS era.
 
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