Sony acquires a mobile studio while promising it won’t ‘diminish its commitment’ to players

Sony has announced the acquisition of a mobile game developer, marking the official start of its PlayStation Studios Mobile division.

In a post on the official PlayStation Blog, PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst welcomed German developer Savage Game Studios to the ‘PlayStation Studios family’, while also explaining mobile’s upcoming role in “expanding [its] community”.

Although Savage is a relatively new studio established in 2020, it was co-founded by veteran mobile developers Michail Katkoff (Rovio, Zynga), Nadjim Adjir (Wargaming, Rovio) and Michael McManus (Wargaming, Insomniac).

Hulst also seemingly attempted to pre-empt any negativity from players that would result in a mobile developer being added to the PlayStation Studios portfolio.

“As we assured you before with our plans to bring select titles to PC, our efforts beyond console in no way diminish our commitment to the PlayStation community, nor our passion to keep making amazing single-player, narrative-driven experiences,” Hulst reassured players.

“Our mobile gaming efforts will be similarly additive, providing more ways for more people to engage with our content, and striving to reach new audiences unfamiliar with PlayStation and our games.

“Savage Game Studios is joining a newly created PlayStation Studios Mobile Division, which will operate independently from our console development and focus on innovative, on-the-go experiences based on new and existing PlayStation IP.”

Hulst also revealed that Savage is “already working on a new unannounced AAA mobile live service action game”, adding: “It’s too early to reveal more, but I’m so excited for when they’ll be able to.”

Further reading

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

Jim Ryan discusses the company’s journey to take first-party IP off console

Sony has been expressing its desire to move further into mobile gaming for some time now. Speaking during a business briefing in May, SIE president Jim Ryan said the company expects half of its annual releases to be on PC and mobile by 2025.

“By expanding to PC and mobile, and it must be said… also to live services, we have the opportunity to move from a situation of being present in a very narrow segment of the overall gaming software market, to being present pretty much everywhere,” Ryan explained at the time.

Last year Sony also hired former Apple Arcade content boss Nicola Sebastiani, who is now VP head of mobile at PlayStation Studios.