Sony’s Most Iconic PlayStation Games Could Soon Be Coming to Your iPhone

As Apple’s iPhone and iPad begin to reach the point where they’re more powerful than a PS5, the biggest gaming companies are starting to realize that they’re going to have to move beyond consoles if they have any hope of even maintaining their market, much less growing it. Now, it looks like Sony may be one of the first to fully bow to this inevitable truth.

During its investor relations day this week, Sony’s PlayStation chief, Jim Ryan, revealed that the company already has plans in the works to bring some of its “iconic IP” to mobile this fiscal year — a timeframe that extends into March 2022.

As first reported by VGC, Ryan, who is president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), shared the comments during a Q&A session with investors, where he said that last year’s move to publish two of its console games on PC was just the first step in expanding its gaming franchise well beyond the PS5.

We are beginning our journey to take PlayStation first-party IP off console. 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.

Jim Ryan, President and CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment

Ryan went on to say that the next step is to “begin to publish some of our iconic PlayStation IP on mobile,” adding that he doesn’t expect Sony to see much profit from this during the first year. Instead, he notes that the company expects it to be a learning experience, and as the company makes adjustments to its off-console strategy and increases the number of titles on mobile, it will start contributing more significantly to its bottom line.

VGC also shared a Sony job posting last month looking for someone to head up a new business unit focused exclusively on mobile, with an aim to adapt the company’s “most popular franchises.”

You will lead all aspects of the expansion of our game development from consoles and PCs to mobile & Live Services with a focus on successfully adapting PlayStation’s most popular franchises for mobile.

Sony job listing

What This Means

Sony isn’t the first big game publisher to make a big splash on mobile. That distinction goes to Nintendo, with its release of Super Mario Run back in 2016 bringing its much-loved character to iOS for the very first time.

Unfortunately, Nintendo’s approach stopped short of what most of us were hoping for, since it chose to adapt its intellectual property to mobile-specific games, most of which embraced a money-grubbing freemium model.

While Nintendo seems to have some awareness of the error of its ways, it also hasn’t completely abandoned freemium gaming entirely, and we’re naturally left hoping that Sony isn’t going to take a page out of the same book.

The catch is that “adapting PlayStation’s most popular franchises for mobile,” can mean several things. “Adapting” isn’t the same as “porting” — Adobe “ported” Photoshop to the iPad, whereas Nintendo “adapted” Super Mario Brothers into Super Mario Run.

So, while we’re very optimistically hoping that we’ll actually see titles like Uncharted, God of War, and The Last of Us coming to the iPhone and iPad in their pure and unadulterated forms, we also won’t be all that surprised if what we get instead is “Uncharted Go”, “God of War Run”, and “The Last of Us World Tour.”

We’re also skeptical that Sony is going to be able to steer entirely clear of a freemium model. After all, they’re doing this for the money — in a slide presented by Ryan to investors, he pointed out Sony’s research revealing that mobile gaming brought in $121 billion worldwide in 2020, which was almost double the $62 billion generated by the console gaming market. Most of that $121 billion came from in-game purchases, and it’s a safe bet that Sony knows that.