Sony has made an agreement to acquire Savage Game Studios—with the hope of innovating PlayStation’s mobile gaming division.
Sony’s PlayStation Studios has developed so many great games and has been recently acquiring more video game studios in the past year. The latest update came from the Head of PlayStation Studios, Harmen Hulst, in a PlayStation Blog about how the console gaming giant would be acquiring Savage Game Studios. He explained that “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.”
While this relatively “young” game studio does not have any major mobile game titles released as a company, each major staff member brings a lot of experiences. Savage Game Studios was formed in 2020 and co-founded by polished mobile gaming developers: Michail Katkoff (Rovio, Zynga), Nadjim Adjir (Wargaming, Rovio) and Michael McManus (Wargaming, Insomniac).
It appears that Hulst was trying to explain to the players that Sony’s focus on mobile gaming would not be interrupted with the work on their other major new and upcoming titles such as Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, MLB The Show 22, and on November 9th, the highly anticipated God of War: Ragnarok.
“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 continued. It seems like the new mobile gaming studio will be heavily in charge of how Sony and PlayStation Studios will be entering a new audience base in mobile gaming.
The blog post teased how Savage Game Studios are already currently working on an “unannounced AAA mobile live service action game” but it was too early to reveal anything with any real substance. Back in a business meeting in May, SIE president, Jim Ryan talked about how Sony was pushing beyond the boundaries of console gaming and into 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 stated at the May meeting. The PlayStation blog even detailed how this was a major year for the company as they were able to allow PC gamers to experience PlayStation exclusive games like Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection and Marvel’s Spider-Man.
