File this story under “Unsurprising." A few months back, we wrote about Sony’s decision to bring full-fledged versions of Playstation IPs to mobile in an effort to grab a piece of the mobile revenue pie. In an interview with the Financial Times, Sony chief executive, Kaz Hirai, reiterated Sony’s desire to push “aggressively" into mobile gaming, but this time around tied that desire directly to the success of Pokemon GO (Free). He called Pokemon GO a “real game-changer," especially the way “it has the potential to really change the way people move, literally." He called AR a “great innovative idea that’s going to lift all boats for the video game industry" and, of course, stated that Sony will also be looking at adding AR capabilities to the company’s games.
As I said at the beginning of this story, Sony’s reaction to Pokemon GO is not surprising at all given that Pokemon GO has made crazy money and also the fact that the Japanese spend more on mobile games per capita than any other nation in the world. So, now I’m really curious to see what ForwardWorks, Sony’s mobile studio, will release and whether it will be influenced by the mechanics of Pokemon GO. Regardless, this is all good news for mobile gamers.
[via The Financial Times]