Sony wants to reach billion people with mobile PlayStation games and subscriptions
Sony will deploy its PlayStation titles in the mobile games market and focus more on subscriptions such as PlayStation Plus. With this, the company wants to reach more people directly. Now the company reaches 160 million people, that should become one billion.
Sony wants to accelerate its investments in mobile games and online services to reach more people. The company gave some details about this in its annual strategy meeting. There are now 47.6 million PlayStation Plus subscribers. This is Sony’s largest community and therefore the most important service in the range, the company itself says.
Sony’s goal is to expand this community. This should be done, among other things, by the release of exclusive games, by strengthening relationships with developers and by investing in the development of own games.
The aim to reach one billion consumers directly must be realized in the next three years. It is one of the parts of a multi-year plan, into which Sony will invest 15 billion euros in the next three years, writes CNBC.
PlayStation Mobile Games
To reach more people, Sony wants to bring its PlayStation franchises to smartphones. The company says it has a large catalog of first-party titles that can be translated into smartphone gaming. Sony does not provide specific details, however. “We’re exploring the mobile market with some great PlayStation franchises,” the presentation said.
Sony has been working on mobile games for some time and has already released a successful title in Japan with Fate / Grand Order. This free-to-play game is based on an anime series and was released in 2015. By the end of 2019, the game had brought in $ 4 billion in sales. Sony has not yet achieved such success with mobile games based on PlayStation titles.
That Sony wants to focus strongly on mobile PlayStation games, was recently apparent from a vacancy in which Sony was looking for a Head of Mobile for its PlayStation Studios. In the strategic documents, the company now confirms the emphasis on the development of more smartphone games.
14.8 million PlayStation 5 consoles
In the fiscal year that started on April 1, Sony expects to be able to deliver 14.8 million PlayStation 5 consoles. This would bring the total number since its release to 22.6 million copies. That is slightly higher than the 22.5 million PlayStation 4 consoles shipped in the same period after release.
The number of consoles that Sony can supply is limited by the chip shortages. Sony stated earlier this month that it expects the PlayStation 5 to be poorly available in both 2021 and 2022. Even if the chip shortages decrease, Sony expects it to be difficult to catch up with demand.
PlayStation works with Sony AI
Sony also announces that the Sony AI business unit, founded last year, has started a partnership with PlayStation to “make gaming experiences even richer and more fun.” It uses reinforcement learning to make characters in games smarter. This concerns both virtual opponents and virtual fellow players.