“Pokemon Go is a real game-changer.”
Those were the words of the very observant Sony CEO Kaz Hirai, when asked about the future of gaming.
Speaking to the Financial Times at the IFA consumers electronics show in Berlin, Hirai made mention that Pokemon Go’s success could see Sony dip their toe back in mobile gaming.
“Pokemon Go is a real game-changer. I’m very interested in the fact that it has the potential to really change the way people move, literally,” he said.
“[Augmented reality is a] great innovative idea that’s going to lift all boats for the video game industry.”
Sony have previously tried muscling into the handheld market with the PSP and PSP Vita, and once tried releasing mobile games with their new Xperia mobile. All previous attempts however, only received limited success; on the whole, if you wanted to play games on the move, you needed a Nintendo system to do so.
But it seems like Sony aren’t going to give up on mobile gaming. As Gamasutra reports, the CEO continued to talk up Sony’s want to gain a foothold in the mobile market, although admitted the Japanese company had their work cut out.
“[Mobile gaming] is something we are aggressively getting into, [but] it’s quite a shift from being just a console-based business to being on mobile phones as well,” he explained.
It appears Sony’s new plan of action will work much like Nintendo’s – instead of releasing a new handheld console, the gaming company will look to produce well made mobile apps based on existing Sony franchises.
Or as they put it, Sony’s new mobile division FrontWorks will “leverage the intellectual property of the numerous PlayStation dedicated software titles.”
Could this mean we one day get mobile Crash Bandicoot? One can only hope.
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