Here's When You Can Expect To See Sony's First Mobile Games

Sony has recently released the PlayStation VR, and they have the PS4 Pro on the horizon, too. The company is dabbling in various markets outside traditional console gaming, and they're planning on adding mobile games to the list.

According to a brief report by Nikkei, Sony has plans on releasing five mobile games for smartphones by late March 2018. The idea is to get the games up and out in the Asian territories, including Japan and likely China.

They don't mention what games they will be making, but they will be working with ForwardWorks for distribution and Sony Interactive Entertainment will have subsidiary studios working on games based on popular PlayStation brands. Out of the five games, some of them will apparently be based on older properties from the classics that appeared on the PSX, PS2 and PS3 that are not available on PlayStation Now.

It's possible we could see the revival of series that have been long dormant such as Syphon Filter or the SOCOM series. Then again, given that they're aiming the release of these games toward an Asian crowd across certain tech-savvy parts of Asia first, it's likely that we may see games that have typically appealed to the Eastern audiences first. This could include mobile revivals of games like ICO, Indigo Prophecy or the Tenchu series, the last of which has had many fans asking for a sequel, spin-off or remaster.

There's also plenty of Vanillaware titles that could likely make the cut for smartphones, such as Odin Sphere or Dragon's Crown. Other games that were popular back on the old PSX and PS2 systems included stuff like Wild Arms and the Ar Tonelico series, which might end up being highly appreciated on smartphones. Then again, we could see remasters or classics from the Shin Megami Tensei or even the God of War series also make a leap over to smartphones.

We do already know that Square Enix will be releasing some new games from their classic franchises on smartphones, but they say they will be picky about their selections; focusing more on high-quality JRPGs and adventure games, rather than trying to cash-in on the match-3 craze or other generic mobile genres that have become over-saturated.

Nintendo and Sega have already dipped their toes into the mobile pond, giving gamers titles like Miitomo and Sonic Runners to play on their smartphones. Most notably has been Pokemon Go, which has become a multi-million dollar profit stream for Niantic Labs, The Pokemon Company and Nintendo.

It's unclear right now if Sony will pursue something ambitious like Nintendo did with Pokemon Go, or if they'll play it safe with a standard touchscreen iteration of a popular franchise, but Nikkei is reporting that there are plans to announce some of these new games by the end of the year.

The only major console manufacturer who hasn't jumped in on mobile gaming yet is Microsoft. Then again, they've been struggling recently to get their hardware and branding back on track, they might pursue the mobile route like Sony and Nintendo once things start looking up for them again.