Sony Unveils 'ForwardWorks,' Aimed to Build PlayStation Games for Smartphones
Sony Corporation is planning to take on the ever-growing market for smartphone gaming by unveiling ForwardWorks Corporation; a Tokyo-based subsidiary that is scheduled to open on the first day of April to afford new services to the smart device market. The announcement officially confirmed previous rumors that the Japanese company seeks to develop PlayStation software titles for Android and iOS-based gadgets and devices.
According to Wired, the new gaming development studio is to be headed by Atsushi Morita while the company's president and group CEO, Andrew House, will be playing a major role.
Asia and Japan, for now
Furthermore, the announcement also said that the new releases will only be for Japan and Asia, at least for now, though there is no definite timetable or current plans of expanding the program to the rest of the world.
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Whether or not ForwardWorks will succeed in toppling competition is still a big question that game developers at Sony will have to answer. The fact is this isn't the first time that Sony tried to get the lion's share in mobile gaming. Back in 2012, they launched a program similar to this and called it PlayStation Mobile. It was centered on a platform that paved the way for game developers to build games that could be played in Android smartphones as well as the PS Vita. There also was a marketplace for selling and downloading the games, called PlayStation Store. Unfortunately, the investment couldn't keep up with the rapid rise in popularity of its competition. Sony eventually decided to discontinue the program last year.
No one can blame Sony for coming up with another approach in mobile gaming, especially when one looks at how big the market is as of the moment. However, they certainly would need to address the issues that led to the failure of the previous program to avoid another one.
