Sony Has Hired the Former Lead of Apple Arcade for PlayStation’s Mobile Ports

Sony has hired Apple Arcade's former boss to lead its push for bringing PlayStation IPs to smartphones. Nicola Sebastiani, who had worked at Apple's games division for over 8 years, which later turned into Apple Arcade, has confirmed his new position on his LinkedIn profile as Vice President and Head of Mobile at PlayStation Studios. Sebastiani was hired back in July for the new role.

Sony has been looking to expand its IP in the mobile space for quite some time, and a recent company document confirmed the same with PlayStation boss Jim Ryan noting:

"We have been thinking about how players enjoy our content, and have had some early success with experimenting with mobile games and apps to provide more choice to gamers. More specifically, he points out that PlayStation’s roster of first-party IP "can transition to smartphone gaming and complement our AAA games or live service games”.

Ryan has been outspoken about his intentions to bring PlayStation's exclusive IPs to more platforms, which started with PC ports of Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone. Recently, Ryan also stated that he was frustrated with the limited amount of audiences PlayStation can reach via its consoles, which is something that can expand with mobile and PC.

"We're talking about games stacking up against music, we're talking about games stacking up against movies," he said in a recent interview with GamesIndustry. "Music and movies, they can be enjoyed by almost limitless audiences. And I think some of the art that our studios are making is some of the finest entertainment that has been made anywhere in the world. And to kind-of gate the audience for the wonderful art, wonderful entertainment that our studios are making... to gate the audience for that at 20 or 30 million frustrates me. I would love to see a world where hundreds of millions of people can enjoy those games."

While PlayStation will continue to bring its unique IPs to PC, now more frequently than ever, it'll be interesting to see what the company's plans for mobile looks like. We don't expect Sony to make direct ports of its existing games for mobile, so perhaps it's possible that PlayStation mobile games will be relegated to spinoffs or tie-in games to generate interest in its more premium offerings on console.

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