Report: Sony’s ForwardWorks will release 5 mobile games by March 2018

Japanese paper Nikkei is claiming Sony’s ForwardWorks mobile game division will release five smartphone titles in 2018, launching before the end of the business year in March 2018.

The five games will be based on popular PlayStation franchises, and will launch first in Japan and other regions in Asia initially.

Sony ForwardWorks was founded to create apps and full games for mobile devices, specifically designed to leverage Sony’s popular brands to target gamers in Asia. It isn’t Sony’s first attempt at mobile development either, as PlayStation Mobile, a program started in 2012, aiming to bring original PlayStation console games to Sony’s range of phones, was shuttered last year.

Nikkei’s report suggests that these mobile titles could be linked to Sony’s console efforts, and suggest they could be announced officially by the end of the year, although there’s no information on which brands they’ll leverage. If it does link with Sony’s console brand, it’ll be able to work with the estimated 40m PlayStation 4’s currently in the wild.

Sony has a lot of successful IP’s, but several, like Crash Bandicoot and Wipeout will no doubt be included in the speculation as fans start to clamour for further information.

This comes shortly after Nintendo have taken their own run at the mobile business, with Miitomo, a mobile-only social network, launched earlier this year and it recently announced it’d be releasing a mobile title featuring company mascot Mario in an endless runner.