Sony has made a number of major studio acquisitions over the last couple of years, and while the majority of them obviously remain focused on developing high-end experiences for PlayStation consoles, some acquisitions have been made with the idea of expanding in other areas. Nixxes Software, for instance, was acquired to help Sony port more of its games to PC, and similarly, PlayStation has now announced the acquisition of studio to help expand its presence in the mobile gaming space.
Sony has announced that it is acquiring Savage Game Studios, a mobile game developer that was established in 2020 and is, as Sony says, “a hugely talented team of creatives with many years of experience making some of the most popular mobile games enjoyed by players around the world.”
According to Sony, this is part of “a continued drive to expand our audience and bring PlayStation to more people than ever before.”
Savage Game Studios CEO and co-founder Michail Katkoff says: “Established in 2020 and led by myself and fellow Co-founders Nadjim Adjir and Michael McManus, Savage Game Studios was born of our many years of mobile game development experience spanning a number of massively successful global IP. Our guiding vision was a creative space where experimentation and taking risks weren’t warily avoided, but rather eagerly embraced. We’ve all worked at big studios and while we respect the advantages of ample resources, we wanted to stay small and nimble so we could call our own shots.
“‘So why then,’ you may be thinking to yourself, would you join PlayStation Studios?’ We made this deal because we believe that PlayStation Studios’ leadership respects our vision for how we can best operate and succeed, and because they too are not afraid to take chances. All of that, plus the ability to potentially tap into PlayStation’s amazing catalog of IP and the fact that we will benefit from the kind of support that only they can provide… The harder question to answer would be ‘why not?'”
Savage Game Studios is already working on its first title for PlayStation, which is a new unannounced AAA mobile live service action game, but further details on it are scant yet.
Sony also confirms that Savage Game Studios will be part of a newly-established PlayStation Studios Mobile Division, which will be completely independent from what Sony is doing in the console space and will developer games “based on new and existing PlayStation IP”.