How PlayStation’s ForwardWorks can succeed — or drown — on smartphones

We already knew that Sony Computer Entertainment was shifting to Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) in April, but now the company has revealed it is also starting a new mobile-gaming division.

ForwardWorks Corporation is a Sony subsidiary that will “deploy new services toward the ever-expanding smartdevice market” beginning April 1. Unlike SIE, ForwardWorks will keep its headquarters in Tokyo as it begins planning and developing iOS and Android content. We’ve seen traditional Japanese gaming companies like Konami, Bandai Namco, and even Nintendo chase down the lucrative Japanese gaming market, which has the highest average revenue per player in the world for both Apple and Google devices. Sony doesn’t want to let the $34.8 billion mobile-gaming market grow without getting a piece of it for itself.