Sony begins pre-registration for its first smartphone game, but just in Japan for now

Sony hasn’t seen much success with its Xperia lineup of smartphones, but it hopes to have more luck by making mobile games. This week, pre-registration began in Japan for the first game from Sony’s mobile gaming publisher, ForwardWorks, which was first announced in March 2016. As it turns out, the game is actually a new entry in a familiar PlayStation franchise.

Everybody’s Golf will be a free-to-play game when it launches later this year in Japan for Android and iOS. Like previous games in the PlayStation console series (which have been released in the US under the Hot Shots Golf name) the mobile version will be an arcade-style game with bright and colorful graphics. Sony will make money from Everybody’s Golf by selling in-game items, such as clothing for the game’s characters.

So far, there’s no word on if any of Sony’s mobile games will make their way to the US, but we would imagine that if they are successful in Japan, Sony could bring them over to other markets in the future. ForwardWorks is currently working on nine more mobile games, and five of them are scheduled to be released sometime in 2017. The list includes other mobile games based on popular PlayStation series like PaRappa the Rapper and Disgaea.

It will be interesting to see if Sony can use its well-known PlayStation brands to launch a successful mobile game business, much like its console rival Nintendo has done with Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes. What other PlayStation games would you like to see adapted for smartphones? Let us know in the comments!