Sony: We'll Address The 'Light' Mobile Gaming Market

Although Sony wouldn't say whether hardware photos purportedly of a prototype "PSP phone" were genuine, it's addressing mounting questions regarding its plans for the mobile arena alongside the diversification of that segment and the decline of the PSP. "Mobile gaming is a very important business area for us," said Sony CFO Masato Kato on the company's quarterly results call to investors (according to a SeekingAlpha transcript). Asked about Sony's product roadmap for its PlayStation Portable and mobile business, Kato noted that Sony will need to make more moves geared at the mobile app market. "We started out with the PSP that was our first mobile gaming console, but since then the market as you know has expanded in to bigger arenas that gaming on mobile phones, gaming on tablets, gaming on and also certain mobile devices," said Kato. "The PSP being a proprietary platform was more concentrated on I'd say the core gaming segment rather than the light game, but now we are addressing that market as well," said Kato. "I cannot be specific as to how we will introduce new products to address these markets," Kato added, "but one thing I can say is that we have those markets addressed and we will come out with products and services to capture the broader gaming market." Sony's "PSP Minis" program is believed to been an initial leg of the company's effort to better reach small apps and mobile gaming marketshare. But although the company said one million Minis were downloaded in the service's first nine months, it's remained a relatively quiet space.