PlayStation Mobile Push Square

New data revealing the highest-grossing mobile games of 2023 has made it plain to see why Sony is taking strides into the sector in search of its own piece of the pie. Companies like Tencent are making just shy of $5 billion per year from their mobile games alone, with Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile both making one billion each last year. Hoyoverse, the team behind Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, then grossed $1.71 billion from the two titles' mobile versions alone in 2023.

To try and carve out its own audience on mobile, Sony appears first to be making a Horizon MMO for smartphones with help from NCSOFT, which it recently announced a "strategic partnership" with. There have already been a few failed efforts like Run Sackboy Run and Ultimate Sackboy, but having acquired Neon Koi (formally Savage Game Studios) and signed up Apple Arcade executives for the push, it seems Sony is still very serious about getting into mobile games in a serious manner.

When King, one of the arms under Activision recently purchased by Microsoft, is making close to $1 billion off of Candy Crush Saga in 12 months, it looks like money Sony is leaving on the table if it doesn't take advantage. The best bit is all of that money could be used to fund more of the games you love on PS5. Much like its Games as a Service initiative, if Sony lands a winner, it'll be doing so much better as a company as a whole.

2023's Top Grossing Mobile Games

  1. Honor of Kings — $1.48 billion
  2. PUBG Mobile — $1.14 billion
  3. Candy Crush Saga — $956.9 million
  4. Genshin Impact — $943.8 million
  5. Roblox — $868.6 million
  6. Royal Match — $835.2 million
  7. Coin Master — $728.7 million
  8. Honkai: Star Rail — $659.1 million
  9. Monopoly Go — $645 million
  10. Gardenscapes — $605.7 million

[source mobilegamer.biz]