Sony has lost its PlayStation Mobile boss, 2 years after launching
Nicola Sebastiani was a high-profile appointment from Apple
Sony Interactive Entertainment has lost its PlayStation Mobile boss, 2 years after the division was established.
Nicola Sebastiani was a high-profile appointment when he joined in 2021, having previously led Apple’s business management team before becoming Apple Arcade’s head of content, in an eight-year stint at the iPhone maker.
Sebastiani was responsible for building PlayStation’s mobile team and was key in Sony’s acquisition of Savage Game Studios.
However, less than a year after that deal was announced, he’s now left the company, according to MobileGamer.biz. It’s not yet clear why the exec decided to leave or if he’s directly joined another company.
Update
According to their LinkedIn profiles, Kris Davies and Olivier Courtemarche have been promoted to co-heads of mobile at PlayStation Studios.
As reported by MobileGamer.biz, Davis joined PlayStation as senior director and head of mobile business development in April 2022, having previous worked at Kabam, Beeline Interactive and Capcom.
Courtemarche was appointed senior director and head of mobile product at PlayStation Studios in April 2022, having joined from Meta.
Over the past 2 years, SIE has quietly built a team of experienced mobile talent, hiring people from Apple, Kabam, Meta, Tencent, Super Evil Megacorp, Samsung, Niantic, Zynga, Riot and more.
Speaking during a business briefing last year, SIE president Jim Ryan said the company expected half of its annual releases to be on PC and mobile by 2025.
Commenting during the acquisition of Savage Game Studios, PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst was keen to emphasise mobile’s role within PlayStation as an “additive” to its core console business.
“As we assured you before with our plans to bring select titles to PC, our efforts beyond console in no way diminish our commitment to the PlayStation community, nor our passion to keep making amazing single-player, narrative-driven experiences,” Hulst said.
“Our mobile gaming efforts will be similarly additive, providing more ways for more people to engage with our content, and striving to reach new audiences unfamiliar with PlayStation and our games.”
