Interview

Chillingo: Our devs are 'very happy' to get behind PlayStation Mobile

COO Rumley on branching out from Google Play

Chillingo: Our devs are 'very happy' to get behind PlayStation Mobile
While Sony has been winning plaudits the world over for the open approach it's adopted with PlayStation 4, it's not been an easy couple of years for the Japanese giant.

PS Vita is still struggling to muster respectable sales anywhere outside of Sony's home territory, and PlayStation Mobile – its attempt to link up the device with its operations on Android – has been shunned by large portions of the industry.

On the whole developers have preferred to focus on Google and Amazon's markertplaces - all apart from Chillingo, however.

The UK-based EA publisher has recently kicked off its support of PlayStation Mobile with Holy Water Games' Feed Me Oil.

Further titles are to follow, and according to COO Ed Rumley, now is exactly the right time for the firm to throw its weight behind the platform. Correspondingly, that means that now's also the right time for us to catch up with Rumley to sample his take on all things PlayStation Mobile.

Pocket Gamer: Why wait until now to make the leap onto PlayStation Mobile?

Ed Rumley: We've always said that we have a duty to our developers, and that means advising on what platforms to develop for and release on.

With the new console on its way, it's opening up a lot of exciting opportunities in mobile-whether that's your Vita, phone or tablet.

We think it's a great time to get on the PlayStation Mobile platform and introduce our games to even more players, perhaps those who don't normally search on the Google Play store for their games.

You've launched Feed Me Oil and have three more games to come. Why specifically have these titles been chosen?

Chillingo has a great catalog of games with something for everyone.

Feed Me Oil is one of our most popular and successful titles with great puzzle gameplay, iBomber Defense is a little more hardcore, Roll in the Hole is about as cute as it gets and is a great family game, and finally Little Acorns is a classic platformer with incredible polish that the Sony consumer will appreciate.


Feed Me Oil

We selected a set of games that we think reflects the variety and quality of the games we publish from our talented indie developers.

Some have criticised Sony's decision to split PlayStation Mobile from PS Vita's standard PlayStation Store. Would you rather PlayStation Mobile games were sat side by side with the handheld's standard line-up, or is there an advantage to the partition?

It's nice to have your own space, right?

At the moment, we've obviously just launched one game on the store so I can't really comment on whether there's an advantage yet but mobile games certainly have their own audience separate from a lot of the experiences the Vita delivers so we're not concerned with the separation.

PlayStation Mobile has been accused by many of being something of a dead duck – Sony's insistence on comparing it to PS Minis in the run up to launch doing little to raise its profile. How do you judge the platform's performance so far?

Although we can't comment on specific numbers, we know the developers we've represented in bringing these games to PlayStation Mobile are very happy.

And, looking wider, what role do you see for PS Vita longterm? Will Sony's decision to focus on securing indie content translate to higher hardware sales?

The Vita is clearly a good device, and as far as we're concerned the more indie content available on there the better, for publishers and developers alike.

Whether that will translate to physical sales of the handheld itself isn't really something I can make an accurate comment on though.
Thanks to Ed for his time.And you can check out our E3 2013 video interview below. 




With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.