At least five Sony PlayStation games will have smartphone app versions by 2018. This undertaking serves as response to Japanese gaming company, Nintendo, which has already ventured into the mobile games industry.

Sony made a statement on Friday, Oct. 14, that the gaming company is arranging to release five smartphone apps based on their PlayStation games, as reported by CNBC. The plan is to launch the said games on both Google Play and Apple's iOS operating systems by March 2018.

This venture will be done through Sony's subsidiary, ForwardWorks. The said company started business this year to focus on mobile game production.

Apart from the release date of the Sony smartphone games, it has also been revealed that the apps will be first marketed in Japan and other Asian nations.

The decision to create smartphone games is driven by the fact that more and more individuals spend more time and money playing mobile apps. This is especially true in Asian countries where smartphones are everywhere and mobile games are more famous than consoles.

For Sony, it is about time that the company should take advantage of this fact. The CEO of Kantan Games, a Japanese gaming consultant and advisory group, Serkan Toto, said that Sony and other console manufacturers are selling less and less units in Japan. Therefore, making mobile games may be Sony's best bet to gain more sales.

Although the company already declared their plans in making smartphone games, Sony did not disclose which PlayStation games they will be converting into mobile versions. Sony announced the creation of the mobile apps just in time for the sale of PlayStation VR on Oct. 13 and the update on PlayStation 4.

With the growing pull of the mobile games industry, console makers are taking the opportunity to break into the business. In 2015, Nintendo sealed a deal with DeNA, game creator, to create mobile version of their console games.

This year, "Pokemon GO" was released by the Japanese gaming company and just recently, it announced that "Super Mario Run" will have an Apple iOS version soon.

Tags: sony sony playstation games sony playstation smartphone apps