Sony: PlayStation Mobile will avoid app store "junk"

Sony has said its PlayStation Mobile service, which will offer PlayStation-branded games for Android devices, will avoid the usual app store "junk".

The service, designed for Sony Ericsson and HTC devices, is currently in open beta.

"[We're] ensuring that anything that is offered on this platform is of proper PlayStation quality," Sony Europe boss Jim Ryan told GamesIndustry International.

"People [will] feel comfortable and safe that they are not going to inadvertently stumble upon any of the junk that exists in that wider marketplace," he added.

Over 50 developers are creating content for PlayStation Mobile (formerly PlayStation Suite), with the SDK freely available to software houses.

"It's a significant business challenge because it's our brand that's at risk here and it's our responsibility as a platform holder in multiple directions to ensure we do that. Can we be completely laissez faire? I don't think so because then we'll end up just like all the rest and that can't happen," Ryan continued.

PlayStation Mobile could even encourage mobile gamers to play more console games, Ryan added.

"In the same way that PSone consumers migrated up to PS2 and PS2 consumers in even larger numbers migrated up to PlayStation 3, we see this as bringing in consumers who might not otherwise be exposed to our brand because they haven't made the investment in buying the console.

"They get an opportunity to get involved in PlayStation and sample its world and if we do this right that migration process is likely to be a very happy consequence of going down this road."