PlayStation has uploaded a new pair of executives to lead its mobile division. As of today, Olivier Courtemanche and Justin Kubiak hold respective positions as the head of mobile and leader of mobile business development and partnerships at Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE).
Both men have been at SIE since 2022: Courtemanche, an alum of EA and Meta, started out as a senior director for PlayStation Studios’ mobile division and last year became co-head alongside Kris Davis. Kubiak joined SIE in licensing mobile partnerships and previously worked at Samsung and NCSoft.
Major moves for Sony’s mobile business
The duo mark the first major hires for PlayStation’s mobile division since the departure of VP Nicola Sebastiani in 2023. At the time, PlayStation’s ambitions for the phone market were quiet, save for acquiring Savage Game Studios, which saw the exits of CEO Mikhail Katkoff and general manager Sophie Vo not long after Sebastiani left.
Savage Game subsequently rebranded to Neon Koi only to be closed down alongside Concord developer Firewalk back in October. Prior to its end, Neon Koi was working on a mystery action-RPG for smartphones.
In May, reports claimed Sony was developing a mobile PlayStation store for free-to-play titles. Those rumblings indicated the Japanese company was building a new platform to help it “develop, publish, and operate free-to-play mobile games.”