Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) plans to bring some popular PlayStation games to smartphones in a bid to expand its customer base beyond game consoles. The games will be released by ForwardWorks, a SIE subsidiary headed by Atsushi Morita, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia.

"We will offer five or six games by March 2018 and release their titles by the end of this year," Tomoki Kawaguchi, executive director of ForwardWorks, said at the company's office, which opened in October in Ebisu, Tokyo.

"We will utilize SIE's intellectual properties," Kawaguchi said. "Ape Escape," "ICO" and other popular games from PlayStation's early days may become available on smartphones.

ForwardWorks hopes that "a broad range of people will enjoy PlayStation games," Kawaguchi said.

The games will be released in Japan, at least in the beginning.