Sony Mobile Communications Inc. announced today that it would be partnering with popular video game livestreaming service provider Twitch Interactive Inc. to stream mobile games from Xperia devices.

According to Sony, their new Twitch app will allow users to livestream their mobile games from an Xperia Z3+, Xperia Z4, Xperia Z4v, or the Xperia Z4 Tablet. While some individual mobile games have supported Twitch streaming in the past, this is the first app that works across all games on one mobile device.

“Partnering with Twitch to integrate live broadcasting directly in our latest flagship devices represents a fun, social experience for Xperia’s Android gamers.” said Carl-Fredrik Mårtensson, Senior Business Development Manager at Sony Mobile Communications. “Our users now have the capability to stream content, access and interact with the world’s leading gaming community directly from their device.”

The current Xperia exclusivity stems from the fact that the new app is produced by Sony rather than by Twitch. While Twitch’s own app does allow users to watch livestreams from their mobile device, the company has yet to announce any plans to add streaming capabilities themselves.

Is there a mobile game audience?

At this point, it is unclear if there is much of an audience for mobile game streams, as the field so far has been dominated by PC titles. Livestreaming has become so successful largely due to popular popular esports titles on the PC like League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, and more recently Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

Twitch, however, seems to believe that someone somewhere will want to watch mobile game streams, and the partnership with Sony gives their user base the opportunity to tap into that potential audience.

“With the growing appeal of both mobile gaming and live streaming, the Twitch community is now prevalent on every major platform,” Brooke Van Dusen, Director of Business Development at Twitch, said in a statement. “By partnering with an innovator like Sony Mobile to enable the smartphone broadcasting of Android games on their Xperia devices, we are able to ensure our community has more avenues to embrace their passion.”

Image credit: Sony Mobile Communications Inc