I doubt that. PS4 will have a great launch but the numbers you are pulling aren´t realistic in my opinion. Some seem really to get carried away when it comes to Playstation. It wasn´t a long time ago that PSV TV was seen as a great idea, but in fact it is the next PSPgo in Japan.

Even ignoring the limited supply of PS4's at the moment, a PS4 launch this early might have been a worse idea than a 2014 launch. What games exactly would the PS4 have at launch that would appeal to Japanese audiences? Call of Duty is fairly popular in Japan, but it alone won't sell systems. Hell, February's launch is only really going to have some nice PS3 ports/multiplats, even with the extra couple of months.

       The PS4 has NO games that would appeal to the Japanese audience.. PS4 launching in 2014 is perfectly fine.

I'm really having a hard time understanding your point.

The PS4 is close to being sold out around the world.  Yes, they could have skimmed units from other countries for a Japanese launch but what would they have gained from that?  Especially with no compelling software for the Japanese market?  Net gain would have been marginal at best.

Therefore, the question becomes, what do they have to lose from not releasing in Japan right now?  Will the delay cost them market-share?  Will it somehow allow the Wii U to explode in a way it did not over the past year?  Probably not, to be honest.  The PS4 will do well when it launches in Japan and it won't be panned for having a weak line-up of Japanese games during the launch window--something which they just recently watched the Wii U get criticized for.

The real-world effect either way isn't that significant.

It won't make much of a difference on it's own. We've had several generations where consoles that released early didn't dominate. Long term, it'll depend more on how much people want a WiiU than whether or not alternatives are available.

If people honestly believe this is anything other than holiday boost + Mario, they are only fooling themselves. Now, I don't believe Wii U will drop below 10K next year, like this year, but it should hover ~20K once the holidays are over. Yes, that's an improvement, but it's not going to be enough to win Japan.

Reason for the drop is simple, Wii U is going to be experiencing another gaming drought next year. Nintendo already confirmed that some of their bigger games won't be launching in mid-2014, so late 2014 will be the earliest. And given how many big 3rd party games (especially ones that appeal to the Japanese audience) aren't launching on the Wii U, a drought is definite.

Sony, on the other hand, is making sure they have a few titles that appeal to the Japanese audience. Of course, given how fast the 2 preorder allotments for Japan sold out, I think the HW itself is appealing enough to keep it selling in Japan. Though, if Sony launched in Japan this year, they definitely wouldn't have been able to keep enough units in the US to actually do battle with MS. Sony knows they have EU and Japan on lock, at least compared to MS when it comes to Japan.

For Sony is important NA and EU compare to Homeland. Xbox one is not rival in Japan in other side Xbox in NA is stronger last gen compare to Sony and Sony trying and trying to regain lost share, which has lost seven in a generation console after the success of the PS2 era, then destroyed the competition.
That's why Sony is trying to exploit the weaknesses of Microsoft and catch up in America where too much behind.
In Europe, tactical wins again only Xbox UK market and the rest of Europe is certainly Sonys.
Japan is certainly less important because they all went to the mobile and each generation is less selling console.

Sony's lose. WiiU sales would have been PS4's.

Some of you really have problems to remain on-topic. The topic beeing the Japanese console market and if they didn´t want to cash-in on GT6 and help PSV with PSTV, they could have simply shipped those Asia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia PS4 units to Japan instead.

Also PS4 launch lineup next year doesn´t look much better anyway, so I really don´t see any benefits You have also to consider that games like Yakuza would have helped keeping up the momentum after the launch hype started to fade.

Basically they would have the launch hype, sales momentum due to beeing December/New Year and early next year games like Yakuza would have helped to keep the system selling. And in the same time make it difficult to WiiU to pull off the sales they actually had the past two weeks.

Instead they launch in a weak period of the year and hoping that the launch hype will seal the deal.

GT6 and the PSV and PSV TV have nothing to do with the japanese PS4 launch, also the rest of your post is nothing but an assumption, how do you know that the people now buying Wii Us would've bought PS4s instead if they had the option? Especially if the two consoles offer completely different game experiences (in the PS4s case it's an experience the japanese mostly don't care about anyway).

A console race isn't decided in its first couple months especially since the Wii U isn't exactly a runaway success anyway, so Sony doesn't lose anything by skipping out on Japan this holiday.