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Forums - Sony Discussion - Has Sony abandoned Japan?

Intrinsic on 26 June 2014
mizorefan said:
It's ironic since some fanboys claims the sony consoles are the home of "japanese games".

But they actually are, any major japanese game released on the PS4 will most likely be exclusive on the PS4 in japan. MGS5:PP is going to be exclusive on the PS4 in japan to begin with.



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VanceIX on 26 June 2014
HylianSwordsman said:
Intrinsic said:

Funny when people start off like they are about to say something really smart then seemingly do the opposite. 

Final fantasy 13.... which was actually the only proper JRPG released in the whole of the last generation.

 

  • sold 5M+ in the west on the PS3/360 (not including japan sales)
  • in comparison; FF7, FF10, FF12 sold (including japan sales) 9.7M, 8M and 6M respectively. 
  • FF13 (not including the spin-offs) is the 3rd best selling FF game ever.

 

So, care to share where or how you arrived at your conclusion? The fact of the matter is that the japs simply didn't adjust to HD development considering how expensive it is. Thats why we aren't seeing franchises like dragon quest, tales of (series), Star ocean....etc. You can't say the west is not interested/ has lost interest in JRPGs if theer aren't even any JRPGs on the HD consoles.

In addition to this, whats actually funny is that SQEX has been on a downward quality spiral since FF9 since way back on the PS2. So they aren't even making what JRPG fans would consider stellar FF games but yet they are still selling well.


How? How about that FFXIII is just one game. It's not that we're totally without interest, but the west cares a lot more about WRPGs, not JRPGs. Cold, hard truth. Skyrim sold 17 million copies, not including digital. The entire Final Fantasy XIII trilogy on both systems sold about 11.5 million. Trust me, I wish I could say the west is still interested in JRPGs. They're my favorite genre, and I live in the west. But it just isn't so. The genre is on a massive decline. It hurts, I know, but it's the truth. The genre isn't dead or anything, but it's dwindled in popularity enough that 1st party is supporting it less, and 3rd party entries are fairly scarce too, compared to the SNES and PS eras.

It's very much alive and no where near a niche genre quite yet, but I can't argue that it has lost traction in the west to WRPGs. I would say that's just because those WRPGs are flat out better, though. The JRPGs last gen all paled in comparison to Skyrim in terms of gameplay, with little to no real innovation. Square Enix, the people who have always been at the forefront of the JRPG genre and almost single-handedly responsible for any of the genre's success in the west, released an absolute disappointment with Final Fantasy XIII, and continued it by making it a trilogy with each game getting progressively worse. Not only that, but they were a no-show for arguably the most anticipated JRPG (Kingdom Hearts III), and they moved towards pushing western games like Tomb Raider and Thief rather than put most of their focus on Japanese titles.



                                                                                                               You're Gonna Carry That Weight.

Xbox One - PS4 - Wii U - PC

small44 on 26 June 2014

People always say handheld are popular in Japan and console not so why Vita didn't sell that well in Japan even if it's an handheld and in west they say home console are popular there so why Wii is doing that bad in West the reason is simple 3rd party abandoned console in Japan and abandoned handheld in West ,you can't blame gamers



PS4 - over 100 millions let's say 120m
Xbox One - 70m
Wii U - 25m

Vita - 15m if it will not get Final Fantasy Kingdoms Heart and Monster Hunter 20m otherwise
3DS - 80m

etking on 26 June 2014

Sony never made good Japanese games, this was all done by 3rd party developers. The Japanese market and these developers are currently moving to Iphone / Android because this is where the big money is made today.



Tamron on 26 June 2014
VanceIX said:

Just gonna post this again

VanceIX said:

1. And you know why Japan has abandoned home consoles? Because both Sony and Nintendo have completely botched this gen and to a much smaller extent last gen. Sony and Nintendo have always been Japan first, rest of the world second, and the Japanese took great pride in their companies. With Sony devoting almost all their resources to the west for the PS4, even delaying the Japanese release by almost half a year, it's no surprise that the Japanese feel that console gaming has moved on from them. And don't tell me that the Wii U showed that the console market was dead already, the Wii U flopped everywhere, not just Japan.

Sony released a boatload of mediocre games on the PS3 and Vita with niche support from third-party devs, resulting in the Japanese just losing interest. While Sony was busy devoting the most funding to shooters like Uncharted or Killzone or Last of Us, the Japanese got little known games like the White Knight Chronicles from Sony, absolutely nothing compared to Rogue Galaxy or Legend of Dragoon or ICO or Shadow of the Collosus. Even major third-party devs fucked up by releasing mediocre games on the PS3. SE released three half-baked Final Fantasys in a row, and didn't even bother with Kingdom Hearts 3. It's no wonder the Japanese got fed up with the market.

2. Sure, they'll dominate, but they won't reach near the level of success that the PS2 did. Japan was a major facillitator for both the PS2 and PS3, and no Sony has turned their backs on them.


1) Sorry, no, the vita, wii and ps3 all have heavy third party support in Japan, the success of a console does not hinge on how many games the consoles manufacturer make themselves, despite this heavy support and plentiful supply of games, sales have steadily decreased and gaming as a whole here is rapidly on the decline, arcades, the last bastion of gaming mecca, are also declining here with space that once housed arcade games replaced with photo booths and gambling machines, ufo catchers etc, the reason for this is squarely the high concentration of Japanese gamers being both satisfied and complacent with gaming on mobile devices, adverts for mobile games are shown on TV here virtually tenfold the frequency of console or handheld games.

Was it a good descision for sony?, yes, yes it was.

PS3 sales JP/US/EU

2013 - 877k  - 2.23m - 3.33m
2012 - 1.23m - 3.48m - 5m
2011 - 1.52m - 4.48m - 5.97m
2010 - 1.55m - 4.73m - 5.14m
2009 - 1.88m - 4.25m - 4.75m
2008 - 1.06m - 3.54m - 4.15m
2007 - 1.21m - 2.42m - 3.39m
2006 - 472k  - 667k  - N/A

Totals - 9.79m - 25.8m - 31.73m

Sales in the US were 2.5x that of Japan, and over 3x that of japan in the EU, focus on US and EU instead of Japan and what you end up with is clost to six times the hardware sales.

Consider this, sales in just 2011, 2010 or 2009 in EU and US, any one of those years, sold more in just one year than they sold in Japan for SEVEN years, alternatively, 2009 to 2010 in US sold more than 2006 - 2013 in japan, as did EU. Japan is insignificant now, and you can't blame all that on "sony and nintendo abandoning Japan" they shifted focus away from japan BECAUSE of this. Believe it or not, the sole purpose of a company is to make money, who would have thought?

It is realizing this shift in attitudes in their homeland that pushed Sony and Nintendo to focus more on the US and EU markets, not the other way around.

2) Don't compare 2014 sales to early 2000 sales, least not just on principal of the entire economy and taxing situation across the globe being completely different, thats before you even consider the impact of smartphones - tell me good sir, how many apps did you have on your smartphone in 2002? wait whats that now, you didnt have a smartphone in 2002?, they didnt exist? oh..       



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Eddie_Raja on 26 June 2014
VanceIX said:
Eddie_Raja said:
VanceIX said:

Sony, in previous generations, came guns blazing in Japan with Playstation designed for Japan first and the rest of the world second. Now, there are very few first-party Japanese titles from Sony compared to the PS1/PS2/eary-life-PS3. This has lead to abysmal performance for the PS4 in Japan, and it is doubtful that the PS4 will come anywhere near the success that the other consoles did.

Hell, they even jumped ship on the Vita, which is doing relatively well in Japan. Sure, we have Freedom Wars coming, but very little from Sony past that. They just don't care about the Japanese market. They focus completely on western games, most of which are your copy-and-paste Zombie or shooter or zombie shooter, with little to no JRPGs and other Japanese games that they built their legacy on.

You may say that the Japanese market doesn't care about home consoles, which may be true. However, there isn't much there for them to care about. Little games dedicated towards the Japanese market at launch, with a bleak outlook for the next year as well. 

Sony really messed up in Japan.


They just know two things:

1) The Japanese are moving away from home consoles towards handheld.

2) They are all but guarunteed to dominate there this gen.

Now it is true that the Wii U is doing better there right now, but they still have yet to release any of their big guns.  NA is just a bigger market that they needed back dearly.  Once Bloodborne is out we will see...

1. And you know why Japan has abandoned home consoles? Because both Sony and Nintendo have completely botched this gen and to a much smaller extent last gen. Sony and Nintendo have always been Japan first, rest of the world second, and the Japanese took great pride in their companies. With Sony devoting almost all their resources to the west for the PS4, even delaying the Japanese release by almost half a year, it's no surprise that the Japanese feel that console gaming has moved on from them. And don't tell me that the Wii U showed that the console market was dead already, the Wii U flopped everywhere, not just Japan.

Sony released a boatload of mediocre games on the PS3 and Vita with niche support from third-party devs, resulting in the Japanese just losing interest. While Sony was busy devoting the most funding to shooters like Uncharted or Killzone or Last of Us, the Japanese got little known games like the White Knight Chronicles from Sony, absolutely nothing compared to Rogue Galaxy or Legend of Dragoon or ICO or Shadow of the Collosus. Even major third-party devs fucked up by releasing mediocre games on the PS3. SE released three half-baked Final Fantasys in a row, and didn't even bother with Kingdom Hearts 3. It's no wonder the Japanese got fed up with the market.

2. Sure, they'll dominate, but they won't reach near the level of success that the PS2 did. Japan was a major facillitator for both the PS2 and PS3, and no Sony has turned their backs on them.

I mean what do you want lol?  NA and Europe are just massively bigger markets.  Do I wish there were more western Vita games?  Yeah, but I also understand the west doesn't like it as much.  It's just business.



Prediction for console Lifetime sales:

Wii:100-120 million, PS3:80-110 million, 360:70-100 million

[Prediction Made 11/5/2009]

3DS: 65m, PSV: 22m, Wii U: 18-22m, PS4: 80-120m, X1: 35-55m

I gauruntee the PS5 comes out after only 5-6 years after the launch of the PS4.

[Prediction Made 6/18/2014]

HylianSwordsman on 26 June 2014
VanceIX said:

It's very much alive and no where near a niche genre quite yet, but I can't argue that it has lost traction in the west to WRPGs. I would say that's just because those WRPGs are flat out better, though. The JRPGs last gen all paled in comparison to Skyrim in terms of gameplay, with little to no real innovation. Square Enix, the people who have always been at the forefront of the JRPG genre and almost single-handedly responsible for any of the genre's success in the west, released an absolute disappointment with Final Fantasy XIII, and continued it by making it a trilogy with each game getting progressively worse. Not only that, but they were a no-show for arguably the most anticipated JRPG (Kingdom Hearts III), and they moved towards pushing western games like Tomb Raider and Thief rather than put most of their focus on Japanese titles.

Yeah I guess I wouldn't call it a niche genre (that would be more like strategy RPG), but it's nothing close to what it was in the golden era on the SNES and PS. I miss those days, and when everywhere you look people are playing FPS games and see JRPGs as the "nerdy" genre, it's hard not to get a little frustrated with the state of the RPG genre. And yeah, not sure what Square Enix was thinking putting off KH3 for so long. I just hope the game ends up better for it, not worse. And while they released the horrible XIII trilogy, many forget they also released the much worse XIV. Sure, it was one of the MMO iterations, but holy shit, I've never even heard of a game being so bad that the company has to completely remake and relaunch it. That has to be an industry first, no?



catofellow on 27 June 2014

The console industry in the US and other markets could survive the growth of mobile, because of various combinations of the following, all absent from Japan

1. Economic Growth
2. New entrants into the middle class
3. Less government restrictions/import bans
4. Population Growth
5. Increasing interest in video games generally

As a result, as mobile grows in popularity, it will lead to a greater decline in console and handheld gaming in Japan more than it would in other markets.



Lifetime Sales Prediction - 6/29/2013
Wii U - 38 million
XBOX One - 88 million
Playstation 4 - 145 million

nitekrawler1285 on 27 June 2014
VanceIX said:

Sony, in previous generations, came guns blazing in Japan with Playstation designed for Japan first and the rest of the world second. Now, there are very few first-party Japanese titles from Sony compared to the PS1/PS2/eary-life-PS3. This has lead to abysmal performance for the PS4 in Japan, and it is doubtful that the PS4 will come anywhere near the success that the other consoles did.

Hell, they even jumped ship on the Vita, which is doing relatively well in Japan. Sure, we have Freedom Wars coming, but very little from Sony past that. They just don't care about the Japanese market. They focus completely on western games, most of which are your copy-and-paste Zombie or shooter or zombie shooter, with little to no JRPGs and other Japanese games that they built their legacy on.

You may say that the Japanese market doesn't care about home consoles, which may be true. However, there isn't much there for them to care about. Little games dedicated towards the Japanese market at launch, with a bleak outlook for the next year as well. 

Sony really messed up in Japan.

To compete with MS in the west Sony overshot Japan's needs with every console past the PSP.  This had many huge side effects. The consoles were too expensive and didn't sell as well.  They got less Japanese games. I think being too expensive to own and develop for just stopped the onslaught of Japanese 3rd party games we were seeing with the PS2 and PSP. Without low cost consoles and vast libraries of software for them you don't get big sales.  

Other platforms are just doing the bolded so much better than anything Playstation or Nintendo can offer in Japan right now.  Any person will care about having entertainment.  Home consoles just offer the least value in that regard for their expense and portables fare better but are still below mobiles because of the astounding variety of content and the subsidized costs of Android phones and tablets.  

Sony and Nintendo messed up Japan together.  Fighting each other for the upper part of the market and abandoning anyone whom isn't OMG 3D graphics and Cinema gaming.    



RenCutypoison on 27 June 2014

They can't justify nowadays AAA budget while focusing only on one country.

They will still have a lot of AA JRPG exclusives, they just need some time to get to the new console.