Sony admits PS4 is a tough sell in Japan

[nitekrawler1285]

celador said:

Why PS4 is struggling in Japan

"We're conscious of the fact we have not had yet the sort of groundswell of Japan native content from Japanese publishers and developers," House said. "I view that as temporary. -- I don't see this as temporary. PS3 lost alot of games from PS2 for cost reasons. Sony may well have priced themselves out of every Japanese pubisher and developer except the few large ones.  

So why did Japanese publishers and developers fail to get behind the PS4?

"For whatever reasons, when we were evangelising around the platform, we were having a tougher sell with Japanese publishers and developers," House admitted. -- Because they can't afford to make games that expensive.  Especially when consumers wont be at home to play them.   

"There was a comfort level around PS3 that was playing into that. There was a slight level of concern around the viability of the console market in Japan. But we've really turned a corner on that and demonstrated that if you're a publisher that wants to reach a global market with good and immersive games then the PS4 is definitely the place to be." -- It's not a comfort level.  It's a profitability threshold.  PS3 only really got smaller developers on board because they made a free engine for them. Japan has something with games they can play while commuting around and it's mobile phones.  As astounding as PS4's success maybe in the west it does not eclipse that of iOS and Android making their chosen platform a lower investment, commuter friendly platform, and far more global than any Sony platform can ever hope to be.  

At the Tokyo Game Show in September 2013, senior Sony executives told Eurogamer that they decided to launch PS4 in February because that was when Sony expected more games to be ready for its home market.  -- Capcom and SE alone do not an appealing Japanese console software market make.  I'm not sure at this rate PS4 will ever be ready for the home console market in Japan.