PS4: Salute The Troops

[VanceIX]

DerNebel said:

VanceIX said:

drdante said:

The thing is not many games on PS4 are attractive and appealing to Japanese, and the amount of gamers there are only what, 20%? Besides, Sony has PSVita to hold their home turfs so i won't worry much if i were you :)

oh and i think you know that Japanese are prefer playing handheld gamings than the console gaming.

It's not just that, it's Sony not investing in good Japanese game development, and worst of all, delaying the release of their home console by almost half a year in their own home country. It's the baffling things like that that have driven the Japanese away from consoles. Sony has no one to blame but themselves.

I don't see how that is in any way baffling, just think about it that way:

You are console manufacturer with limited resources that wants to launch its system, now you have a choice to make, do you either:

A) Put your whole initial attention to the non japanese market which by large has pretty similar tastes in gaming, meaning that you won't make a game that is huge e.g in the UK but a total flop in the US, or do you

B) divert resources from the many times larger western market to be able to get out titles for the japanese market, which have a very large probability of being pretty useless material to sell your console in the west with, and to semi successfully launch your system in japan simultaneously with the rest of the world?

I sure know what I'd do. Also, I really don't see how you can say that Sony is not investing in good japanese game development, we don't really know a lot of what is going on behind closed doors over there, they could very well and I expect them to, already be working their third party magic. And their japanese studios are surely also cooking stuff up (though they do have some problems with that branch), starting with Bloodborne early next year.

If you are a console manufacturer with only a short-term goal in sight, that's exactly what you do.

If day 1 profits make or break a console, why was PS2 the most successful of all time, even though it launched first in Japan? It went on to sell much more world wide, but Japan was still a strong audience for it. Same could be said for the first few years of the PS3.

Sony fucked up in Japan, plain and simple. PlayStation used to be a brand seen with pride by the Japanese, but Sony geared it hardcore towards the west, with the only notable first-party Japanese game being the horrendous Knack. 

Maybe they wouldn't get as many sales right off the bat, but releasing it even a day earlier would have been excellent PR for Japan. Instead, they delay it by almost half a year, striking the nail into console gaming in Japan. Japan always supported Sony, and has given tons of sales for all the Playstation consoles. 

That won't happen this time around, and nor will Sony deserve it, after the crap they pulled on console lovers there. It would be like Microsoft delaying the Xbox launch here in the USA. People would be furious. Same scenario.

Anyway, this is completly off topic, so I'm going to stop here. Believe what you want, but as an avid Japanese game lover, Sony's abandonment of Japan has hit hard for me personally.

I'm still very happy to see Sony supporting the troops in the USA, and glad that their policies made it possible for those deployed to continue to enjoy gaming. That is all.