The_Liquid_Laser said:
More like a gradual downward slope. Generally when people try to exaggerate/change the argument I am making it shows they are afraid I have a valid point.
This is one these posts that shows that you aren't really paying attention. I now see why you are disagreeing with me. Here are some things you need to know before we continue this discussion. 1) In Japan PS4 sales are neck-and-neck with PS3 sales. The PS4 is far more successful worldwide, but can't make a dent in Japan. Sony is losing Japan. They've also ceded the handheld market which means they've lost even more influence in Japan. 2) The Switch has been tracking far ahead of the 3DS worldwide. In Japan Switch is tracking behind the 3DS, but it is rapidly gaining ground. 3DS cut it's price during the first year, which makes it front loaded. Switch has not yet cut it's price and is gaining ground. It's going to outsell the 3DS in Japan as well as worldwide. 3) The Japanese audience is, in fact, concentrated on Japanese software. The only Western title that they really like is Minecraft. That is the only Western title where it's popularity in Japan is comparable to its popularity in the West. Maybe you are thinking that Call of Duty topped the charts there for 1 week? That is not terribly great compared to how CoD does everywhere else. The latest chart has it at 4th place in it's second week. Again, very pathetic by CoD standards. Most likely CoD will not be in the top 10 for annual sales in Japan. Every other Western title will do worse (except Minecraft). What the Japanese buy is 95%+ Japanese software. 4) Most importantly, actions have consequences. Life is not a random unpredictable mess. Sony can't alienate Japan and be friendly to Japan at the same time. They cannot have their cake and eat it too. Perhaps you think ending their handheld line will have no effect? It will. Give it time. They just stopped making the Vita this year. Wait a couple of years and you will see an effect. In the 80's Nintendo had very strict policies for 3rd party companies. They did this both to rebuild the gaming market and also to maintain dominance. It seemed like a great strategy at the time and it made the NES the most dominant console in history. However, their actions had consequences. They gradually lost influence to 3rd parties, first to Sega, and then to Sony to a much greater extent. And even to this day Nintendo has a reputation of being unfriendly to 3rd party companies. Their actions had long standing consequences. Sony is now trying a similar thing. They see that there are much greater profits to be had in the West, so they are turning their back on Japan. This will have long standing consequences. First they alienate the Japanese customers and consequently they alienate the Japanese devs. Actions have consequences. If Sony stops caring about Japan, then Japan will stop caring about Sony. That includes developers too. |
Sorry, but I'm trying to understand dropping support for Japanese gamers when you had DQ games, MHW, a ton of musao games, the Atelier series, Persona, Final Fantasy World, Earth Defence Force, Yakuza games, Judgement, Nier Automata, Bloodborne to name a few.
They still invest in Japanese developers and have their own Japan studio along with PD. In fact it could be argued that Sony has more variety of first and third party games on their console than Nintendo.
The only change I see is in censorship, but I think there is a greater argument in Japan trending more towards handheld gaming as supposed to home console gaming and this resulting is a drop off sales for Sony as supposed to not supporting Japanese gamers.
