Sony prioritizing US audience for PS5 reveal because Japan is losing interest

[DonFerrari]

padib said:

NathanSSSS said:

I dont think Switch sale can prove anything since Japanese are heavily handheld focused, just check out the top 3 hardware of all time in that region, they are all undoubtedly handheld console, I've always seen handheld consoles different to traditional home consoles, and for Switch I bet 90% of ppl buying it for use on go, with that in mind, and Xbox always being irrelevant in Japan, we can see an obvious decline on sales of PlayStation consoles generation by generation in there, PS2 used to perform extremely strong in the region, followed by og PlayStation which seems fair, but that's 2 decades ago if you recall, then PSP, again handheld, then PS3 with just above 10 million units sold, and in this gen, PS4 cannot even sell more than 10 million even the total shipments wordwide topped 110+ million, that's the situation of home console in Japan. I don't know you guys, but if I were SONY, why would I bother prioritizing in such a market like this?

It's a great question. Let me try to give a few reasons.

1) Sony can release a hybrid or handheld in Japan. This isn't so far-fetched, as they already released the PSP and Vita worldwide. This way, they could tap into the selling power of gaming on the go.

2) Japan is the motherland of modern gaming after the crash of 1983, even in the West. This means that having games cater to and originate from Japan is a spice to keep your brand alive, where the West and its style of handling the gaming market has been fickle.

3) Nintendo is making a lot of money in Japan, and Sony has already stolen the market from them before with the PS1 and PS2, and even in some cases the PSP. If Nintendo has been able to rise from the ashes in certain cases, why not Sony?

4) There is another approach to the "if there is no money there, then exit" strategy. If Nintendo had taken that position, they would never have made a home console after the gamecube. But they made the Wii and it was a worldwide phenomenon. In other words, even if something is not making money now, it doesn't mean that something can't be done to make things profitable.

I agree with all your points and even if I wouldn't buy the device a PS5 portable version (use scalability to have a 720p30fps version with lower IQ, with a lot cheaper ssd solution and API) but certainly could have some market since you can have it either full digital or sell games on sd cards to install. Even a hybrid could be possible, but both are very unlikely since Sony haven't even hinted at being interested on portable market anymore.

Still that don't deny that the japanese market for table consoles have shrinked considerably gen after gen.