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Forums - Sales Discussion - Sony prioritizing US audience for PS5 reveal because Japan is losing interest

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What do you think

people already know this 37 48.05%
 
I don't believe what he said 8 10.39%
 
There is still hope for Japanese market 13 16.88%
 
It's not relevant does no... 14 18.18%
 
Banzai Nippon 5 6.49%
 
Total:77
DonFerrari on 09 June 2020
padib said:
NathanSSSS said:

First, I don't think SONY will again make a handheld after the failure of Vita, I don't have the source but I remember there's some statement from SONY before saying the same, the failure of Vita is largely caused by the trend of mobile gaming right then in early 2010s, I think SONY quit the market of handheld and then turned to invest on mobile games instead, the successful FGO by SONY music segement is a good example, and that made SONY a bunch of money, so I think the odd SONY release a handheld or hybrid is very low(even though I would definitely welcome if they do it). For the approach you mentioned, I don't think SONY quit the market in Japan, it's still one of the most important market for SONY even with the declined performance in hardware sale, just no more reason to prioritize on it, that makes sense right?

@DonFerrari I'll give my opinion to your post here in one reply to NathanSSSS.

The way I see it, Sony might have made money by migrating away from handheld gaming towards other mobile opportunities, but it was costly to them. The reason is that a lot of R&D went into the Vita, and the way Sony stopped supporting it caused their market on the portable to preemptively plummet, causing them to lose the R&D investment they had made. It could be said that they would have lost more money had they not made that bold move, but it could be argued otherwise too. If instead they had coasted the Vita with 1st party support, they would have had a chance to maintain a position in the market, but it could have had an impact on their home console 1st party support, so I understand the difficult decision. At the time, they also didn't know if their support for the Vita would pay off. So in a sense I agree with you both saying that Sony has shown no interest in pursuing a handheld line, but I sometimes wonder if it was the right decision.

I don't expect them to come back to the portable market, but if they wanted to it would be possible. If they did, I think that for the reasons I gave you in my original post, there would be something profitable to go that route in the japanese market. As for the home console line, if I were Sony I would keep releasing it in Japan for presence, but like you mentioned I would not invest much more into it for fear of losing my RoI. If however there was absolutely no choice for Sony but to go with a home console, I might argue that supporting the japanese market in a decent priority might be beneficial for their brand overall. But since that requires time & money, it would be difficult to say whether this is a good direction, be it over the short, medium or long term.

In principle, if investment money was infinite, I would say that Playstation as a brand would only benefit from increasing their presence in Japan and their development of Japan-centric content. As an interesting mental exercise, one could wonder what worldwide benefits Sony would enjoy from such an activity. I can think of a few:

  • The birth of new japanese IPs which could be popular in the west, but would not exist otherwise (examples: Bayonetta, Splatoon, Pokemon, Shadow of the Colossus).
  • A secondary market to operate in in case things implode in the west.
  • (If they chose to continue their portable line) A backup system in case the home console market crumbled.
  • The birth of new creative japanese studios, which could make games of all types (japan-centric or west-centric like Square does)
  • The ability to tap into markets they might have struggled in before, like competing in genres like Monster breeding, such as Pokemon, Digimon and other big franchises, or games that are generally popular on handhelds such as Monster Hunter.
  • The birth of new inputs of play, such as the touch pad on the vita that translated into the PS4's touch pad and now the PS5's touch screen.
  • An overall diversity in how they approach game making and console development.

In a nutshell, Nintendo is doing most of these things and it gave us the Nintendo of today, and the Nintendo Switch.

The most valid reason why Sony wouldn't pursue this is due to risk and competition. It is probably too uncertain for Sony to push that direction, hence why they dropped support for Vita, and money to support the japanese market is not infinite. Also, japan has always been Nintendo's most understood market and they will defend it aggressively. Nintendo is currently consolidating into their main market, which may cause Sony to lose money on their investments if they choose to compete there.

Do agree Sony could do more in Japan, but from the game side they do get most of the japanese games on their platform, but certainly isn`t making enough Japanese centered games themselves. And I would say PS is healthy enough that they could increase their japanese development side (either open more studios, increase teams on existing one or buy some developers) and also agree that would keep an edge over Xbox (a lot of western customer prefer PS over Xbox due to more japanese games being available) while keeping HW relevant in Japan and this bringing profits (well PR-wise a lot of japanese devs said they were seeing a ressurgence with PS4, but that was on the being of gen and probably compared to how much they lagged behind during PS3 gen compared to games made on the west).

On the portable side, If they plan right and mitigate risks they could put PSP3 as well totally agree it is possible. But considering how much not only PSVita crushed but also that 3DS sold much less than DS perhaps they think that they wouldn`t be able to have success (even more because console game development have only became harder and with Switch bringing console level games on the go they wouldn`t be able to just put an inferior experience on the HH anyway).

But one thing is certain, Sony shouldn`t consider the japanese market as unimportant.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Around the Network
Kai_Mao on 09 June 2020

I think its interesting that we talk about Switch selling well because its a handheld, when its also priced as a home console (with ~$60 priced games and a $300 console, with the $200 Lite as an option).

While I agree that the console market in Japan is not the same in decades past, but I think the Switch shows that there's life in the market. It'll be interesting to see how Sony approaches marketing PS5 in Japan moving forward. I do understand their concerns though. They have all the AAA Japanese third party games under the sun (i.e., FFVIIR, KH3, MHW, MGSV, FFXV, Persona 5, DQXI, RE2R, RE7, etc.), but the Switch not only outsold the PS4 in short time, but is trouncing it convincingly.



Qwark on 09 June 2020

Luckily Sony brings many big Japanese games with them. Since a lot of those like FFVII remake now have a bigger fanbase in the West then Japan. This trend will be way bigger next gen. To think we might live to see the day a final fantasy release will sell better in the US per capita than in Japan.



Please excuse my (probally) poor grammar

Jranation on 09 June 2020
Kai_Mao said:
I think its interesting that we talk about Switch selling well because its a handheld, when its also priced as a home console (with ~$60 priced games and a $300 console, with the $200 Lite as an option).

While I agree that the console market in Japan is not the same in decades past, but I think the Switch shows that there's life in the market. It'll be interesting to see how Sony approaches marketing PS5 in Japan moving forward. I do understand their concerns though. They have all the AAA Japanese third party games under the sun (i.e., FFVIIR, KH3, MHW, MGSV, FFXV, Persona 5, DQXI, RE2R, RE7, etc.), but the Switch not only outsold the PS4 in short time, but is trouncing it convincingly.

And its not just because Switch is also a handheld. Because the PS4 (a Home console) outsold the PS Vita (A handheld) in Japan. The only way I can see Sony challenging Nintendo in Japan is to have those AAA Japanese third party games on a Hybrid console or a Handheld. 



Pocky Lover Boy! 

DonFerrari on 09 June 2020
Jranation said:
Kai_Mao said:
I think its interesting that we talk about Switch selling well because its a handheld, when its also priced as a home console (with ~$60 priced games and a $300 console, with the $200 Lite as an option).

While I agree that the console market in Japan is not the same in decades past, but I think the Switch shows that there's life in the market. It'll be interesting to see how Sony approaches marketing PS5 in Japan moving forward. I do understand their concerns though. They have all the AAA Japanese third party games under the sun (i.e., FFVIIR, KH3, MHW, MGSV, FFXV, Persona 5, DQXI, RE2R, RE7, etc.), but the Switch not only outsold the PS4 in short time, but is trouncing it convincingly.

And its not just because Switch is also a handheld. Because the PS4 (a Home console) outsold the PS Vita (A handheld) in Japan. The only way I can see Sony challenging Nintendo in Japan is to have those AAA Japanese third party games on a Hybrid console or a Handheld. 

So PS4 sold 7 times more than PSVita worldwide to slightly outsell PSVita in Japan and we are going to deny that home consoles are doing less in Japan? And your solution is making a hybrid or hh, so you are accepting it needs to be portable to really sell a lot more.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Around the Network
Jranation on 09 June 2020
DonFerrari said:
Jranation said:

And its not just because Switch is also a handheld. Because the PS4 (a Home console) outsold the PS Vita (A handheld) in Japan. The only way I can see Sony challenging Nintendo in Japan is to have those AAA Japanese third party games on a Hybrid console or a Handheld. 

So PS4 sold 7 times more than PSVita worldwide to slightly outsell PSVita in Japan and we are going to deny that home consoles are doing less in Japan? And your solution is making a hybrid or hh, so you are accepting it needs to be portable to really sell a lot more.

Not just being a portable but also having those popular Japanese franchises like KH, FF and MH which are currently not on the Switch. 



Pocky Lover Boy! 

DonFerrari on 09 June 2020
Jranation said:
DonFerrari said:

So PS4 sold 7 times more than PSVita worldwide to slightly outsell PSVita in Japan and we are going to deny that home consoles are doing less in Japan? And your solution is making a hybrid or hh, so you are accepting it needs to be portable to really sell a lot more.

Not just being a portable but also having those popular Japanese franchises like KH, FF and MH which are currently not on the Switch. 

Well those weren't enough to make this happen on PS4, but yes combined with portable it could be different.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

EricHiggin on 09 June 2020

America love PS 4 long time.



noshten on 10 June 2020

The bigger issue for PlayStation ecosystem is that by not making a system that is focused on it's home turf, it's likely their partners would lose relevance in their home nation. New studios and publishers will grow on the Nintendo ecosystem, which in turn might replace Sony's current partner studio/publishers in relevance in Japan.



Hynad on 10 June 2020
noshten said:
The bigger issue for PlayStation ecosystem is that by not making a system that is focused on it's home turf, it's likely their partners would lose relevance in their home nation. New studios and publishers will grow on the Nintendo ecosystem, which in turn might replace Sony's current partner studio/publishers in relevance in Japan.

Errr. The PS5 will still be sold in Japan. You don't need to have everything focused on Japan to get Japanese developers on board. If it sells well because the console is what Japanese gamers want, then Japanese developers who want to focus on that audience will get on board. 

Good thing many Japanese developers understand that their particular kind of games also have an audience outside of Japan, so they can continue to make those games. And if it's not enough, they can always make games that cater to other types of audiences. In the end, the sensible thing to do is to make products that people want.