PS4 also had all of those yet Nintendo dominated Japan. If Sony wants a piece of cake that's Japanese market, they have to focus on countering Nintendo giants like Mario, Zelda and Pokémon. I don't think they have any chance for that.
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Jim Ryan: “The Sony stance is that the Japanese market remains incredibly important to us,”
- Thread starter Aran
- Start date
PS4 also had all of those yet Nintendo dominated Japan. If Sony wants a piece of cake that's Japanese market, they have to focus on countering Nintendo giants like Mario, Zelda and Pokémon. I don't think they have any chance for that.
I've read it. And understood it plenty.
If you've noticed, I didn't participate in that thread because while there are stuff that I don't agree with in the reporting - both from personal assessment or my own ear-on-the ground, fundamentally I don't disagree that Sony has not done a great job when it comes to giving extra care and attention to the Japanese market, and in fact - I'm quite confident that they don't intend to to give extra care/attention to the Japanese market.
Mind you, that doesn't mean Japan is sidelined/unimportant to SIE. It just means they won't be "aggressive" in the market for the sake of growing beyond their traditional lifetime expectations of how PS5 would do there. There won't be attempts to deliver lightning-in-the-bottle games or investments to have equivalent of games that delivered multi-million sales in Japan by the competition. Or even extra special care for niche/AA markets, because let's face it - they aren't gonna chase that extra 100k audience either.
My own business view of the matter is that Japan is basically a 'mature-market-in-decline' for PlayStation, where it remains in the top five markets by country for Sony, but they have no intention of trying to transform their existing market position into something different. Their focus will be to sustain and stabilize the Japanese market by relying on what they did before.
Sony will instead, put more resources in developing console markets like Southeast Asia.
Can't believe he even responded to this TBH. What's not to believe? This basically translates to "money is money no matter which currency". Tell him thanks for releasing Spier-Miles on PS4 though, because despite believing in generations, who knows when I will actually find a PS5 DE to buy. *sobs quietly*
The problem with those games you mentioned is how infrequently they turn up. You need all the smaller games to tide people over in between, and that's what they lack. It would cost a lot to force that from Sony's end, and they don't want to pay that money. Which is fine, but it means that Japan is no longer of high importance to them and they are effectively ceding the market to nintendo.
Are you sure about that never? Cause Sony used to make quite a lot of games, plenty of them cartoony and anime and they used to appeal to wider demographics but haven't since the PS2 and PSP.
PS1, PS2 and PSP were eras that Sony had quite a lot of internally developed and co-developed exclusive titles that reached far and wide demographics.
It would take extreme bravery to pass up a Switch release if the console is technically able to run the game.
Sony's games sell more now than they ever have. How did they used to appeal to wider demographics when wider demographics weren't buying their games in big numbers save for Gran Turismo?
Nintendo as a publisher has more than 50% of the marketshare. They can even get the million sellers on Wii U
How many million sellers are their on Switch which are from third party ?
Minecraft ?
How many million sellers are their on Switch which are from third party ?
Minecraft ?
Pretty much, but it shouldn't come as a surprise. Anything that can be seen as remotely critical of Sony gets jumped on by certain groups here. I still remember people asking about whether PS5 would have a Quick Resume feature and the swarm of people jumping in with their stupid, 'OMG, are you concerned!?' wannabe memes and shit like repeating some tired old shit was supposed to mean anything to people who hoped to have a similar feature. Same crap here. Those people clearly don't know or care about what's actually being said and instead want their 'clever' one-liners and forced memes.
I think the argument people have really is that it's debatable whether Sony is even doing a good enough job of maintaining that marketshare. Switch is much more competitive than any previous Nintendo machine in terms of targeting what would have traditionally been PlayStation exclusive releases.
PS4 didn't have BC, while PS5 does. You don't need to make native next gen versions when you can reach both consoles' audiences with a minimal effort.
Backwards compatibility will guarantee Japanese AA developers' support for years, and they'll keep making multiplatform games unless Nintendo pays for exclusivity.
Yup, and soon Momotaro and Monster Hunter.
But you know that's a reflection of the lack of investment from third parties and not weakness of the platform.
Hard to believe really, guess we'll see in a year or two if they were really commited.
Ever since he made the BC and "we believe in generations" statements he has collectively killed all of Era's puppies.
Why would japanese users upgrade from PS4 to 5 then?
Because clearly, looking at the charts, this strategy doesn't work. All of the PS5 launch games bombed in Japan.
Japan Studio is so great.
They make and collaborate on so many great games. I really wish they would double or triple their output. It seems like such a no brainer.
They make and collaborate on so many great games. I really wish they would double or triple their output. It seems like such a no brainer.
Sure, but if Japanese games aren't going to even take advantage of the PS5(nevermind be exclusive to it) what is the incentive for Japanese consumers to invest in the platform?
PS4 is already well into its decline phase and is now losing ground, what happens if PS4 falls off quicker than PS5 picks up?
What if consumers just decide to switch brands?
Atelier Ryza 2 is probably going to be a good example(and it's one of the few with a PS5 version). The first game sold ~2/3 of its copies on PS4 but it looks like the sequel will sell 50/50 across PS4 and Switch with PS4 falling off and Switch growing massively. The PS5 version had its retail release cancelled.
Momotaro Dentetsu in like a week and then MH in March as well.
The only 3rd party franchises hitting 1 million in Japan are FF(which can barely do it now and might not with XIV), MH, Minecraft and DQ
OP
OP
That does put some things into perspective for me and explains some of Sony's actions.
Yes' Im Aware. My point was more towards Nintendo Pull in the JP as a publisher and they are currently at their strongest point
FF Remake did 1.5 mil in first month and KH 3 is million seller.
Anyways my point was towards nintendo domination as a first party publisher which Sony cant do as their western efforts yielded them more 10 millions sellers than the PS1 and PS2 Generation
If you check the past, you will know it's already better.
Lacking MGS is the only worse thing.
Some good responses, which I agree with for the most part actually. Funnily enough I feel that's where Japan Studio could (could have?) been most useful. Smaller budget games that sort out those gaps in the catalogue, but it doesn't seem like there's much of an appetite for that currently. We don't know what's cooking though so who knows.
I'm not entirely sure what they can do on the hardware front though. Make a smaller box, maybe? Bearing in mind they're in direct competition with Xbox and have built a huge global audience off the back of extremely high budget experiences. I don't envy the position they're in at all, as you can never please everyone.
I think it's way too early for that kind of discussion, and even if will PS5 bomb hard with plenty of stock available i don't really think that any AA developer is going to ditch multiplatform releases anyway, simply because total and everlasting exclusivity for HD games is mostly not going to happen no matter what. Nintendo lost all of its third party 3ds non-paid exclusives, just like Playstation did.
Would you say the same thing about Nintendo in the west? Because for generations people have been complaining about Nintendo's lack of more hardcore T to M rated titles they used to make and publish back in the day which could help foster further growth and more support for those titles on their platform. But hey, their tentpoles are selling better than ever. Remember, the N64 was the original shooter box, and the home of FPS's and TPS's and then they shifted away from all that.
I feel like Sony probably thinks that no matter how hard they try, they won't beat Nintendo in Japan, or even close the gap. And no matter how badly they do, they won't lose to/or get close to MS. So probably just trying to focus on Western market which they can have more influence..
Sony should just make a handheld for the west audience, buy level 5 and let japan studios and level 5 make games for the handheld and phones for the west. You can still have the console but make something for the west that fits their lifestyle. Just releasing a regular console ain't going to work any more in japan.
Imo, size isn't even the biggest issue, because if the software was compelling enough, people would have managed to make room for one.
The issue is clearly the price of that hardware. There are lots of reasons to do so in the west, but when you're the typical Japanese player, what are you spending 50.000 yen for? A remake of a Souls game? That's pretty much everything there is. And at the moment there's nothing in the coming months that has system selling potential either.
Nintendo isn't relevant to the conversation, but you don't need M rated games to appeal to adults, who are playing games like Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing in huge numbers and significantly more than
Sony's games didn't sell as well during this supposedly golden period you're talking about. More people play their games now than ever before; their games are objectively reaching more people and selling tens of millions now. So I'm curious what data you have that they used to make tons of games "that reached far and wide demographics" despite their games doing significantly better worldwide currently than in the PS1/PS2 days when third party games were the ones regularly charting over Sony.
I don't think you're wrong, but Nintendo is quite obviously willing to invest in those smaller franchises and offer marketing deals and if those games start becoming primarily Switch/Switch 2/etc releases it obviously becomes much easier to make those deals. Especially when you see that Nintendo is obviously open to allowing PC release.
If we're taking for granted that something like Rune Factory is Switch exclusive due to Nintendo's investment well there are a lot of Japanese publishers and IPs comparable in scale that Nintendo could easily scoop up.
Even if they don't and pretty much everything is multiplatform that's still a massive shift in the dynamic of the Japanese market, and puts PlayStation at a massive disadvantage because Nintendo doesn't rely on third parties and the advantage PlayStation has typically had is not just the handful of defacto exclusive AAA releases but in the plethora of third party games that were only on PlayStation.
Chris pointed it out in the Media Create thread that 2020 is the first year since PlayStation entered the market in 1994 that it's not had the most releases in Japan.
Globally, though Japan was the major maket for them. sony basically stopped the pervo games from being release on their consoles. which in one sense is good as a lot of them were perving on minors, which is super disgusting. I think it may have affected other games too though, but I don't buy them so I'm not sure.
I don't really understand why people are getting mad about this. Like, how does it affect you whether Sony invests in marketing in Japan or not?
The PS3, the PS4 and Vita had all of that, when is it that the Japanese consumer will actually start to support Sony in the games they make? People REALLY need to stop thinking that the Japanese market started March 3rd, 2017.
Jup, the rethoric is made and certain people will never waver from this stance.
Care to explain what Sony should do to increase their sales numbers in japan? They could literally buy Capcom tomorrow and they may squeeze out a few 100K more units with that move at most.
A few years back almost everyone understood that japan hugely moved to mobile gaming so why are people now dismissing that aspect? Of course that does not mean that console gaming is dead like we have seen with the PS4.
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Is Sony out of the touch with the Japanese market?
No, it's the consumers who are wrong.
Nintendo's successful run at the top of the market has been going a lot longer than the release of the Switch. Even still Sony managed to have the very successful PSP during that timeframe. Why did Japanese consumers support that and not the other consoles?
Maybe because there's another home console that sells hundreds of thousands units each week.
Simple, Just make a killer app for japanese audience.
If someone make a game based on popular anime series like Fate or Demon Slayer with big budgets, a lot of people would buy it.
Even the PS4 version of Genshin Impact is doing very well on Japan.
Believing independent press over PR isn't exactly a controversial take. And really the Mochizuki article and Ryan's statement aren't directly at odds even, both can be true.
I'll believe it when I see it, Jim. Because right now I very much do not see it. Hopefully that changes very soon.
But Jimbo is like:
It's obvious Japan is still hugely important to Sony and the support is going to be strong from third parties from there as much as the PS4 generation.
Sony is the only company leveling heavy censorship on Japanese devs, making it hard for them to release games, and in some cases stopping them from releasing them entirely. They actively hate Japan outside of the biggest AAA games.