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Is Sony giving up on Japan?


Sendai-Horatio

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The playstation 5 apparently isn't doing well over there and I've been reading things that games and franchises like Monster Hunter and Disgaea will no longer be appearing and will be going to PC and other platforms. There's also Japanese devs who left in droves over Sony's censorship policies supposedly and that sony will just be funding games made by western developers.

 

I basically mostly play Japanese games, so I'm rather concerned that these types of games may stop existing in the future on the platform.

Edited by Sendai-Horatio
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3 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

Seems a bit over-dramatic and high speculative over a couple minor trends.

 

No, I don't think Sony is "giving up on Japan."

 

What do you mean by "playstation 5 apparently isn't doing well over there"?

 

There are only clickbait articles about Monster Hunter not being on Playstation in the future, nothing confirmed or even really alluded to by the IP owners.

Well there's articles like these popping up saying the launch in Japan and sales figures were some of the worst the company experienced.

https://wccftech.com/ps5-japanese-launch-lowest-ever-ps4-less-than-half-sales/

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3 minutes ago, Sendai-Horatio said:

Well there's articles like these popping up saying the launch in Japan and sales figures were some of the worst the company experienced.

https://wccftech.com/ps5-japanese-launch-lowest-ever-ps4-less-than-half-sales/

 

This is a pretty big thing to completely gloss over in the second paragraph of your link:

 

Quote

Now, of course, PS5 supply has been constrained

 

Of course sales will be lower if Sony has been unable to produce as many units. Seems pretty basic.

Edited by DaivRules
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It's a tense time for many of us whenever there's a new generation of consoles released. I'm concerned that major Western RPG franchises will go to Xbox/PC and you're concerned that there's going to be an exodus of JRPG titles. 

I think DaivRules is right though. It's far too early to really know what's going to happen and we shouldn't jump to conclusions from a few very 'early days' articles. 

Worst case scenario is that these speculative articles 'create their own reality' as people react to these speculations and move away from the Playstation. 

I'm sure things will not be as bad as they are being made out to be. I expect some of these articles are sponsored by Microsoft to convince people to leave PS as ' xbox will have better exclusives'!!!

 

Stay calm. We'll find out soon enough and if the rumours are proven to be true, it's not the end of the world to have to switch consoles. 

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3 minutes ago, TheVengeance1231 said:

Sony is giving up on Asia, after it's headquarter move out of Japan.

There are only very few stock in Asia.

I cannot buy one (at normal price).

 

Last I checked, Sony headquarters is still based in Tokyo and no company with sense will give up on the asian market since its currently the largest market. 

 

I want to add that one of the PS5's best selling games currently is the very japanese Demons Souls and other japanese games are slated for release

Edited by majob
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6 minutes ago, ShadowReplicant said:

 

Sony Interactive Entertainment is based in California.

I know but the person I quoted made it seem Sony headquarters was moved. People should learn that the Tokyo headquarters still runs the show at the end of the day. I think it might also be worth mentioning that Japan is basically Nintendo country and handhelds and mobiles are king right now there. Console sales there have been going down for years

Edited by majob
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Don't trust everything you read on the internet. Especially from lesser known and less reputable sources. At the very least, get confirmation from multiple sources before making a decision on whether or not something is true. There are many sites out there that just want clicks. They don't care if what they're posting is speculation or a straight up lie.

 

Anyway, Sony would never "give up" on Japan. That makes no sense for them to not want to appeal to a large demographic like that. And if games like MH and Disgaea aren't going to be on PS5, then that has absolutely nothing to do with Sony. That has to do with the people who make and publish the games. Even then, the PS5 is set to be the powerhouse of next gen, just like the PS4 was for this gen. It makes no sense to not want to capitalize on that market. And of course PS5 sales aren't as good as PS4. We're in the midst of a global pandemic that's preventing more from being made. The fact that they're all sold out everywhere should say more than anything.

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2 hours ago, majob said:

Last I checked, Sony headquarters is still based in Tokyo and no company with sense will give up on the asian market since its currently the largest market. 

 

I want to add that one of the PS5's best selling games currently is the very japanese Demons Souls and other japanese games are slated for release

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sony-japan-has-been-sidelined-from-playstation-5s-launch-a-new-report-claims/amp/

 

Sony did not respect Asia anymore.

Not only very little ps5 stock,  but also the decision of X over O as confirm button. 

Edited by TheVengeance1231
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Just now, TheVengeance1231 said:

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sony-japan-has-been-sidelined-from-playstation-5s-launch-a-new-report-claims/amp/

 

Sony did mot respect Asia anymore.

Not only very little ps5 stock,  but also the decision of X over O as confirm button. 

Didn't the change with the X/O button just re-orient it to match the Switch and Xbox's confirm button? I mean if japan is already used to the switch, isn't hitting X be the same as hitting B?

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55 minutes ago, TheVengeance1231 said:

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sony-japan-has-been-sidelined-from-playstation-5s-launch-a-new-report-claims/amp/

 

Sony did not respect Asia anymore.

Not only very little ps5 stock,  but also the decision of X over O as confirm button. 

I can't speak on Ryan's treatment of the Japanese department but the PS5 has relatively little stock everywhere right now considering production under COVID has taken a massive blow. The X and O situation is just streamlining. As I said before, the asian market is the largest market, no company is going to dismiss it, it's financial stupidity to do so

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Can't really say because normally I'd be thinking that Sony wouldn't be so dumb to repeat Microsoft's mistake in losing Japan, but Sony has been making a lot of really stupid mistakes in general as of late.  The only thing that is for sure is that it will take some time before it gets too bad because most Japanese devs aren't very fond of the Xbox and still wary of PC.  I'd imaging that the Xbox Series X has sold even worse in Japan, so PC would be the most viable platform (along with the Switch) and a lot of Japanese devs have valid concerns about piracy in regards to PC and are still testing waters with porting to Steam.  Steam also is a western based platform as well and has a lot of problems of its own.  One thing is for sure, there are still Japanese devs slowly testing the waters on PC and most of the JRPG releases on PC are still ports done by western localization companies or western branches of the developer.  PC definitely still remains mostly an afterthought by Japanese devs.

 

Personally I think a lot is going to depend on how things go within the next few years.  The PS5 still hasn't had a lot of stock, so talking about poor sales doesn't mean much.  Plus I imagine the Xbox Series X has sold even worse in Japan because Xbox has never done well in Asia.  A lot of people are dealing with financial troubles due to pandemic and the PS5 doesn't have many games for it yet.  Many people are also wary of buying consoles right at release and also don't want to deal with the hassle of trying to get a PS5 right now.  There are definitely many factors that are causing a slow start to this gen and many players are perfectly fine with sticking to PS4 for now.

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11 hours ago, Shadiochao said:

And Monster Hunter doesn't need Japanese sales to release on Playstation, as evidenced by the Xbox port of Monster Hunter World.

Sony paid Capcom for exclusivity to block ports of MHW to other consoles in Asia. In the end it probably wasn't worth it though since the game sold more on PC than it did PS4.

As far as MH goes it doesn't really matter about the region or the brand but the console, the franchise favors portables over home releases. The games skipped over the PS3 (outside of the Korean MMO and the weird PSP port) because people want to play it on the go.

 

As for Sony they only care about getting awards and money. The west has done both of these things for them this past gen. Western made games will have three times the sales of Japanese made games. It only seems natural that they've finally shifted their focus.

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I was never big in Japan as far as the sheer amount of hentai, anime and manga is concerned. I don't like the fact that Japanese culture has seemingly spilled over into the west to the point where there is a large following of Caucasian, White 'weeb' people who almost worship Japanese culture and everything it stands for. This may tie in with my overall opinion that western culture, especially here in the United States, has gone down the shithole in the past 20 years. While the 1960s - 1990s saw a continuous amount of changes in western culture, since the 2000s western culture has mostly remained stagnant. Television, movies, music, etc have all suffered under the guise of political correctness and utter censorship, we now have a generation and culture on Twitter who will shoot down anything that doesn't agree with them. This includes anime games coming over from Japan to the west that may have content that could offend some people. 

 

I'm not going to come on here and say my view is in line with @Undead Wolf because frankly I don't like a lot of anime, and I was never huge with Japanese culture. But I will say that I enjoyed the variety coming from both the east and the west. Nowadays, Sony has shifted to where they are mostly focused on western style gaming. Over the past few years the focus has been more on generic open world games and uninspired projects headed by greedy publishers who only care for the money. I used to have respect for Naughty Dog and the like but they have gone fully in line with 'playing it safe'. Rockstar Games has failed to provide any new games besides Red Dead Redemption 2. These AAA projects have a massive budget, but I feel the industry is going to experience a possible collapse in the near future because I haven't found anything really new or innovative. This points to the publishers only caring about money and not daring to take any risks.

 

As for Jim Ryan, he is exactly on par with the heads of EA and Activision. They only care for the money and will milk their fanbase for everything they got. Look at some of the best selling games of 2020. Madden NFL is just a yearly cashcow, EA doesn't need to innovate or provide great gameplay as they're the only ones who can make a NFL game, due to the fact that they have a monopoly. NBA 2K21 is filled to the brim with microtransactions and lootboxes. Again, pointing to 2K Games as a greedy western video game company.

 

The big releases coming from Japan in 2019, Devil May Cry V and Resident Evil 2 among others all have better content and more original ideas. Japan as a whole can still come up with addicting, satisfying and amazing games.

 

Sony had a good variety of niche and not so niche games in the PlayStation 3 generation. They also supported companies like Housemarque who developed Super Stardust HD, one of the early hits for the console. There was a good variety of worthwhile games on the PlayStation 3 and early on for the PlayStation 4. But now they seem to care for nothing but the big blockbuster titles. Meaning another The Last of Us, another Uncharted esque game, the upcoming God of War: Ragnarok title, and so forth. 

 

There's not much variety with Sony exclusive titles, again pointing to them moving their headquarters to California, and having an asshat like Jim Ryan, who really doesn't care about gaming, be placed at the forefront and then spew the comment that anyone still playing on PS3 and Vita is a moron. He is a soulless business executive, nothing more and nothing less, who cares only for sales and shipments.

 

Fuck him. Anyone wanting to know why companies go down the shitter like this, you just have to point at the people at the top running them.

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On 1/18/2021 at 4:17 AM, Spaz said:

There's not much variety with Sony exclusive titles, again pointing to them moving their headquarters to California, and having an asshat like Jim Ryan, who really doesn't care about gaming, be placed at the forefront and then spew the comment that anyone still playing on PS3 and Vita is a moron. He is a soulless business executive, nothing more and nothing less, who cares only for sales and shipments.

 

Fuck him. Anyone wanting to know why companies go down the shitter like this, you just have to point at the people at the top running them.

 

Depressive indeed

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