Then this is not probably not nearly as doom and gloom as it appears. It ends up being apples to oranges to a certain extent.
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Hideki Yasuda, Senior Analyst, Ace Research Institute: Nintendo has practically eradicated Playstation from Japan
- Thread starter K Samedi
- Start date
Sony isn't interested in portable gaming any longer and Japan isn't intereted in console gaming any longer.
That may explain it.
Yeah I know that but isn't that the same thing? Like I am sure PS mobile would love to have some heavy hitting mobile games but does Sony as a whole really care where the revenue comes from?
It would be less than a marginal difference for sales of those in Japan. The money and effort would outweigh the max potential gains from it.
To add to this, just look at the best selling games in Japan last year. Seven of the top 10 are Nintendo games. The types of games selling in Japan are the ones Nintendo makes. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I don't think anyone can out Nintendo Nintendo.
Demographic, work schedule, transport time, home size, purchase power can be influential in the (home) entertainment sector.
Who knows? It isn't like Japanese games don't sell well in the rest of the world. There isn't anything really stopping them besides their current Japanese teams not getting the job done outside of Polyphony.
That sure explains why several Switch games which can only be played on a TV are selling at record paces.
/s
Switch is a home console and a handheld. You can't just say Japan has no interest in home consoles when it's outpacing everything but the DS at much higher prices, and selling more and higher priced software than more or less anything else. Sure, its form factor is definitely a major factor in its success but as shown by the split between the hybrid and the Lite it's not the only one.
Software is a much bigger factor.
Sony's biggest game in Japan is a mobile game. It's probably easier for Sony to make money that way in Japan than trying to establish a home console.
Source
They really need to actually start pushing advertisements out for some of the smaller Japanese games they make. Obviously it wouldn't fix everything but Gravity Rush basically only sold any copies based on word of mouth as far as I've seen, and it still didn't even do that well.
I agree that it's not really an issue with Sony having enough big AAA titles like Final Fantasy and Monster Hunter, but I don't think it's a lack of smaller enthusiast titles like Ogre Battle and Disgaea that's hurting them. It's the complete lack of titles that aren't aiming first and foremost for adult male gamers. That demographic is still buying the Playstation in Japan as far as I know. It's the lack of... everything else that I think hurts them. This is compared to the Switch, which has no shortage of software targeting pretty much every major demographic.
It's the reason "Sony should just make a handheld" also isn't the solution. Vita did fine in Japan (compared to the rest of the world, anyway), but it still had the same fatal flaw in software that kept it from being a huge hit. It's a problem that's not going to go away for Sony in Japan. And it's unfortunately (for Sony) not an easy problem to fix because saying "lul just make your own Animal Crossing" is a lot easier said than done.
User Warned - Platform Warring
I remember hoping that the Switch would cause Sony to put in more work for Japan, cause they'd been coasting, but not like this... I don't want to deal with Japanese devs focusing on that decrepit hardware for the next decade...
Japanese AAA games have been tailored to western audiences for a while now. That's one of the reasons they are losing part of their audience in Japan.
It's clear that they are shrinking in Japan, but the NA market and EU will keep Playstation alive. I believe they will still sell good numbers in Japan so long they have software for it.
I don't think that's even possible for Sony right now. You would be asking them to support two different platforms and have their developers split their time on focusing on a portable and the PS5. They would need to double up on the amount of developers they own to even have enough software to keep both platforms happy. The amount of money they would be spending on making another platform would be better spent on making the PS5 software side better.
The answer is clear: they don't care.
The market itself has moved onto mobile completely. Switch is basically playing against itself at this point.
The market itself has moved onto mobile completely. Switch is basically playing against itself at this point.
I'm not going to say they don't care, because obviously they'd prefer to be doing well in Japan as well, but I think they look at the bigger picture here and know that globally they're executing better than ever. They'd have to invest significant effort specifically into Japan to reverse this course, and they know it's not worth it for one country when those resources could be better spent on strengthening their position in virtually every other country on the planet (including emerging markets, where they're also seeing success).
Big Japanese games like Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing, Pokemon have broad appeal. The big first party Sony games don't to that extent. Just not comparable.
You know how your seeing japanese game announcements saying switch/PS4 or just switch? Get use to that for atleast a couple years
If Sony can get these studios, expand them so they can prioritize making high quality handheld/(maybe console port) games I think they would be good.
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Add japan studios to the handheld side. They would be the Naughty dog for the handheld side of Sony lol and what I mean by that is they would be the studio that knows the ins and out of handheld hardware while making games as well. Then you let your AAA studios like naughty dog, insomniac and Santa Monica your western studios makes games for the PS5. I think that's a good strategy imo.
The Vita suffered because
1.Expensive memory card and
2. Not enough studios making great games for the device.
Most of their studios were making console games. so if Sony can get those studios I listed they would be in a better spot in japan.
What y'all think?
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Add japan studios to the handheld side. They would be the Naughty dog for the handheld side of Sony lol and what I mean by that is they would be the studio that knows the ins and out of handheld hardware while making games as well. Then you let your AAA studios like naughty dog, insomniac and Santa Monica your western studios makes games for the PS5. I think that's a good strategy imo.
The Vita suffered because
1.Expensive memory card and
2. Not enough studios making great games for the device.
Most of their studios were making console games. so if Sony can get those studios I listed they would be in a better spot in japan.
What y'all think?
Delightworks, the developer of FGO, isn't owned by Aniplex/Sony Music and keep their share of profits. So Sony doesn't get everything.
I think the situation is similar as Pokémon GO and Nintendo, where Nintendo does make money from the ownership of the IP and partial ownership of TPC, but not all of it.
I think that the type of games that Nintendo makes are very Japanese but they have a more Disney like appeal. Meaning that they appeal to both adults and children. The types of games that most people in this thread seem to want are more JRPGs and the like which likely would not have the same massive appeal. The only teen game I can think of that has real massive appeal that Nintendo makes is Zelda and that has a sort of Studio Ghibli like whimsy.
I feel like a lot of people on era don't seem to understand why Nintendo is so successful.
Exactly. It's easy to say "Oh, just make games that Japanese people want to buy." but that is infinitely easier said than done.
Sony's past string of Japanese games, even during the PS3 era, hasn't exactly sold all too well in the west either. In fact, what Sony Japan game (that isn't an Ueda game or GT) during the PS2 era sold really well in the west? I can't really think of any off the top of my head.
This was the year Final Fantasy VII remake released and Sony still really underperformed, I remember before the year ended that there was optimism on the room about Sony breaking a few sales milestones, but the momentum just died, dual Switch/PS4 started to be on par or even favour switch versions, and the PS5 launch has been absolutely terrible. They have released so few consoles that we really don't know how much the demand actually is and the software they have for PS5 has not sold with the consoles they have sold, unlike the Switch that always sold a good amount of software with the hardware it released.
Buckle up then. This boat isn't changing course anytime soon.
As per Chris , Its above 5% if we look beyond top 30, PS4+PS5
and Add Digital which is an unknown variable.
and Add Digital which is an unknown variable.
Even on that list it's pretty baffling just how popular Animal Crosing New Horizons has been in Japan. It sold more than rest of the top 5 COMBINED.
Japan has been slowly drifting away from home console gaming to mobile/handheld gaming for quite a while now, it simply makes no sense for Sony to make considerable investments for a single market. Frankly I'd say it's even a surprise that the PS5 launched in Japan last year and didn't launch until later this year like how the PS4 didn't launch in Japan until late February 2014.
Hmm... the Ps4 has a large library of software, still it isn't selling, no? I still think the japanese consumer isn't insterested in home gaming as they once were. Switch is different and is also an answer to that, btw their constant game releases also help keep great numbers. Playstation will be NA and EU centered and Big N will be stronger in Japan than their rivals. It's a tendency that is slowly becoming true.
Ah that makes a lot of sense. I wonder if Nintendo make less of a percentage of Pokemon Go's profits than Sony does with Fate/Grand Order? I am sure the dollar amount that Nintendo makes off it is way more than Sony does on FGO but I am curious since Gamefreak must also get a significant portion of the profits.
Nintendo has the Switch, which is a device people can throw in their bag and bring with them as they go about their daily lives. The trend shows a significant decline in Japanese "traditional console" ownership, where traditional console is a box that has to be hooked up to a TV to use it.
Something similar to Microsoft's Game Pass + xCloud model but with a catalog of software Japanese gamers are interested in is the path forward.
Nah, it won't be that bad in the long run. Probably a drop to 3/4s or 2/3 of PS4.
5% isn't exactly much better though
Just due to the sheer amount of Switch games dominating the tops of the charts I would imagine digital would actually skew the total more towards Switch than PS4/PS5, at least for this year.
But yeah the top 30 certainly doesn't tell the whole story.
PS4 sold better than the Vita. It's not about Japanese simply disliking home gaming, it's much more about the types of games being released and marketed.
Sony didn't mess up, JP don't buy home consoles.
If Switch wasent a hybrid it would do poorly too.
Yeah was more of a wishlist than expecting them to do it.
As you say everyone can see the benefits that Nintendo have had by unifying their platforms, Sony would be returning to the old model of multiple hardware support. They also already have PSVR to support in addition.
The Wii U actually did much better in Japan proportionally to the rest of the world. It kinda does indicate the issue isn't "console vs handheld" like so many people are trying to boil it down to.
It'll be interesting to see what global ramifications that might have.
Sony got a lot of de facto exclusives last Gen (against Xbox) and that resonated extremely well with many of the hardcore gamers in the West. I don't see that trend continuing. Either games will likely be PS/Xbox or Switch only perhaps?
Sony got a lot of de facto exclusives last Gen (against Xbox) and that resonated extremely well with many of the hardcore gamers in the West. I don't see that trend continuing. Either games will likely be PS/Xbox or Switch only perhaps?
I'm pretty sure it's impossible... but is there anyway Sony could make some sort of PS4-portable? Some kind of handheld that plays downscaled PS4 digital games? That way devs could make software for that, that would also be compatible with PS5. That would be a dream, but I think I already know the answer to the feasibility of it.
Problem is, Wii U software were still selling. And it even had successful new Ips on the area.
