That was a shit hot take for 2019, even worse now. I don't get fanboyism over consoles, all three console companies are doing well right now, while some many selling better than others none are in a bad place.
Playstation is in a bad place in Japan though, which is what Sony fanboys (including our resident one) have been seething non-stop whenever there were reports of the situation there and the progressive shift of the industry. The de-facto place for japanese third-parties, including niche titles, used to be Playstation since 1994 but Nintendo has slowly been taking over the throne. Playstation's success in Japan relied on third-parties, and it's silly to believe Playstation would have been unaffected if the 3rd-party games that used to only come out for PS get released for the Switch too. It lessens the incentive of a consumer to obtain a Playstation, and Famitsu & MC software sales charts proved that Playstation game sales continue to decrease with most of that being absorbed by the Switch. Even PC/Steam has seen a recent surge of mainstream popularity in the eastern country, which would have been unthinkable even half a decade ago.
Another circumstance that put PlayStation at a disadvantage in Japan is that characteristics typically chased by SIE, such as producing "cinematic experiences" and high-quality graphics/photo-realism, aren't selling points capable of attracting the japanese market at large. The mega-hits in Japan are typically driven by game mechanics, more so than the presentation itself, and usually become hugely successful thanks to positive word-of-mouth. The taste of the mainstream japanese market is more keen at videogames being a form of amusement than a form of interactive movie. This is evidenced with the fact that
Earth Defense Force 6 won the user award (from the
Playstation Partner Awards 2022 Japan Asia) as the most-played Playstation game in Japan, surpassing Elden Ring itself and every SIE's own offering in spite of being made with no more than one tenth of the budget by comparison. The kind of games that the japanese (can) like have been very prevalent within handheld consoles, since the PSP & DS, hence the popularity of the form factor in the nippon market.
There is also something else that tends to get overlooked a lot in PlayStation's handling of Japan the past decade, preceded by a massive power struggle between the american branch and the japanese one in which the former managed to overtake and purged the latter. The cuts and restrictions weren't simply the Japan Studio teams that developed Gravity Rush or produced Bloodborne, it was much more deep and endemic than that. The purge happened at all levels within SIEJA (R&D, publishing, marketing, admin, third-party relations, etc) and with marketing in particular we know this for a fact from Mochizuki's articles in 2019 or the reddit AMA specifying a slimming of resources and loss of autonomy a year earlier. The Asian localization and publishing operations was gutted, which essentially went independent and became
Clouded Leopard Entertainment.
archived 9 Jan 2023 17:39:00 UTC
archive.md
1,269 votes and 803 comments so far on Reddit
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We are in the middle of a transitional phase for the industry in Japan. We're already seeing things that were once believed immutable dogma changing rather drastically; if one were to go back in time and claim that small and medium-sized (even a few big now) japanese publishers were losing confidence in PlayStation's ability to sell their software while a Nintendo platform demonstrated that it can with high flying colors, he'd be branded something akin of a delusional faggot. Likewise for the PC gaming situation there.
アーカイブされた 2023年1月9日 18:04:47 UTC
archive.md
As seen above, Falcom’s president (Toshihiro Kondo) even called PS software sales “dull” or “lackluster” in front of a room full of its investors, so it’s quite a real problem and its impact on smaller publishers at least is no longer a disputable notion. There was also that
more recent interview from Capcom's president (Haruhiro Tsujimoto) claiming the company would have no choice but develop games for Switch/Mobile/PC if the japanese market continues to go the way it is.
To sum up, if there is one thing that PlayStation is truly losing, it's the confidence of the japanese business partners that helped build the platform. And the examples provided show how that lack of confidence has been gradually manifesting. PS4 releases will eventually evaporate into nothingness as its software sales will, and they’re not all going to jump to PS5 in the current environment of the JP market, because they have no continued confidence in PlayStation to sell software. Meanwhile, the platform that’s reigning supreme in Japan is also selling phenomenally in the rest of the world. For at least smaller publishers in Japan, Switch (and whatever comes next) will be the de facto lead platform moving forward. If absolutely nothing about the current Playstation situation changes for the best, it cannot be guaranteed with any reasonable sense of credibility that nothing will change with the big publishers either. This change will continue to progressively happen across several more years. But since these publishers are not a monolith, they will react to the situation in different ways, at different times and on different terms, not unlike what we saw and keep seeing with the small publishers and developers.
I just say all this as someone who is really into japanese gaming & media, including imports, and who truly enjoyed the old Playstation's ecosystem before the american takeover ultimately killed it. Although the regulars are already aware how much of a filthy weeb I am.
tl;dr: Modern Playstation is gay and run by retarded suits for years. Letting erode their relevance and power in asian markets (especially Japan) is a big fat mistake that is biting them in the ass now.
"Nintendo is too retarded to sell a system that will sell gangbusters in the US"
I only know the worldwide sales for Switch are good, but I'm sure it sold well in the US too. Maybe he'll say he just meant the regular Switch and will blame OLED or something. He'll find a way not to say "I was wrong about that."
The mere fact he is still going about Final Fantasy despite
you did btfo him a few pages back is just another reason to not engage him beyond a single informative post (or simply not engage him at all as
@Pissmaster suggested). He will not listen to reason and say meaningful things whatsoever.
I'm impressed he couldn't anwser
@Smaug's Smokey Hole 2 's simple question, twice no less.