The PlayStation 4 was considered a major success for Sony, which managed to pull ahead of its competitor Xbox, which has never really recovered in terms of console sales. But the fact is that the console was not equally successful everywhere.
Although it sold significantly more than its closest predecessor (PlayStation 3 sold around 78 million units compared to 117 million for PlayStation 4), PlayStation 3 was more successful in its home market of Japan, selling around one million more units in the country. TV Tokyo (via Install Base users) now reports that this was something that the former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan was not particularly concerned about.
Sales were good on a global basis, so it seemingly did not matter that PlayStation was losing ground in Japan (something that was also noticeable in the dismantling of Japanese studios). However, the current PlayStation boss, Hideaki Nishino, is Japanese himself and is not as happy that Nintendo has established itself so strongly in his home country that it has almost taken over completely. Switch sold over 36 million units in the country, compared to 9.5 million PlayStation 4 units.
This has now prompted Sony to change its strategy, and it will now try to grow in Japan again, where one strategy is to launch a lower-priced PlayStation 5 model this week - 55,000 yen - that only works with Japanese games (a strategy Nintendo is already using with Switch 2). According to the report, it may even be sold at a significant loss, with the price tag being equivalent to £270/€305.
What do you think? Is it important for Sony to continue to be big in Japan, or would it be better to put its resources elsewhere?