Someone on Twitter actually reshared it so it came back to mind

Japan can be more profitable if you expand your brand broader, but it takes time and mutual engagement, and they’ve ignored the region so long they’re less popular than consoles a decade out of date

I don’t know if this is enough to fix it when it’s not going further than Nintendo already have

You need games and more aimed specifically at Japan, not just a lower price. You have to bring people back, an that takes more than a YOASOBI songs and a cheap price

And Sony had that at one point before they priced themselves out and took the country for granted

This could work, or at least begin to reverse the trend. But Nintendo started over a decade ago during the Wii U era and made Japan its only somewhat-ok region, and are well-oiled at it

At the end of it all Sony are still dictated by a US branch not fully in tune (as this being Digital shows)

People still prefer physical games here even if the shift to digital seen elsewhere is noted

The merchandising shift has made the digital media shift more bearable for many but many still prefer a physical if just go the resale potential with such a big second-hand market

Sony are only now starting that path

This will get more people to PlayStation, but Sony will take a major loss on each unit. And the loyalty isn’t there

Even then, you’re asking people to pay still more than a Switch 2 for a system people aren’t invested in, and cuts the physical essence away

And it increases loyalty, because they have memories they create from it. Nintendo expanded heavily in that space with parks and their stores and continue to do so, and people are loyal to Nintendo, it’s inescapable, really

There’s a Japan-only app for check-ins to events too

The growth of Oshikatsu can in part be credited to how people want to keep these media hobbies without sacrificing socializing. Combining the two helps

Many companies also make a significant % of profit from merch and pop-up cafes and the like, helped by lower shop rents and margins on goods/food

If you can show you love something with merch you can make friends in the wild, but you can also arrange meetups to celebrate a character or share interests at a cafe or something else (because eating out is cheaper), and blend outdoor socializing with your hobbies

Nintendo knew this earlier, and it’s why you’ve seen even Kojima but also them and others expanding heavy on merch

Ways to expand the game beyond the screen and make it visible and social is so important to the Japanese media ecosystem for a mix of economics and cultural reasons

A big bit is cost. The system launched at 40k/50k yen and is now 30k yen higher, with PS5 Pro at 120k, and the weak yen means that’s simply way too much.

Especially when a Switch 1 is 20-30k yen and a Switch 2 is 50k yen

You’re trying to convince people who don’t care for PS to drop a month’s rent

Any PlayStation platform isn’t in the top 5 of most-played platforms, behind Switch, PC, mobile and legacy platforms that were discontinued years ago

And the audience that is playing are older gamers and niche who simply didn’t move on, and it’s why only a few titles and Ghosts of Tsushima hit here

It brought a younger audience who hadn’t looked at a PlayStation in over a decade back, but there lies the problem

It’s been true for a few years but was reaffirmed in the industry report this year, but young people do not care for PlayStation. At all

Gen Z (now almost 30), plays 3DS more than PS5

Sony have been trying to grow their brand presence again for a few years, Astro Bot being the start of a push to shift people back to the platform because it turns out those Japanese games and studios the company sacked off in its shift to being US-based were actually important!

Who knew?