Sony admits PS4 is a tougher sell in Japan

PS4 has been a smash hit in the West but has struggled to take off in Japan since its arrival in the region in February.

The machine had a fantastic launch selling 322,083 units in its first two days, bettering the PS3’s Japanese launch performance by 88,443 units. Since then, however, it has slowed considerably and is now being outsold week-on-week by not just the Wii U but also the PS3.

Sony Computer Entertainment boss Andrew House has told Eurogamer that the reason is at least in part due to the fact that Japanese developers have been less willing to commit to the hardware than Western studios.

"It’s doing okay [in Japan]," he said. "There was a slight level of concern around the viability of the console market in Japan [and] we’re conscious of the fact we have not had yet the sort of groundswell of native content from Japanese publishers and developers. I view that as temporary.

"There’s definite developer and publisher enthusiasm for the platform, especially having seen the overarching success it’s had in markets outside of Japan For whatever reasons, when we were evangelising around the platform, we were having a tougher sell with Japanese publishers and developers.”

House added that while streaming media services have proved immensely popular in the West and driven even more consumers to consoles, to date such services have failed to make an impact in Japan, therefore eradicating that extra buying incentive for modern consoles.

"We’ll see over time great games coming from Japanese publishers and developers,” he added. That’s point number one. Point number two, which is hampering us a little bit, is for a variety of other structural reasons around the entertainment industry in Japan, we’re not seeing that secondary usage. Those two are colluding together."