Jim Ryan denies that PlayStation is leaving the Japanese market

Jim Ryan denies the rumors that PlayStation is leaving the Japanese market: “It’s our second biggest market and the heart of Sony”.

The PlayStation brand is a worldwide success. However, some players and analysts have suggested that Sony is leaving the Japanese market, as paradoxical as it sounds. Many have noted that most of the PS5’s launch catalog are Western games. Even Demon’s Souls, which is a Japanese game by FromSoftware, is an American remake by Bluepoint Games.

However, the clearest signal seemed to be the change made to the control (or rather its operation), as the “X” button became the default button for accepting, and the “O” button for canceling or returning. This is the case in the West, but not in Japan, where these symbols have a different connotation.

However, Jim Ryan, CEO of Sony Interactive Studios has rejected those rumors in an interview in the latest issue of EDGE magazine, 353. “Sony’s position is that the Japanese market remains incredibly important to us. It has been many years since we have been so excited about the commitment of the Japanese developer community.

Ryan says that ten years ago, Japanese developers turned to mobile games, but have started to return in the last five years, halfway through the PS4 cycle. This would be reinforced now that PS5 is here: eight of the games shown at the June PS5 event were from Japanese studios, such as Capcom (Resident Evil Village), Tango Gameworks (Ghostwire Tokyo), Polyphony Digital (Gran Turismo 7) or Square Enix (Project Athia).

Finally, he recalls that PS5 has been launched simultaneously in the USA and Japan, unlike PS4, where it did not arrive until 22 February 2014, three months later. “Japan, as our second-largest market and the heart of Sony, remains very important to us”.

At the sales level, however, Sony has difficulty in regaining a share of the Japanese market, which is currently monopolized by Nintendo Switch and its games. PS5 debuted strongly in Japan, but the lack of stock has stopped its sales in its tracks, and it doesn’t look like things will get better soon…