2y ago

Phil Spencer: Japanese PC games market has doubled, Game Pass PC users have quadrupled

www.tweaktown.com

12 comments

So price will octuple soon
- At effectively $1.50 a month they can up it 1000% and I'm still saving $2,000+ USD a year. I'm locked in for another 2.5 years at this rate minimum. So t that's at least 5k I'd be spending.
  
  $1.50/month
  How? Here it's 10€/month
Two big reasons why PC gaming went up since 2020 is covid and Sony deciding to focus on the western market.
Covid meant a lot of people bought computers when they didn’t have them before - they needed computers for WFH and online schooling. A LOT of people didn’t actually have computers at home, because they had phones or tablets because they’re smaller and take up less space. So more people have PCs at home now than did before covid hit.
Then came Sony deciding to focus on the North American and European markets. That meant most PS5s went to NA and Europe, and Japan got very few of them. For a really long time, the only way to buy one was to sign up for a lottery at the different electronic stores for the CHANGE to buy one. And one they started becoming slightly more available, there were still so few most electronic stores required you to have a store membership card or store credit card to get one when they were in stock. Long after you could go into a Walmart or Best Buy in the US and pick one up, we still had nothing but “out of stock” signs over here (even now, the electronics store near me in Osaka does not have the digital edition in stock). Add to that a price hike when it was still almost impossible to get a PS5, and a lot of people got pissed off/gave up and started PC gaming.
- You can't discredit the good market of PC gaming. Even if there was a pull towards it, it gained momentum due to luxury of PC gaming (basically Steam)
  
  Who said I’m discrediting it? I’m pointing out why more people in Japan decided to try PC gaming in the first place. No matter how good the PC gaming market is, it doesn’t mean jack if a lot of people don’t have PCs at home in the first place to decide to give it a shot.
- It was a fairly similar story in Australia, although not to that extreme. I believe our mates across the ditch in NZ had a similar thing though
Wow, there's 4 whole gamepass subscribers in Japan now
Sony is dropping the ball.
Japan has a long history of being pro-Sony.
- Japan has a long history of being pro-japanese. Anything from outsiders have a very difficult time finding support there.

12 comments