In this age of journalism, it's all doom and gloom. It's easy to look at the PS4's sales in Japan and see a glass half empty. Sony doesn't share your pessimism though.
"It's doing okay," PlayStation boss Andrew House said of the PS4's performance in Japan. "We're conscious of the fact we have not had yet the sort of groundswell of Japan native content from Japanese publishers and developers. I view that as temporary."
Since its western release in November 2013, PS4 sales have topped seven million units as of April 6. It's lightning fast start rivals that of the PS2. But in Sony's home country of Japan, it's an entirely different story. Since its release in February, the PS4 has moved a little less than 630,000 units to date, according to retail monitor Media Create.
House attributes the PS4's struggles in its home country to a lack of compelling Japanese created content.
"There's definite developer and publisher enthusiasm for the platform, especially having seen the overarching success it's had in markets outside of Japan, and again this outpacing of the PlayStation 2. We'll see that come into games people in Japan will get excited about, but unfortunately a little bit later than has happened in other markets," House said.
"For whatever reasons, when we were evangelizing around the platform, we were having a tougher sell with Japanese publishers and developers
"There was a comfort level around PS3 that was playing into that. There was a slight level of concern around the viability of the console market in Japan. But we've really turned a corner on that and demonstrated that if you're a publisher that wants to reach a global market with good and immersive games then the PS4 is definitely the place to be," House concluded.
PS4 system architect Mark Cerny agreed with House, adding: "It's because the products are not there to compel the people to buy the console We'll have a much better read on that a year or two after the Japanese publishers start releasing those interesting titles."
