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Japan might have created the PlayStation brand, but the cost of the latest generation of console will exclude all but the most hardcore, says Bloomberg Opinion’s Gearoid Reidy.
TOKYO: How much would you pay to play the latest video games? How about half your monthly take-home pay?
That’s what the average Japanese consumer in their 20s might have to fork over for a top-of-the line PlayStation. Sony Group announced last week that the PlayStation 5 Pro, a souped-up version of the console that first launched in 2020 for ¥43,978 (US$310), will retail for ¥119,980 (US$847), including tax, in the country that gave the brand to the world.
It’s the first time for a PlayStation console to cost over ¥100,000, a psychologically important barrier in a nation where prices and salaries alike have long been largely flat. It’s nearly three times what the PS4 Pro cost when it went on sale in November 2016, and, of course, salaries have not tripled in that time. Recent gains to make up for inflation have yet to significantly move the needle.
Gamers in the country aren’t happy. The weak yen is, of course, one of the main factors, with Sony’s most recent forecasts assuming a rate of ¥148 to the dollar this year. And consumers in other parts of the world have been grumbling too, with price points of US$699.99, £699.99 (US$923) and €799.99 (US$890) similarly unprecedented.
While Japan is slowly getting used to the idea of things costing more, it’s mostly in fits and starts. The price of entertainment, in particular, has been remarkably stable: The cost of a movie ticket has risen just 11 per cent in the more than 21 years I’ve lived here. Other electronics, such as top-end televisions, get cheaper and better every year.
INFLATION AND A WEAK YEN
To be fair, it’s not just Sony. The PS5 announcement came the day after a sticker shock that has become more predictable: Apple’s reveal of its new iPhones. While the US firm likes to boast about keeping the price of an iPhone Pro at US$999 for seven years running, in that time the price in Japan has soared 40 per cent due to Apple’s habit of repricing each year based on the currency.
The yen giveth and the yen taketh away. In the days of strong currency, iPhones and other Apple products were a bargain in Japan.
Imported devices are one thing. When the pain in one’s wallet comes not just from a Japanese product, but from one of the country’s most famous brands, it feels more like a kick in the teeth. “PlayStation” is, for a certain generation, practically synonymous with “Japan”. But it’s been clear for some time that its home market is low on Sony’s priority list.
Due to the weak yen, the standard PS5 has seen three price hikes in Japan since 2020, even though players are used to price cuts as components age and demand wanes. The announcement of the Pro dropped at midnight in the country, in a video that was all in English, with Japanese subtitles only provided later.
Perhaps most damningly, the PS5 ended a quarter-century tradition in which the controller’s iconic X and O buttons behaved differently than the rest of the world. Japan bent to the global standard of using X for “confirm” and O for “cancel,” even though the concept there of X meaning “no, bad, quit” and O being “yes, good, accept” is deeply ingrained.
DISAPPOINTING DOMESTIC PERFORMANCE SINCE THE PS3
It’s been a tumultuous few weeks for PlayStation. At the beginning of September, Sony pulled the plug on Concord, a disastrous online shooter in development for years by a studio Sony acquired in 2023.
While the firm declined to comment on acquisition or development costs, budgets for such games would easily run into the tens of millions of dollars. But the response was so dismal that Sony shut the game down after just two weeks.
Fortunes reversed the very next week, however, with the launch of Astro Bot, which quickly became the best-reviewed new game of the year. That Concord was a very Western, trend-chasing game, while the Japan-developed Astro Bot a throwback to an age of original, comparatively low-budget fun, wasn’t lost on fans.
The problem is that few people are going to pay ¥120,000 for games like Astro Bot. Sony has sold a total of just 6 million PS5 units in Japan, according to industry magazine Famitsu. And while unit sales have been at about the same pace as the relatively disappointing domestic performance of both the PS4 and PS3, these eye-watering levels will give many pause.
What that means in practice is that regardless of its review scores, not many will play Astro Bot – the game sold less than 13,000 physical units in its first week, though supply was constrained and that doesn’t include digital sales.
AN ICONIC COMPANY IN DANGER OF FORGETTING ITS ROOTS
Facing similar criticism back in 2006 over the unexpectedly high price point for the PlayStation 3, Sony took the unusual move of a last-minute cut only in Japan, shortly before the machine went on sale. The PS5 Pro hits shelves in November, but it’s hard to foresee a similar discount this time.
Sony defenders will say that the company is responding to foreign exchange pressures it can’t control, and in any case the console business in Japan has been on the decline for decades.
But with Nintendo having sold nearly 35 million Switch units in the country, Sony seems to be leaving a market underserved. The Switch successor, which industry scuttlebutt says will be unveiled shortly, will of course have specs much lower than any type of PS5, and a price point to match.
But with even an entry-level PS5 now costing some ¥72,980 following the latest hike last month, and cheaper entries into the Sony world like the portable PSP and Vita devices long since discontinued, an entire generation of Japanese could be cut off. One of Japan’s most iconic companies is in danger of forgetting its roots entirely.