Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) have announced the next PlayStation Showcase, focusing on upcoming games.
The PlayStation Showcase will premier September 9th at 1:00 p.m. PDT (9:00 p.m. BST, 10:00 p.m. CEST) via Twitch and YouTube.
The presentation will be an estimated 40 minutes long, focusing on upcoming titles from PlayStation Studios, the future of PlayStation 5, and games launching Holiday 2021 and beyond. Even more updates from studios will also be shown after the Showcase. SIE note that “PlayStation’s next generation of VR” will not be making an appearance.
The PlayStation 5 has sold over 10 million units; and SIE are reportedly considering adding Crunchyroll (the recently acquired anime streaming subscription) to a more expensive premium PlayStation Plus service.
We may hear more about the rumored “counter-punch” to the Xbox Game Pass, or even the cloud gaming that a Sony patent declared would bring the “elimination of piracy” and an alternative to consoles.
It has not been entirely smooth sailing however. Head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst needed to insist SIE was still “very much a Japanese company” and loves Japanese games. This came after Sony Japan Studio was “winding down” original game development, censorship of anime-styled sexual content “to meet global standards” (which was forced in Japan).
The “restrictions on expression and suppressed the release of titles for Japanese users” was also cited by an analyst for the Ace Research Institute; claiming that it is “definitive” PlayStation will fall in Japan. He also claimed SIE were not realizing the region’s potential. That same analyst also claimed Nintendo has an “oligopoly” in Japan, while PlayStation game sales have been practically “eradicated.”
In addition, Bloomberg reported claims that PlayStation employees and developers were losing faith in Japan as a market. The anonymous employees claimed that the company had begun to focus more on the US, after the PlayStation 4 had been disappointing in Japan.
According to several employees of PlayStation Japan, this resulted in the Japanese office being (in Bloomberg’s words) “sidelined” when it came to planning the promotion of the PlayStation 5. Employees from Tokyo told Bloomberg they have been waiting for instructions.
SIE CEO Jim Ryan denied those and prior reports, insisting that the Japanese market is still important to them. It should be noted that Japanese fans were not happy with Sony’s decision to switch the X and O commands to the western standard, and two major PlayStation 5 livestreams premiering at 5 a.m. JST.
Will this fractured faith in Japan lead to difficulties in what titles will appear on PlayStation 5?
In case you missed it, check out our video partner Welfare Walrus’ Why Sony Has Been Slowly Abandoning Japan video; delving into the company’s history and the decisions and mistakes they made.
