Games Thirst – Amazing Life
We’ve been hearing and analyzing the west’s response to PS4, which has been mostly positive. But what about people in Japan, the country from which Sony hails? How do they feel about the first PlayStation console to be announced outside of their country? Famitsu has wide-ranging results: from those who can’t wait for it, to those still on the fence.
Japan’s Reaction to PS4, courtesy Famitsu, Kotaku:
1. What were your initial impressions of the PS4?
“Developers are saying it’s easy to program for so it looks like there’ll be a lot of games.” Responded a 36 year-old office worker. Of those who responded, roughly half said they were anticipating or highly anticipating the PS4 right out the gate. Some remained reserved, however, voicing concern at the overt focus on the overseas market or the fact that the console would not be compatible with PS3 game discs. A good portion also remained on the fence due to lack of intricate details.
2. What functions or services are you interested in?
Graphics were definitely the biggest point of interest for gamers, and the console will not disappoint. Interestingly, however, more than the other additional features, people seemed to be looking forward to the decreased load time thanks to the Suspend Mode that maintains game progress in a low-power mode. This seems to indicate an overall present dissatisfaction having to go through the startup process to load a game in progress each time you power up a machine.
3. What upcoming game titles are you interested in?
Most Japanese gamers are faithfully expectant of Square Enix’s upcoming new Final Fantasy game that will hopefully be officially announced at E3 this year, even if nothing was shown at the PlayStation Meeting.
4. What upcoming announcements are you looking forward to?
The pricetag. Or, more accurately, “how hard our wallets are going to be hit” was on the minds of most responders. And with good reason. The original 60GB PS3 shook Japanese buyers down for a hefty ¥59,980 (US$638.49) when it first came out. Sony has remained tight-lipped about the price of the PS4, but we’re hoping the thing won’t cost too much. Among people who responded with “other” were the following opinions:
“It looks like there will be a lot more network services, but I’d like to know just how much of them will be available for free. I’d like things that were free for the PS3, like online play, to remain that way.” (28 year-old office worker)
“Won’t cloud services suffer from network congestion depending on the game genre? I don’t understand why they don’t just make the PS4 backwards compatible with the PS3.” (39 year-old office worker)
