Sony to Cut PS4 Price in Japan
September 15 2015 - 8:30AM
Dow Jones News
TOKYO—Sony Corp. said on Tuesday that it will cut the price of
its PlayStation 4 in Japan by more than 10% as it looks to bolster
momentum in a market where sales of smartphone games have surpassed
console-based titles.
Effective next month, the console's new Japanese price of ¥
34,980 ($292) will be considerably lower than its Europe price tag
of €399 ($450) or the $399 it costs to buy a PlayStation 4 in the
U.S.
A Sony spokeswoman declined to comment on whether similar price
cuts were planned outside Japan.
"We'd like to provide an opportunity for many potential users to
experience the world of PlayStation," said Atsushi Morita, the head
of PlayStation in Japan and Asia, at a Tokyo news conference where
he also unveiled the formal name of the company's virtual reality
headset project, previously known as Morpheus, as "PlayStation
VR".
Japan's videogame market has been shrinking rapidly in recent
years amid competition from high-quality games that can be played
on smartphones. Sales of game consoles and related software have
halved to ¥ 373.3 billion in the past seven years, while so-called
social games played on mobile devices including smartphones
recorded ¥ 562.2 billion in sales in 2014, up from ¥ 400 million in
2007, according to the Computer Entertainment Supplier's
Association.
Sony's PlayStation 4, introduced in November 2013, has been a
strong performer globally, topping sales of 20.2 million units as
of March this year, leading rivals such as Nintendo Co.'s Wii U and
Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox One. However, only 1.66 million units were
sold in Japan as of Sept. 6, according to data from videogame
magazine publisher Famitsu. Sony doesn't disclose a regional sales
breakdown.
Sony isn't the only videogame powerhouse struggling in Japan.
Nintendo's share price slumped until it announced an entry to the
smartphone game market with DeNA Co. earlier this year, while
Microsoft's game business lacks a major presence in the Japanese
market.
Sony denied the price-cut was in response to concerns about the
console's performance in its home market but that it was aimed to
take advantage of a significant increase in the number of PS4 game
titles over the past year. It also announced that PlayStation Now,
a game-streaming service that Sony has been offering in the U.S.,
will be rolled out to the Japan market from Wednesday.
Write to Takashi Mochizuki at takashi.mochizuki@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 15, 2015 08:15 ET (12:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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