does that mean that the Japanese developers wont publish or create content for NA or EU anymore either???
That would be up to them, It's likely you might in fact see more content faster from them in US and EU now.
does anyone expect sony to give usa and Europe home a long notice ? I think usa and Europe will get same notice japan got to keep people spending till it ends .
By law they have to give at lest 30 days warning, but i personally can not see the same thing happening to them regions at this point in time because they are much bigger regions that make much more of a income.
I think if the content and events continue from these developers they will start gearing it towards the NA and EU markets and what would be a winner in them regions instead of risking something that would be a winner in Japan and then seeing if it does well in other regions. remembering that these developers key market has now changed and they has lost revenue from these markets.
I would agree. NA and EU has always been toward Japanese or any third party markets like Granzella and O-Two, and using special events like those would definitely take a stride on money making. If you think about the Kikai event, those were money makers as well when you had to purchase items solely for the event. Even if it was half of free play and pay-to-play event, it all worked out well as a money maker but everyone was really happy about it nonetheless. @jdillman: You're pretty much thinking like what Irem had ended in Japan and Asia and then further along NA and EU regions when it was time to "close shop" after the May 2011 earthquake and tsunami incident. But, I do agree with Carla. Bigger regions like NA and EU will make the companies survive through their money marketing plans more than ever. All in all, it's about saving money from "dead" regions and reaching out to other regions that are more prosperous.
It does sound like that. But since this is such an extreme effect on this world. I'm not going to try and guess what's going on. I'm just going to wait and see. Though I expect spending on this world will take a huge hit. So even if it was the best case scenario, this announcement is very bad for JP.
We have to wait and see how the Japanese developers respond to this. They have been very quite for the time being. The only problem with the Japanese devs are that they have limited fluent people that can do English. So they can't really up their production unless they hire more people that can do English. And to do that they need money. According to Granzella from this article (金沢から全国、世界進出を狙う革新ベンチャー | 月刊「事業構想」2013年6月号), Japan covered 35% of it's sales (NA 50%, EU 15%), so that's pretty much 1/3 of their revenue gone. Will the change in focus in NA and EU be able to recoup that 35%? Or will they just change plans and go elsewhere? Only time will tell. Let's hope they speak out soon.
Have you seen anything about how JP Home users that live in Japan are feeling about the news? I would imagine there must be some pretty upset people there.
In my mind, the real side effect here is how Home users will respond to this news. I see some of those forum people saying things like "this is the beginning of the end for Home". That kind of talk will only serve to scare people away even more than the news itself. If people buy into that, they will stop spending. And if enough stop spending, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My Japan friends tell me the buzz over there is split pretty evenly. 1/3 angry, 1/3 sad, 1/3 no opinion.
Something else to factor into that is the fact a good number who would have spent money in Japan would have been US & EU users also, who many would have got the same items when they hit US & EU, so now they will likely only buy them once. It could have a big effect on income, but at same time moving content to US & EU might help up the income in them regions and you might get Japan users moving regions to still be able to get new content in Home. Truth being none of us will know the effect to a good few months after its happened, so likely at the start of 2014 we might know better.
My wife and I were rather pissed when we first heard the news. I can understand letting go of Asia, but I felt JP was just starting to pick up finally. But really, it's Sony JP's fault; too little too late. If they had got their act together and mimiced NA (weekly free items, sales, events, more content, etc.) they maybe more people would have been using (and spending) in JP. We both tried to go to NA after not logging on there for months. And while it is objectively better then JP in every way, it's not quite the same. Plus I don't feel like redoing everything in Edo, Ninja, and Labs again. Hopefully there is Home or a Home like program on ps4..... but, since we do live in Japan I guess the wife and I are getting screwed again. (If you haven't heard already, the rumor is that the ps4 will come out first in NA, then EU, and finally Japan.) Thanks Sony! Just because you think you can get an easy victory in Japan, doesn't mean the Japanese gamers (and Americans living in Japan) are going to be happy that the rest of the world will get it before them.
Looking at the forums and picking up random conversations, it's pretty much this. And except for those that already have NA or EU accounts, most aren't interested in making new accounts and are looking at elsewhere such as FF14. Alot of the reason probably comes from not being able to write Japanese letters. Limited to only romanization of Japanese which also gets censored alot. (ie. ____しました = _____shimashita (gets censored because of the s word) comes out ******************) And roman isn't really easy to the eye. So many use XMB chat, which many know is a pain to use. But the forums and random conversations only covers a small sample of the total, so I'm not really sure if that translates to the whole population. We'll probably see how it goes by the end of the year.
The information id like to know now is because of the lack of information about home on ps4 and the amount of speculation on this subject how many users not just in these regions but in all the regions had already started slowing down they spending before this information was released. Because if the spilt on feelings /is equal it doesn't really strike me as there were loads of surprised users.
I heard that since Karen cut back on spending in Japan that Sony decided they could no longer keep it afloat.
Someone contacted Sony and got a response that events will still go on. Oshaberi farm also tweeted they will have a new big event starting mid-Sept. to mid-Oct.
