It’s sad that Japanese gamers (who were not PC gamers until about the mid-2010s; besides handheld and mobile platforms, desktop consoles were more common, especially Nintendo and Sony products…) would play the game, currently announced for PlayStation 5 only, on PC…

The other day, we reported that Japanese gamers are more likely to buy the retail, or disc, editions of PlayStation games, so they can trade them once they’ve played them. However, it would require a PlayStation 5. Still, there’s not much chance of that happening, as there’s a severe PS5 shortage in the West, and Sony hasn’t helped this situation by raising the price of the console everywhere except the US.

Japan still has a bit of a grace period: the price will go up for them from September 15, but the public has started to show interest in other platforms. Square Enix’s game has become a common topic on Twitter in the Asian island nation, as gamers want Final Fantasy XVI to be available on PC. As it’s becoming more and more common for developers there to make a PC port (and licensed games are usually geoblocked outside Japan, where, let’s not exaggerate, piracy is a legitimate detour for a Super Robot Wars fan, for example), it’s no coincidence that this request has been raised.

We wrote the other day about the price increase, so here’s a reminder: “We’ll now list the regions affected, the price increase in the currency used, and then the new price for PlayStation 5 Standard Edition and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition; the new price is already in effect everywhere except Japan, where they’re screwing up the price from September 15:

Europe (+€50): 550/450 EUR; UK (+£30): 480/390 GBP; Japan (+5000 yen): 54980/44980 JPY, China (+400 yuan): 4299/3499 RMB; Australia (+AUD $50): 799.95/649.95 AUD, Mexico (+MXN $1,000): 14999/12499 MXN, Canada (+CAD $20): 650/520 CAD.”

It’s quite a shame that even in Japan, gamers are already more interested in PC. It can only be the fault of Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Source: PushSquare