The PlayStation 4 is poised to have a blockbuster holiday season. With a launch in the United States and Canada before the Xbox One, and coming to more than a dozen other markets than Microsoft’s console before the end of the year, Sony has positioned itself well. But the Western world isn’t the only place that PlayStation is looking to establish a presence.

It’s true that PS4 won’t see a release in it’s home nation of Japan until the first quarter of 2014, but some markets you might not have considered will be seeing a release before this year is out. One of those countries is South Africa, where the PS4 will release on December 6–the same as six Asian markets, including Hong Kong and South Korea. South African website MyGaming recently featured an interview with PlayStation MEA (Middle-East, Africa) General Manager Robert Fisser, who highlighted why bringing Sony’s next-gen device to the continent so early in the release timetable was a major accomplishment.

 “If we go back to the PS3, it had a much wider international release window, but now it’s becoming a lot more narrow, so it’s a great achievement that we’re seeing the PS4 being slotted into multiple region release windows simultaneously.”

“The competitive landscape has also changed, so now we’re prioritising certain markets. Since the PS3, we’ve seen Europe, the Middle-East and Africa making incredible progress as markets, and that’s why the release window was been narrowed so considerably.” 

Another region that will see the PS4 this year is the United Arab Emirates, with the hardware dropping in the Arabian peninsula on December 13. According to the UAE news outlet The National, the release date was revealed at Games 13, or the Gaming Alliance Middle East Show, as well as detailing that the console will “will launch with the support of 15 titles released before the New Year.”

MCVIndia also reported today that the India pre-order page for PlayStation 4 has gone live, though no release date has been revealed other than “later in 2013.”

PlayStation 4’s release before the end of 2013 is a significant sign that Sony is committed to emerging markets; while the PS3 launched in Japan and the United States in November 2006, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East didn’t see the current hardware until March 2007. As of now, the PS4 is scheduled to launch in 40 markets before the end of 2013. The Xbox One is currently scheduled to release in 13 markets by year’s end–South Africa, India, and the UAE are not among them.

Discuss:

Will bringing PS4 to market in India, Africa, and the Middle East be “high risk, high reward” or should Sony prioritize their launch toward its established consumer base (Japan)?

[Via MyGaming.co.za][Via MCVIndia]