If you haven’t already, I’d recommending reading ‘Why the Future of PlayStation is in the US and not Japan‘ as that article will put comments made by Chief Financial Officer Kenichiro Yoshida into context. In short, as I’d argued, the future of PlayStation is software and services – not hardware which is what PlayStation was primarily built on during the PS1-PS3 era. The age of the PS4 marked the first time when the US part of Sony and their first party developers had any say on the console’s future. Going forward with additional services like PS Now and eventually PS5, the majority of the decision-making will come from the US with software setting the tone and Japan creating hardware that can accommodate. As Yoshida stated

 major shifts in the digital content landscape are happening fast in the U.S. 

His full statement after the jump on why PlayStation is coming to the US.

On Tuesday, we announced that we’ll be combining Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment into a single company, known as Sony Interactive Entertainment. The headquarters of the new company will be based in the United States. Many of our key partners across the network services, content and technology are based in the United States, and major shifts in the digital content landscape are happening fast in the U.S. Locating our headquarters there will allow us to quickly respond to the rapidly changing business environment and continue to expand and strengthen the PlayStation business.

What PlayStation VR, PS Now, and PS Vue (all US-based efforts) have in common is the need for good software and services to drive them. Creating a powerful VR experience or another setup box is something many can do, but having the right content to drive it and feed into its growth is something entirely different. For Sony and PlayStation, all those elements are in the US.

Discuss:

Do you agree with Yoshida on why PlayStation is coming to the US?

[Via Dualshockers]