The Chairman
Member
Saw this AMA of a former Sony Employee on Reddit (r/Vita mod vetted) where a lot of unknown interesting information are shared about the Vita's death, store closings, culture war between Japan and the US to control the PS brand and more.
Read more here
Q: Do you have any insight on what's going on (or already happened) with Sony essentially throwing all of Japan under the bus more recently? Has the US branch taken over the company entirely somehow? And, if so, why and how did the Japanese allow that?
Also, does Sony at all understand their appeal in terms of Japanese game software? Because the more I see them do anything this past generation and currently, the more I think they could be incompetently unaware.
A: There's a lot to it, some I'm going to simplify it at the cost of some nuance.
Playstation is a historically Japanese brand. In the time since Playstation debuted, America has grown to be the largest video game market. There's been a lot of internal competition for the "control" of the Playstation brand and over the past several years you can clearly see where America has been winning. Relocation of HQ, shutdown of most of Japan Studios, and the DualSense's X default confirm (as a final "fuck you") are some of the notable examples off the top of my head.
Most of this took place far above my level - think officers and the like.
Read more here