From our other sites
The story
Sony’s gaming news program “State of Play,” streamed in September, became a hot topic on 5ch after data showed peak concurrent viewers fell sharply in the US (from 850,000 down to 230,000) and in Europe (from 210,000 down to 34,000) compared to the previous broadcast in June — while Japan actually grew, from 67,000 to 107,000. All sorts of theories flew around about what caused the huge drop in the US and Europe, but plenty of replies also questioned why Japan alone didn’t lose viewers, and the thread was split over whether the broadcast time slot and the lineup of featured titles were really aimed at a Japanese audience.
What people said
State of Play September
Why was Japan totally fine with it…?
People say that every single time
"Massive drop in viewers!!!!!!"
Normal person:
"Japan's 10pm is 2pm elsewhere — a weekday afternoon, so of course viewership would be low"
Idiot: "Of course viewership would be low"
Normal person: "Sure, it makes sense overseas numbers dropped, but isn't Japan's number way too low given the time slot?"
Then why did Sony pick that time slot in the first place?
Are they stupid?
They went out of their way to change the time slot and Japan's numbers still didn't grow…
Now you've hurt other countries' sense of superiority
Overseas has been in an uproar over the pullback from physical media, so they ran away from that time slot
Ah, so they wanted another excuse for the decline
But if it dropped that much anyway, doesn't that make the excuse pointless?
I think that too
Feels like this played out exactly how Shitony wanted it lol ("Shitony" — a common derisive nickname for Sony)
It's not "maybe" — it's definitely amazing
So, how'd that turn out?
Given how garbage the content was, there's a small chance the "perception management" shill squad is in an emergency meeting right now, figuring out how to spin it and quietly bury the "both console camps suck equally" narrative (a jab implying paid PR operatives steer console-war discourse)
Even so, you'd still lose
Only the time slot was aimed at Japan —
the content wasn't aimed at anyone
upcoming titles from Japanese and Asian game studios, with the latest
gameplay footage and new information."
That's how it was hyped, promising fresh info on Chinese/Korean games too — and even the gacha-game fans aren't watching?
And on top of that, the closing slot went to Ghost of Yōtei — a game made by an American studio, lol
Aren't we just being used as a dumping ground?
Same here
They narrowly avoided having 800,000 people chanting "No Disc, No Buy" at them (backlash over discless console editions)
Don't be unreasonable
90% of million-selling titles in Japan are Nintendo, and the rest is basically just Dragon Quest and Momotaro Dentetsu lol
There's no way something like that gets unveiled at a State of Play lol
So who was it even for?
Even if just 10% tuned in that'd be 700,000 — so less than 2% watched?
Where did everyone else go? Is it actually selling that well?
Background and key points of this discussion
State of Play is a gaming news program Sony streams on an irregular schedule, and its concurrent-viewer counts are frequently compared with Nintendo’s “Nintendo Direct.” This time the broadcast was set for a Japanese weekday evening (10pm), a shift from the past pattern of prioritizing overseas time zones — but many of the featured titles still felt geared toward overseas audiences, so it’s hard to say the time change alone explains the jump in Japanese viewers. Some in the thread compared the concurrent-viewer count to console sales figures (over 7 million units) and argued that “way too few people are watching,” but it’s worth noting that live-stream viewers make up only a small slice of the overall user base, so comparing those two numbers directly can be misleading.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Console Wars)) thread “[SOP] State of Play concurrent viewers (June→September): US 850k→230k, EU 210k→34k, Japan 67k→107k.”
Leave a Reply