While historically Playstation consoles have been launched in Japan first before moving into other regions, at their recent Japanese press conference it was confirmed by Sony Computer Entertainment that the Playstation 4 will not be released in Japan until the 22nd February 2014.
While SCE Japan president Hiroshi Kawano claims this delay was to ensure that a number of Japan-oriented titles would be available on the platform at launch, this could also be in part due to the fact that there is minimal competition in the region unlike North America and PAL regions with a near simultaneous launch of the Xbox One from Microsoft. In the case of Microsoft they don’t even have the Xbox One set for release within Japan in their early-2014 launch window.
To make up for this delay, all First Run Limited Edition packs of the console will come with a download code for Knack (A game that is regularly featured in PS4 promotional footage) and a one-year extended guarantee for the console.
