Sony Expected To Announce Japanese PlayStation 4 Launch Date Next Week

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan has announced that they will hold a press conference on Monday, September 9th. While the exact reason for the event was not revealed, the company is expected to use the opportunity to detail their Japanese launch plans for the PlayStation 4.

Next week’s press conference was announced on the PlayStation Europe Twitter account, with the following message:

Heads-up: SCE Japan PlayStation press conference on Mon 9 Sept will be streamed on PS Blog, with English translation. Starts 7.00am BST.

— PlayStation Europe (@PlayStationEU) September 6, 2013

For the North American PlayStation faithful, this means you can catch the European PlayStation Blog live stream of Sony’s press conference at 11pm Pacific (Sept 8th)/1am Central (Sept 9th)/ 2am Eastern (Sept 9th).

The PlayStation 4 is scheduled to launch in North America on November 15th for $399, and across Europe on November 29th for €399 / £349. In total, there are 32 countries that are confirmed to get the next-gen console this year. Sony has not yet revealed if Japan will be added to the 2013 launch list, or if they will push their home country back to next year.

For comparison, the Xbox One is scheduled to launch in 13 markets on November 22nd, 2013 for $499/€499/£429. Microsoft has already confirmed that they will not target any Asian markets until sometime in 2014.

So far, both Sony and Microsoft have all but ignored the Japanese video game market (which is currently dominated by the Nintendo 3DS) with their next-gen console efforts, choosing instead to focus all their attention on Western gamers. With this in mind, it would not surprise us to see Sony delay the Japanese launch of the PlayStation 4 until well after its Western release this November.

We will keep an eye on SCE Japan’s PlayStation 4 press conference next week, and let you know as soon as the company announces any details.