While 177 countries sounds like a lot, it's not where the majority of players are. PSN operates in the top 15 countries by GDP and the top 4 by population.
Of course there's still the question of why they work in so few countries when literally none of their competitors (that I know of) have those limitations.
It's because it's a Japanese company. I'm not saying this out of racism but because they're known for being archaic in how they do certain things. Like game modding and work schedules. Their public transit is top fucking notch though.
I think the mistake was ever thinking that one company is "good" while the other is "bad". Companies are just different flavors of bad once they grow above a size of, well, once they are companies.
I've been to Japan a few times. Only Tokyo is super accurate with time. Go to any other Japanese city and it's no different from any other city in the world. Late trains. Buses that are 10 mins late or not even showing.
Can we kill this narrative that Japan is hyper efficient with public transportation?
That wasn't in response to my racist comment but in response to the archaic comment. They're as much archaic in procedure and bureaucracy as they are advanced in tech.
This is accurate. I work at a international company. We will tell a bunch of countries to go fuck themselves since combined, they make like 1% of sales.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying it's a thing many companies do.
I have knowledge on mobile gaming, they do this too.
It doesn’t pay to manage some shitty off brand Android phone’s compatibility issues when your whole country spends less in a month than a half dozen midwestern moms in an evening on the game.
PSN (PlayStation Network) is available in 73 countries.
It was PSNow (PlayStation Now, their game steaming service) that was only in 19 countries.
PSNow was merged into PlayStation Plus as the Premium level package, and is in 30 or so countries.
Honestly, I think Sony is going to be more stubborn than Valve. I saw in another thread where some people were getting approved for their Steam refunds even after passing the 2-hour refund window, so it looks like Valve may already be the first to cave.
Sony's probably going to continue digging their heels in, though.