PlayStation Pours Investment into Africa as It Looks to Grow Globally

Well, good luck with investing in South Africa. The economic situation has been rapidly worsening for years now. Not to mention how the plummeting Rand has made gaming far more expensive there in the last two decades. I remember how in 2005 I could buy some new releases for R400. These days it's anywhere from R1300, up to R1800 for Call of Duty.

Probably the best thing Playstation is doing right now IMO. There is more than just Europe/USA/Japan out there in terms of talent. It’s time we got a different take on things.

Imagine getting your WRPGs and your JRPGs but also having Middle Eastern RPGs or African RPGs for a completely different experience. As an example.

Very smart to invest in these markets. It probably was very cheap and opens a lot of possibilities. Cost to develop games in the West is growing insane, so these lower costs countries could offset dev costs overall.

It is a waste of money to try to invest in South Africa; the Government is corrupt, and the country can't even keep its power on.

The country's economic outlook is grim with unemployment at a staggering 30% couple with 85 murders a day.

Its going downhill, find somewhere else to put the money.

Might be a good market for the PS4, especially if they reduce the price of the console a little (surely £200 is a fair price now?)

@Loamy It seems carry1st has a lot of investors so Sony isn't the only one who thinks they are worth investing in. Investment and costs are probably low as well.

@Toilet_Goat

You're one of the lucky ones that managed to escape this sinking ship of a country.

I can only hope I can say the same in a few more years.

I remember way back then R1 200 could net you the Ultimate/Collector's edition of a game, and now, you're lucky to pay that on a standard vanilla release.

I like the investment in different countries and continents, but this one i don’t see much panning from

@N1ghtW1ng I'm really just half-out. The threat of having to go back there is a perennial sword of Damocles hanging above my neck, forcing me to work hard enough not to be sent back

don't think it's where i'd put my investments but to each his own

Someday something will come to Uganda too 🥲 for now, all the best South Africa 🫶🏿

I bless the games down in Africa.

(Sorry)

I certainly like to hear news like this, but I would be really happy if PlayStation really leaned into East Asia and expanded with more Japanese and Chinese studios.

I'm kinda surprised it's taken this long. They have a dedicated EMEA team, but they may as well just be called European team for the lack of work done in the Middle East and Africa.

South Africa isn't the most obvious choice in my opinion. Egypt is just as wealthy, but would be "easier" from a logistics point of view due to its close proximity to Europe.

Nigeria is also extremely wealthy, and again a good target due to the amount of countries you could quickly and easily distribute to if you had logistics setup there. The likes of Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Then there's Algeria and Morocco that again offer close proximity to Europe and are also very wealthy.

Language is obviously an issue, and moreso than Europe due to the insane amount of dialects in some of those African countries. The other major issue is war and conflict - and all the associated issues with corruption, security and the economy.

Africa, and indeed the Middle East, are rarely peaceful parts of the world.

@Toilet_Goat I've been out for 27 years. I left in 1997 just after I finished high school. I will never ever live in SA again. The ANC has made it impossible to ever attempt moving back and making a life in SA. They made it very clear, my skin colour is wrong and the education and qualifications I received at university abroad, is not needed. If Sony has any sense they would swerve South Africa. Any uprising and the looting will start. Sony's warehouse will be empty and burned down in 15 minutes. SA will be a communist country within the next 15 - 20 years

@N1ghtW1ng I remember a time when R1000 was a lot of money and it's not that long ago. The only thing the ANC can't break is Justin Bieber's voice

@ShadowyElite kind of like blm in the states

@ShadowyElite

The ANC are similar to Israel, any legitimate criticism aimed at them is turned into racist, colonial and anti-black material. Nobody plays the Race Card better than the ANC and their supporters.

I too have the wrong skin colour (through no fault of my own). I've realised very early in life that this so-called government has no interest in my success or growth so it's best to do things on my own and never expect anything from the state.

To put it into perspective for PushSquare Users, South Africa first started experiencing loadshedding in 2007 (due to corruption, failure to maintain electrical infrastructure and the slow demise of the national electricity provider).

17 years later, those of us still trapped here are still experiencing loadshedding. Think about that...they had 17 years to address a problem (a complex problem to be fair to them) yet they still failed at addressing it.

I didn't think they could keep the lights on, let alone run a billion PS5's..

Just like companies separate the continent of Asia with China and SE Asia, I want companies to do the same. The continent of Africa is not a monolith. South Africa, yea, being an economic powerhouse on the continent, I dislike when companies group 53 separate countries as if it's a single one.

@nocdaes The languages shouldn't be an issue since many primary languages on the continent or in countries whose families can afford consoles are English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. If not the primary, definitely the second primary language. They have to start slow before needing to dive into the dialects.