What Makes Japanese PlayStation 5 Consoles Different From American Ones?

If you're looking for a new PlayStation 5 but want to save some money in the face of seemingly never-ending gaming price hikes, you might be tempted to get your hands on Sony's cheaper Japanese version of the flagship console. That's an understandable urge — the console bundles cost 55,000 to 65,000 yen, or around $340 to $400, and come with one or two wireless DualSense controllers. But before you rush to import anything, there are a few things you should know about the difference between American and Japanese PlayStation 5 consoles.

The cheaper, Japanese market-exclusive PlayStation 5 is pretty much region-locked. You can only access the Japanese PlayStation Store through it, regardless of where you live. As a consequence, you can also only use it with Japanese PlayStation accounts, with your region set to Japan. And, since it's a digital-only console, you can only play digital games purchased from the Japanese PlayStation Store. (Physical games aren't region-locked, but PlayStation is ditching those, so even that won't be an option forever.) That limitation extends to both PlayStation 5 games and any backwards-compatible PlayStation 4 games accessed through the store. So, if you have any games you've already bought through a non-Japanese PlayStation account, you won't be able to enjoy them.

There are a few other restrictions around Japanese PlayStation 5's online features that might also make it a little tough to use internationally. You can't transfer data from a non-Japanese PlayStation account to a Japanese PlayStation 5. You also won't be able to use the backup and restore feature with PlayStation accounts from other regions. As a result, you probably wouldn't have the best experience using it, even if you might save some cash by importing one.

Besides the limitations set around the PlayStation store, accounts, and data transfer, the Japanese PlayStation 5 is functionally almost the same as any other PlayStation 5 Digital Edition. They all have the same features and performance, regardless of if you import one from Japan or buy a used PlayStation 5 closer to home. However, there is one key difference that you may have already figured out: the console's language.

The budget Japanese PlayStation 5's console language is always set to Japanese. Unlike when you use an American PlayStation 5, you won't be able to change the language used on any menus or interfaces. So, if you're dead set on buying one and you don't know Japanese already, you're going to want to grab a phrasebook or have a translation app ready.

You don't necessarily have to be fluent enough in Japanese to figure out how to catch criminals in "Ace Attorney" or traverse the so-called beach of "Death Stranding 2" without a dictionary in hand. According to the official Sony help center, although the Japanese PlayStation 5 itself runs in Japanese, the actual language you'll play games in depends entirely on what settings are available in the specific game you're playing. So, if a game has English language available in its Japanese version, you would still be able to run that on a Japanese PlayStation 5.