Getting a PS5 to play games in Japanese in America

Hi,

I’ve been playing the Nintendo Switch for a year now a ton of Japanese games off the switch store. I have a Japanese email account and buy games using yen cards off play Asia. I pretty much only download games, I never play physical copies.

I’ve been thinking about getting a ps5 because a lot of the games I want to play are supposed to perform better on a PS5. But I would really like to mainly buy Japanese games but I live in the US. I probably wouldn’t want to play video games in English.

What’s the process like for PS5? I’ve never owned a PlayStation before, let alone a PS5. If I want to buy and play Japanese games, can I just download them? Is it more or less the same process as the Switch, or is it radically different? Can I just buy gift cards when I want a game?

Also, are there even a lot of games for learning Japanese on the PS5? Can I play PS4 games? I’ve had a great experience learning Japanese by playing on the switch.

4 comments
  1. I can’t speak on digital since I’m not much of a digital buyer on console, but as far as physical is concerned the PS5 is region free. As for backwards compatibility with PS4 games it’s going to depend on the game itself more than it is the region denoted.

  2. I’m not super familiar with the process, but I believe you can set up a Japanese PSN account, and there’s places online where you can buy digital JP PSN gift cards and redeem it for your account.

    Something I have tried though, some games (from the NA store) will let you play in Japanese if you change the language of your system to Japanese. I played some of Yakuza 0 and LAD this way, as well as Persona 4.

  3. You can set up a Japanese psn account easy. You’ll need to buy psn money from playasia as foreign credit cards don’t work. You won’t be able to buy cero-z games (18+) without a Japanese credit card.

    Yes you can play PS4 games on PS5. There are plenty of games to practice your Japanese with but it depends on your level. For somethIng that is not on Switch I would recommend the 龍が如く series but you need to have decent kanji knowledge.

    I get most of my games from the jp psn store and it is very easy to buy. Good luck!

  4. I’m fairly confident most games and theps5 will just have a language option, I’ll check in a bit to make sure. But the store will likely be region locked, although I don’t see the stores differing too much in each country

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