Apple Pay Octopus on iOS 13 this fall puts Pixel 4 and Google Pay in an awkward market position. Pixel 3 is a success in the Japanese market because of the inclusion of a dedicated FeliCa chip in Japanese models. Non-JP Pixel 3 models have a global NFC ready NXP PN81 chip but FeliCa is not activated for some reason, inbound users cannot use Google Pay Suica, or anything else, in Japan.
The question for Pixel 4 is this: will Google Pay use all the features of the NXP PN81 chip, or go with a custom implementation of FeliCa on their own chip for a global NFC device along with an enhanced Google Pay that seamlessly incorporates and builds on Osaifu Keitai software (killing off JP carrier Osaifu-Keitai SIM nonsense for good) instead of simply candy wrapping it, like they do for Pixel 3 JP Google Pay.
If Google goes with the first choice, Google Pay Octopus becomes a future possibility. It would also force other Android smartphone manufacturers to follow suit.
If Google keeps that same Pixel 3 arrangement they have for Pixel 4, a separate hardware model for Japan, Google Pay Octopus becomes a murky proposition. More of the same would be a shame. I hope Google does the smart thing and the right thing: global NFC on all devices is the way to go.
10/16 UPDATE: We have an answer: Pixel 4 is not global NFC, FeliCa support is restricted to JP models, the same story as Pixel 3. Google did the cheap thing again and chose not to buy FeliCa keys for all Pixel 4 models.
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