Smartphone game sales are rocketing in Japan

A new study has shed some light on how quickly the mobile game space is expanding in Japan, suggesting that sales of smartphone games in the country grew by more than five times between 2011 and 2012.

According to the Mobile Content Forum, and as translated by industry consultant Serkan Toto, smartphone game sales reached roughly 260 billion yen ($2.7 billion) in 2012, up 5.4 times from 2011's 48.1 billion yen ($496.5 million).

Notably, sales of feature phone games in the country were down slightly, totalling $2.4 billion, meaning that smartphone game sales were higher than feature phone game sales for the first time.

When looking at all mobile content -- not just games -- feature phone sales are actually still higher than smartphone sales, although smartphone content sales will no doubt overtake in 2013, as the feature phone market continues to rapidly contract.

Overall, the Japanese market for mobile games reached $5.1 billion in 2012.

Nexon is just one company that has seen its profits soar thanks to this boost in Japanese mobile game sales. Android monetization platform Metaps also noted recently that a surge in the number of Japanese game publishers choosing to release mobile games over the more traditional browser games has seen its business boom.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/198083/Smartphone_game_sales_are_rocketing_in_Japan.php
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here are the numbers for "core" gaming in japan for 2012
http://www.techinasia.com/japan-video-game-market-over-4-billion-dollars-2012/

Software sales for gaming consoles and handhelds contracted 1.2 percent to $2.8 billion in that time frame.
But hardware sales increased five percent to about $1.8 billion in Japan, thanks to the introduction of the Wii U

You guys know what that means...
In 2012, the Japanese market was:
- $5.1 billion for mobile games overall  - $2.7 billion for smartphone games
- $4.6 billion for traditional games hardware + software divided in $1.8 billion in hardware in  and $2.8 billion in software

Not too bad? Total Mobile has crushed dedicated gaming including ps3, wii, psp, vita, 3ds etc

In 2012, the Japanese market was:

- $5.1 billion for mobile games overall  - $2.7 billion for smartphone games
- $4.6 billion for traditional games hardware + software divided in $1.8 billion in hardware in  and $2.8 billion in software

Are people gonna say that Japanese are not real gamers anymore? As some of you say that mobile games are not real games.

...

Shovelware FTW!

Do people forget a part of that shovelware is paying for your triple AAA games.. You better hope they sell well cause consoles and handheld doesn't exist anymore in the "casual" eye..

I don't like this one bit :/

How much is free-to-play? I notice a trend that free-to-play are making majority of the profits.

People estimate 2/3 for free to play vs 1/3 for premium content..

http://blog.flurry.com/bid/65656/Free-to-play-Revenue-Overtakes-Premium-Revenue-in-the-App-Store

I have a iPad and this saddens me. 

This means in the future expects grinding games with something reminding you how easy it would be to pay $1.

If it was premium content than gaming future is still great but free-to-play means a sad future for games.

Puzzle and Dragons bought in billions because the model works. Developers see it and see were the market is going and do the same because it works. Square is already noticing that they can make more money on free-to-play than pay front. Think All-bravest is bad? Wait till All-bravest free-to-play version. Some people may argue that "not all free-to-play has to grind and force pay almost." Which is true. But the ones making the big money are doing that and others want to make as much money as possible.