uran10 said:
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Some have attributed slowing iPhone sales in Japan to taxes but is this tax really high enough to affect consoles in the same way? Most home consoles are like half the price of a new smartphone. I think the Wii U's momentum, and every other home console for that matter, is simply down to lack of interest in the home console format and this decline has been going on for a long time and certainly way before the tax issue, it appears to be only the natural cycle of the Japanese market taking its toll, in my honest opinion.
The good news could be that taxes might not be affecting home console sales, but the bad news would then be that even lowered prices and others measures taken are unlikely to spark interest since the format itself as a gaming concept has lost most traction in Japan. Even handhelds are losing relevance, the 3DS will fall way short of the 33 million of the DS and the Vita will fall miles and miles short of the PSP's 20 million, the only reason handhelds appear in good shape in Japan is that they are selling a lot more compared to other regions when counting population and market size and they are selling a lot better than home consoles, which are currently crashing completely.
I expect the Wii U to be significantly down in Japan next year and the PS4 to have its (poor) peak year in 2015 in Japan, and the One was simply never a contender in this region and shouldn't even be regarded as an option.
