| Esmoreit said: The reason Iwata states here is not the fault of the systems, or what they offer but a social trend. The same we are seeing for some time now: Japan is a portable market. People there are always busy, always on the move. You do not change that with a game, you have to drastically change Japanese lifestyle. A game won't do that. The Japanese have to learn a more European/American way of working. It's ok to be sick at home a few days. 8 Weeks of vacation a year is not going to discrupt your work. 8 hours of work a day is more then enough... That sort of thing |
I dissagree with that statement (the first part, hehe 
) as I am currently collecting data for an editorial about that.
Shortly put the Japanese market always saw 2 consoles selling extremely well while the others only sold mediocre at best. Why? Because the market isn't big enough for more than two big selling consoles. Currently we have 3 of them, though: DS, PSP and Wii but I'd say the software available is the deciding factor here not that the consoles are handhelds.
Back in 2006, when the Japanese market was booming we had 1 console (DS) selling 8 million units instead of two consoles selling 4 million units each. I think that's the maximum the Japanese market can handle.
In 2006 more than 16 million people bought a videogaming system, the average is 8-12 million a year so far. Now the market is in a phase of "getting back to normal". The problem is it can't grow much further. The US and especially Europe can, though.
