"Japan becoming irrevelant to the gaming industry" Discussion

[johnlucas]

Soriku said:
We've come across this a couple times, so I'm making this thread so we can discuss this same exact topic.

We've seen SMG do 130k for the first day, but the week should prove good sales, and lifetime extroadinary (well, maybe not extroadinary but pretty good ).

But besides that, we've seen steep sales in console games in Japan. The only games that sell in Japan now are handheld games, FF, and DQ. But the only problem with FF nowadays is that it starts out real strong, but dies rather quickly (See: CC: FF VII, FF XII, etc.). Lifetime sales are good, but that's mostly due to opening sales.

Japan Wii gamers seem starved for games. Seeing as how sales are in the 30ks, and dropped into the 20ks and 19k as well.

Could it be possible that it's just the sales (so far) of the consoles. The Wii in Japan has almost sold 4 mil in Japan. That's not really a lot compared to, say, the DS's almost 20 mil in Japan alone. But if they are SO starved, why didn't more buy it?

Is Japan becoming more and more irrevelant in the gaming industry? Or is there possibly another explanation?

Discuss.

OK, one more time.

Ever since the aftermath of the Videogame Industry Crash of 1983/1984 videogaming has been a Japanese business. Home consoles and handheld consoles only exist because of Japan. The PC is always looming just beyond to finish what 1983/1984 Crash started: To phase out VIDEO gaming (gaming on a TV screen) and make the whole world follow COMPUTER gaming, the original school of digital electronic gaming. Arcade has become a niche market since consoles began matching its power and consoles survive due to the big company which revived the industry, Nintendo. Meanwhile computer gaming is everywhere around the world with enough technological background.

There's a reason why videogaming is only strong in certain markets, certain regions of the world while computer gaming is seamless. Videogaming's main markets: Japan, USA/Canada/(Mexico); Portions of Europe with Australia/New Zealand thrown in for good measure.

Latin America may play games but because of the poverty gap, corruption, civil strife among other things the place can never really become a stronghold for this industry financially. Not to mention the bootlegging that goes on here with the gaming available due to poverty. It's included with the North American market as a supplement.

The large continent of Africa is either war-torn, poverty-stricken, corrupt in the government, technologically not ready, culturally ambivalent or even opposed to videogames. Egypt is not a big market for consoles, at best a supplement to the European market. South Africa as well. There are certain parts of Africa which can support consoles but population wise they are weak and the people as a whole haven't embraced gaming. This is the 2nd biggest continent in the world but no standalone market exists here, it exists as a supplemental to the Euro market. I've heard of certain nations here getting SNES/N64 level systems well into the 6th generation.

In Asia you got the what's called the Middle East which have may cultural reasons against consoles, there's war (Iraq), poverty again, technologically unsound and the regions in this West Asian area that DO videogame are once again too small to standalone as a market to support functioning as a supplemental to the Euro market.

In North Asia AKA Russia and all those former USSR regions you got warring countries once again, poverty, cultural ambivalence, lack of technological infrastructure to shorten access of this industry to the people. Not to mention Siberia alone which is an iceland where people live rough and rugged. Hardly the kind of people to play videogames. Saint Petersburg & Moscow basically stand as the videogame market here. PCs are the platform of choice here.

In South and East Asia you got big China which bootlegs and counterfeits everything under the sun making the industry financially unfeasible unless you have the soundest of business plans (Nintendo & iQue). They have the world's largest population but historical, cultural and governmental obstacles exist which make certain games harder to penetrate this market. They have the tech and as the world's largest manufacturer of goods many have the money but PCs rule here. This market DOES have potential for growth but it's gonna take time.

India has the world's 2nd largest population but have this rigid caste system that creates inevitable poors and richs. This curtails the potential for the market since many people are ruled out of even participating due to the social system here. It's a twilight of technologically advanced and technologically behind. Videogaming hasn't taken off here yet. There's cultural difficulties here too. This also has potential for growth as a market but right now it's not there yet. I've heard of them getting SNES/N64s as a brand new thing well into the 6th generation.

Southeast Asia including Thailand, Indonesia and Phillipines among others has the same old issues as mentioned before: poverty, culture clashes, bootleg danger, and population strength issues that impedes the progress of the videogame market here. Thailand known for its strictness socially will ban most of the content that comes over for one.

South Korea is ruled by PC and only now are people trying to open up this market. North Korea has people starving if they don't join the military and there's brownouts there due to the poor electrical infrastructure. The place exists under the cloud of war so this peninsula is compromised simply because of that. Plus the historic beefs between Korea & Japan much like old beefs between China & Japan.

Europe has lots of people and mostly financially available enough to buy games. But the place is complicated due to host of different peoples in a concentrated area. All languages have to be taken into account here. It's a growing market but it's still not fully mature even if it's one of the big 3 markets of videogaming. What works in UK may not work in Italy quite the same. There's some poverty, corruption and strife here too that still exists in certain parts.

USA/Canada with Mexico as a supplement has the money and the people. The most spendready nations in the world. A region which operates under one monolithic language for the most part. Even with the great diversity of peoples here English is the unofficial default language. Canada gets the Quebecian French and Mexico/Southwest USA/anywhere Spanish-based peoples go get the Spanish but all understand English. The islands in the Carribean function as supplementals and they usually work by English/French/Spanish as well if they have the financial infrastructure to buy games. You can thank those Western European invaders from way back for this turn of events. Large landmasses with large numbers of peoples under one or a few language choices. Makes it very easy to want to market here.

Japan is culturally, ethnically, and linguistically monolithic. It's the home market and many of the important developers and companies come from there. It will NEVER be an unimportant market as long as consoles exist because of Nintendo primarily with Sony backing them up. Japan is the capital of this industry. The strategies Nintendo employed with this Wii/DS thing was concentrated on Japan first. They had to see it work in Japan first then take the strategy around the world. That's why they're winning this generation. America is where the money is and Europe/PALs to some extent but Japan is where most of the fresh ideas come from. Sony concentrated too much on America/Europe and forgot about Japan. That's why they're losing right now.

Japan is not nearly the ONLY market and the other markets enrich the industry. But without Japan you cannot win the world. People forget that PC is the Western "console". The Crash of 1983 moved the original American/Western world style of gaming to the computers. Why do you think Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom and Duke Nukem and all those orc/mage/elf Western RPG games (WOW) started there first? The PC world is where the Western developers reside and thrive bringing their visions all around the world. Europe/China/Korea/Africa/South America.

But think of something here why did the PC companies start working more with consoles in late 80s and 90s? Because the money was right here. PC world is a different beast than the console world. PC gamers are more tech-knowledgable and can manipulate the programs to their benefit. This causes poor profits because everybody's wildwest here making their own rules. This is why microtransactions and a host of money making schemes come from them. PC is not as easy to build big profits on as consoles are where users are less likely to manipulate the content to their benefit.

EA's deadbeaten horse Madden? Originally a PC game. EA denied consoles for years. Trip Hawkins, a Western dev head, went to PCs solely for years. He conceded in the late 80s/early 90s and then came out with the 3DO, HIS version of how a console should be. But it didn't work because Japan ruled the formation of these machines now.

We now have consoles with a mix of traditional Eastern (Japanese) content and Western (American/European) content and this may make people think Japan has lost importance as an industry foundation. Big mistake. The Gizmondo handheld came from Europe yet failed. Nokia N-Gage also came from Europe. It failed. Why? Wouldn't you think a still neglected region like Europe would want a hometown hero which would cater more to their needs instead of waiting for the leftovers like they have been for so many years? But no, who's popular here? The DS by Japanese Nintendo followed by the PSP by Japanese Sony.

Why am I not seeing a European console emerge from the shadows which would put Europe first as homebase selling to the rest of the world later? Why did Europe stop making consoles? Why did America where the videogame industry began under Ralph Baer not make their own consoles for years with it taking the world's richest corporation Microsoft to finally put an American console on the market in a viable way? Why for the past 20 years has not a viable American or European console not lasted? Why STILL does Microsoft bleed money to stay afloat as a videogame company? Their game division that is?

Japan will NEVER stop being important as a industry rock because this is WHERE consoles and videogames mainly COME from. They are WHY consoles even EXIST. When Japan stops making consoles more to the point Nintendo stops making consoles the whole world of digital electronic gaming will finally finish its evolution to an all-PC market.

Japan does less PC gaming than console gaming. Now why is that? Because Japan has created their own formation of gaming. They carried the torch from the Americans who dropped the ball in the mid-80s and made this industry their own. The Japanese companies who remember what the Brown Box was all about, who remember what the audience should be about, who remember that making it too Personal Computery is a bad thing will survive and continue to keep this industry alive...ruled by Japan.

Japan is not irrelevant. In fact it is all-important right on still despite the emergence of the newer markets.

Study history like I have and you'll know this as fact.

John Lucas