| Killiana1a said: Well, from the numbers you posted it would appear to be so at face value without looking at the other factors. First, this ain't the PS1 and PS2 generations where Sony was blowing the competition out of the water by margins which the Wii can only dream of. Sure the Wii has quite a margin, but nowhere near the margin the PS1 was dominating the N64 or the PS2 was dominating the Gamecube. So with a smaller market share, you would expect a drop in numbers. This has occurred. Second, demographics. Paul Krugman and other famous economists have written enough columns to fill books about "Japan's impending, inevitable, irreversible CRASH," I will just direct you to the CIA World Factbook entry on Japan: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ja.html Lets see the demographics of Japan: Over 20% of the population retired? Yes. Declining population growth rate? Yes. Higher death rate than birth rate? Yes. A high life expectancy to drag down the incomes and heap loads of stress on the working population? Yes. 196.4% debt compared to GDP? Yes. From a demographics perspective, Japan is a very long timebomb. I would consider it more like a 30 to 50 year implosion rather than an explosion which was Greece and Ireland. Things may change for the better. Japan may invent synthetic human androids to boost the working population. Finally, if the US economy is down, Japan's economy is down. The US is Japan's biggest trading partner. Furthermore, with Japan having next to zilch in natural resources their relationships with trading partners is one like the GED wife who is married to the millionaire. She needs him way more than he would ever need her. Better make sure your ass doesn't get too fat if you know what I am saying. I would not say Gran Turismo is dying per se, I think Japan is on it's way down. You had the title wrong in my opinion. |
Very good insight about what's going on over in Japan. My cousin who's lived there the past 6 years told me similar things when I went to visit him last year. The working class is working longer hours than ever before, which contributes to couples having less and less children, causing the population growth rate to be at its lowest in decades. The government is so concerned about this that they're offering couples somthing like 400,000 yen to have children to try to jumpstart the decreasing birthrate.
