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Forums - Sales Discussion - Saving japanese market

Oyvoyvoyv on 09 February 2009
bigjon said:
Onyny-

Yea I think people take the market is dead thing a bit too far, but 2 things I feel I need to correct you on ; ).

1. There is missing data that is Pre- VGC's birth in Japan, yea alot of the classic are there, but you will notice the absence of those mid major games that failed to sell a million WW, but might have done 200k in Japan or something, I guess games like, the Gundum ones now days. Then again you could be using famitsu and be totally correct.

2. When people talk about the dying Japanese market they are refferring to home consoles. Take out the gameboy and gba (terrible sw sellers - pokemon), and take out the DS (incredible SW seller) and PSP (in Japan it sell sw, ok, and a few games great). When you do that suspect that not only will you see no growth over the last 10 years in HC software sales, but actually shrinking sales the last few years. Combine that will the massive growth of the West, and Japan is looking pretty paltry right now.

 

Is onyny me? That's some heavy mispelling there. Didn't find anyone else with a name close to that, so I guess it's me.

 

Point 1 is probably valid, but that actually proves my point further. If you're correct, the market share has increased in the recent years, rather than stay dead on.

 

Well... Some people have said what you do in point 2. I'll check it.

 

3rd gen:

Total sold: 73M

In Japan:  22.82M

Market share: 31.2%

 

4th gen:

Total sold: 95M

In Japan: ~ 25M

Market share: 26%

 

5th gen:

Total sold:  156M

In Japan: ~ 34M

Market share:  22%

 

6th gen:

Total sold: ~ 195M (assuming ~ 140M Ps2)

In Japan: ~ 33M

Market share: 17%

 

7th gen (so far)

Total sold: 94M

In Japan: 11.6M

Market share:  13%

 

 

So that is indeed correct.

 

In solid numbers, the growth for consoles stopped with the Ps2 gen. It is likely to end at ~ 20-25M this gen, which could be less than 10%.

 

So point 2 is correct. Consoles are dropping like a stone in Japan (compared to the rest of the world), but that is because they're going handheld.

 

(Japan is likely to be ~ 75% vs 25% in handhelds vs consoles, whereas WW it is 50-50 (meaning Europe/Americas are still higher on consoles).



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memory2zack on 10 February 2009

Not on topic but, does anyone have any recent stats about the immigration, emigration rate in Japan, as well as birth-rate and whatever other social aspect with a possible impact on the japanese gaming market? And a comparison with N.A and Europe.

Either way, Japan has it the toughest this generation, because of the alternate route their local hardware market is taking in comparison to Europe and N.A. Just like Oyvoyvoyv said, the big publishers have dilemmas, cater to the local market, the western or a combination of both? Each has its downsides/upsides. I´d like to expand also to the question: should we cater to the casual market as well? Very important since japanese 3rd party publishers are mainly core-focused.