Forgot we're on a forum.

I AM curious, though, if anyone actually has those numbers available...

And yeah, we both reach about the same conclusion, but I emphasize less the "it's good enough" part. Why, for instance, would the Japanese have lower graphical needs than the West, especially when they're allegedly more in high-tech stuff than we are? Also, a console has more capabilities than a handheld in most ways, including multi-media. It's not even so much a matter of "consoles can do things handhelds can't," it includes a bit of "consoles can do almost everything handhelds can, but they can do it better."

Granted, none of these matter so much if portability is the ultimate value in Japan, but that's kind of why I want to see that data at some point. I suspect that that part, like almost all the other Truths Of The Internet, is overstated. IF I'm correct, then we're basically back to square one...

Looking back on my two posts in this thread, I need to stop doing stream of consciousness. :-/

Yeah, I went deeper into that point in my aborted post, but for the sake of clarity I'll go into a bit more detail here regarding what I meant.

For "radically different forms of gaming" I wasn't referring to the Wii so much as individual titles like Cooking Trainer, Wii Fit, Brain Training, etc. Actually, no, I wasn't even referring to those: I was referring to the idea that they represent, that a "game" can include so much more than the same genres we've mostly been using since 3D came about. An exercise game?! A glorified interactive puzzle? A cook book? A few years back, none of those were really contemplated; today, they're some of the best-selling titles ever made. (And no, previous "exercise games" et. al., like the one on the Xbox, are not the same, as those were basically exercise videos married to a spreadsheet.)

I'm not saying that the direction Nintendo is pionting is the only way to go, mind you: gaming can (and should!) expand to go in other directions as well. But one thing seems clear to me: at least in Japan, continuing the path that's been travelled before is bringing in diminishing returns. This nice thesis of mine encounters a few roadblocks, of course, as a few traditional titles DO light up the Japanese charts, but those not only appear to be rare, but they're usually on handhelds rather than on consoles...

See, this is the type of thing I'd like to see more hard data on. Not that I don't believe you, but I want to know the figures, and compare them to how things were last generation, when this wasn't as much of a problem.

As to the women staying home, why is that? And if that's the case, why aren't console publishers aggresively targeting them?

Japanese as an average tend to sleep less than most westerners so that does compensate a little...

MGS4.

Anime are still popular in Japan and any anime like game tends to sell well ( that's why every new FF does well, it's a new anime show that comes every few years except you get to play in it..)

Nintendo is targeting them.
I think I wrote in an earlier post that women in Japan have the most disposable income out of any demographic. It is really quite a cultural phenomenon that involves the freeter/parasite single which are basically women that stay home til' 30 years old, pay no rent to their parents, work part time and spend it all on designer goods and entertainment.
Nintendo's strategy really does target this audience. A similar example in America would be that housewives make an estimated 85% of buying decisions in the household. Appealing to women is a big market.
That is one of the biggest reasons why, this gen, Nintendo really wanted to get on their good side with cute "edu-tainment" games.
I don't know how easy it will be to get numbers on it unfortunately....

And nothing has changed at all in the past 10-15 years. It's the same as always. I think Rol is correct in pointing out that there exists a "good enough, which the PSP has tapped into. I think that if PSP2 were to radically improve graphics to a GC level or higher, it could really be huge. They just need to make sure to have backwards compatibility because PSP has a huge collection of great games.

I don't completely buy that argument, though. I was referring primarily to graphical power, which is no more (or less) required in, say, JRPGs than it is in FPS. More to the point, we know that most of the big genres in the West are just as easily done on handhelds as they are on consoles. Western RPGs like Baldur's Gate, racing games, sports games, fighting games, all of thses can be accomplished just as well on handhelds as they are on consoles. Even the FPS can be done fairly well on handhelds, as Moon shows. Considering that, as you pointed out, the PSP is essentially a console, and that those genres did well there, I don't see any real obstacle beyond the fact that consoles can do it bigger and flashier.

Having said that, your point about the Japanese usually being less "wowed" by technology powerhouses than Westerners is well taken. That leads me to wonder "why," of course, especially in light of how much more obsessed with other aspects of technology Japan allegedly is, but that particular question is tangential to this discussion. Until and unless the theory that the Japanese don't care as much about graphics as the West is debunked (and off the top of my head, I'll admit to having trouble doing so) I suppose we should roll with it (no pun intended).

Interesting. I'll be the first to admit my ignorance of modern Japanese culture, so the existence of such women comes as a bit of a surprise to me. Thanks for the heads-up. This, of course, leads me to wonder what took developers so long to reach out to this demographic, and why, moreover, Nintendo seems to be the only one that really is doing so.

But this brings me back to my problem. Why is the PSP "good enough" for Japan. I don't actually expect any answers, mind you, but it's driving me mad that every idea I have is somewhat contradicted by another. Also, the contrarian in me is compelled to point out that if the PSP really is "good enough," then radical graphical improvements to the PSP2 probably won't mean much.

well, I wouldnt really say it's good enough, but it's getting there. Here are a few reasons.
1) kawaii culture actually rejects realism in favor of cuteness.
2) Story driven game is more popular in Japan
3) Gameplay more important than graphics

I feel that those 3 reasons are thoroughly accurate in explaining the "why". There are others, like wifi and such but I don't know too much about those.
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I don't think anyone realized they would actually buy games in the first place, and they would be sated with boys games. If we look back to the GC days, when Nintendo was trying to compete graphics wise, they learned that their games really had a good following with women and younger audiences. Seeing as how Nintendo really couldn't keep up with this next-gen graphical ability, they made a GC that was more fundamentally Gamecube, the wii and it blew the doors wide open.

I think Popcaps and other indie companies who have been making these smaller games really found a large female following before anyone else though, around the same time that GC was entering the market, thus introducing the concept of casual gaming with tetris style games and the like.

What surprises me is the statement about work. Last I checked the amount of time working annually the average person did was about like this: USA>Japan>Europe. Mind you this is not a good thing, the US has over worked its population for years and as such sees diminishing results per hour worked and a generally more pissed out douchey population. But the point is the same, why wouldn't the US be the home of handhelds? Perhaps because we don't use public transit? But the Europeans do and they don't seem as handheld skewed as Japan either. I frankly don't quite get it.

 Because gaming isn't a part of the European society like it is part of the Japanese one.

People read books or newspaper or listen to music in the subway or buses in France.

Most 30+ people do not play video games at all or very little...