Interesting. But excuse me if I seem ignorant, but why should I care? I mean, to what extent the western gaming market depends on the japanese gaming market? I'm not sure I see the realtion.

OP has a lot of good points. But I wouldnt say that console gaming is "dead" in Japan - it is dying but not yet dead.

Why is it a problem?

Handhelds beat consoles? Big deal! If they enjoy them more, they are BETTER for them.

where's the beef?

@Noname: I think you're confusing the japanese view of new tech into the western view. Japanese seem to be more tech orientated when the tech benefits them or brings something new for them, not as it is in the west.
360 to Xbox is "better tech" in west and Wii to GC is "better tech" for japanese.

@Kowenicki: Where can i find how much of the times are public transportation? Not everyone is like me, who does other stuff while driving.

To everyone looking for travel times and what not. It's really not the point.

Japanese teenagers usually leave anywhere from 6-8am and get home around 6-8 and then they have homework.

For break periods, 1-2hrs of travel time, and lunch hour, it is the best option.

Adult men have similar lives.

However some men and most women aged 18-30 have a lot of free time.

The Wii and the portable gaming devices dominate the video gamemarkets in Japan in terms of lifetime sales.
At the moment PS3 is having a rally with a few recent new good games and to a lesser degree X360 has improved significantly over the course of the year in the Japan region. Wii is flat around that 18 to 25k weekly sales but that can improve with some new game releases due out soon on Wii.

In comparison to the rest of the world per capita Japan is not a high selling nation for video game consoles. Japan population around 150 million. USA has the biggest market because its 300 million help notch up some big console, portable and video game sales. USA is the not the biggest in terms of per capita (average video games and consoles sold per person). UK has around one third population of Japan, one fifth the population of the USA. UK has the highest video game/console sales in the world per capita.

USA, UK, Europe and Japan make most of the video games in the world for consoles, PC and portables.

Despite the whole world in economic crisis the console and video game sales still seem to sell reasonably throughout the world and gamers still get treated to good games on all platforms.

 So, Japanese have life and Americans have no life?

@Kowenicki: Commute time, as a transportation time. Atleast as a word it doesn't take into account the method of transportation.
As you were using this to debunk the "no.1 point" in the OP, it's quite hard to do, unless you can show how much time people spend in transportation that they aren't driving by themselves.

A few thoughts

Like it or not, there are differences in culture. For example, it is taken as accepted that Japan in general is much more resistant to a product that comes from elsewhere than other places. Americans love to import things.

There is also the work ethic/job security/responsibility put forth in the culture which makes it hard to fire people but makes them take "early retirement" or even commit suicide in extreme cases of bad business actions/decisions. No one in the American financial sector has given a second thought about laying people off or taking undeserved bonuses and only one Senator has suggested that those who caused the current panic "do the decent thing." (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/us/politics/18grassley.html?ref=us)

Another difference which may be more telling right now -- and may explain what is considered "good enough" is considered that way -- is that higher end technology is not as diffused in Japan as we might think. The conversion to digital broadcasting will not occur until next year there - one year later than the US and several years after some European countries. Also, not as many people tend to hook up to the Intenet using computers (they do it through their phones -- which are considered more advanced than in the US). These differences are why Nintendo released an SD console and then sought help to get people on line.

Finally, many of the examples people noted to show that console gaming was not "dead" actually support Rol's point because they often were sequels to known, high-selling IPs.

Mike from Morgantown