Japan is struggling with bad economy for a long time, not since the "recent recession", that's why they are shrinking...

Yeah, seem china was prospering right now its only a matter of time before they could take over everything even the gaming market. Most of MMORPGs today are made from china including korea

Last I heard Japan's economy is on the up (+0.9%), following France's and Germany's (+0.3%).

Japan is heavily dependant on it's exports so the US situation is obviously hindering it's growth, but it can at least look to the some EU states growth as a positive thing.

Japan is STILL the world's second largest economy but has been in recession longer than the major economic countries.

The signs are however pointing towards the reality that Europe is starting to recover.

To answer your question, no.

"To answer your question, no."


the trend in NPD says so otherwise. The Ds was selling in holiday season numbers while the home console sales were dropping. You will know in the next NPD just remember both PS3 and Wii give a price cut each console should be in over a million sales right now...

Eh.... only Wii sales imploded in Japan. PS3 and X360 are up YoY there, I don't get what is your point. Last year the casual console (Wii) outsold the HD twins 2:1, and this year things are even, and core game is imploding? Right...

Really now?

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/NPD_January_2009

You cant change and deny the fact, gaming in general was in downward slope not only on the Wii. Just remember, PS360 are relying more on third parties for them to stay alive. Month after month many games are knocked out in top 10. RE 5 even with good sales in its first month just done horrible next month

But do you know what? Its OK for 3rd party core developers. WHY? Just as like the hollywood industry as long as the games are blockbuster even the game isnt evergreen they make a revenue. You're just a milking cow to them not only you, but most of core gamers here. They dont care anymore they dont even try.

I think that gaming market is going to have a look for new markets after all this. Japanese sales are TERRIBLE and only big name games and some surprise sleepers get good sales, overall sales are just terrible. Wii expanded the gaming market in a demographic way, now it's time to expand it in a Geographic way.

China is already the biggest market for MMO's and with time it will have a huge share of PC gaming market, I doubt consoles could have much sucess there,though.

Latin America is already becoming considerable, Brazil alone moved 500million dollars from PC and Console gaming last year, pretty good considering it used to be just 80 million 10 years ago. And projections shows that with the right investments Brazil alone could move 3 billion dollars yearly in the next 15 years

And there are many other countries with great growth in their gaming markets, India, Russia, Eastern Europe, The Asian Tigers and etc. And all of them have big population, like China, if just 10% of the population(just guessing) can afford gaming, it's already 130 million potential costumers!

I think the new gaming regions will be something like America(including both, Latin America and US and Canada), Europe(including Eastern Europe and Russia), Asia(maybe already including Japan this time) and Others(Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Middle East and Etc.) in the next 20 years.

This is really hard imo, not only will the specific consumer will have to like it, but every other specific consumers will have to like it to... though this would work if every big shot gaming company or develapors are in every reigon and could make big games then it could work :/

Developers don't need to be in the country to have their games released there, it should be pretty costly to open that many of local companies. They just need to look for partners in those countries to at least have their games officially exported to there. Like, in Japan many games from western companies are published by japanese companies, like, 007 was published by S-E, Spike distributed Oblivion, Capcom gta iv and go on. 

It would be pretty good for those countries to develop their games as well, cultural identification is pretty important. Sure those countries would still consuming Japanese, Europeans and americans games, in pretty good amounts. So, it would be the best thing to big publishers come officially, and open local studios for development and adapting for the internal market and publish games from outside. 

Note: Probably low-end games would be done in this kind of country, since the salary is much lower than in developed country...

Edit:Of course all this change wouldn't happen in just one year, it should be a plan involving all companies interested, deals with local governments, constructing factories, and would be complete in just 20 or more years, but they need to start sometime, gaming can't be pratically exclusive of 3 regions forever.

yes, both are doomed to have the last letter of there names replaced with an M