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Japanese Videogame Market Declines Further
Thanks to 1UP for its note discussing a report on the state of the Japanese videogame market in 2003, as tallied by the CESA (Computer Entertainment Software Association) trade body. The result was an "11% decline in total hardware and software sales in Japan, to 446 billion yen ($4.1 billion), in the past year", and apparently: "2003's sales figure represents a slide of approximately 40% since 1997, when the Japanese games market last peaked at the height of the PlayStation's popularity." The news story author goes on to suggest: "CESA's report blames a significant loss of audience for the continual decline of the Japanese games market, partially thanks to the increasing complexity of big-ticket games. The upcoming debut of new handheld platforms from Nintendo and Sony represent the industry's next chance to bounce back and regain their audience in Japan." What's the difference between the Japanese experience and the relatively buoyant Western gaming market?
What's the difference between the Japanese experience and the relatively buoyant Western gaming market?
American geeks would rather spend their hard-earned money slaughtering hideous monsters rather than sitting back and watching said monsters ravage nubile young women.
In my opinion, this is obviously due to saturation of the market. The japanese gets a lot of games, a lot more than we get in the west, and they always have. If you look at the market as a whole, there are also far more consoles and games sold per person than in the US or Europe. Even tho the market in Japan is declining, it's still much bigger than the US or European market when you take the population into account. Nintendo is worried about this, and they are partially trying to rectify this with the Nintendo DS: A handheld that does things differently than the traditional consoles or handhelds. It also be exiting to see what they're new console, ambitiously named "Revolution" will add to the gaming experience. Sony's solution just seems to be "same formula, better hardware." We'll see if that will work in the long run, maybe the japanese decline is indeed a sign that gamers want something completely different.
Good troll, you'd win my mod points, but it also brings up a good point about culture. The demographics are simply different.
Gaming in America simply doesn't take the same cultural role as it does in Japan. Gaming here is largely casual. While I woed the death of the "hardcore gamer" and the overrun of Joe Schmo with his X-Box into the gaming world, the casual Joe Gamer is by far the largest market. Japan really doesn't have a casual Joe Gamer, thus they don't really release "casual games". Most, if not all, Japanese games are deep, engrossing, and masterpieces in their own right. When they come over here, they get the "hardcore gamer" market, since the average American gaming nerd scoops this stuff up, whether it's a masterpiece or simply mediocre. Plus, there's the fanboy effect.
However, in Japan, the quality will make or break the game, and their tastes are much more discriminating. It seems that Japanese gamers are simply burning out of the latest round of less-than-wonderful games. Maybe it's a retro thing. Who knows. I suppose Japanese gamers are burned out of the latest fare in gaming.
This is a problem America will never have, because America is much more casual in this respect. The Japanese gamers are quite serious about it, while American gamers aren't. Thus, the Japanese market is much more vulnerable to losing ground because of sheer mediocrity.
As an aside, even as a Nintendo fanboy I'm starting to doubt their latest developments, and I'm quite skeptical that the Nintendo DS will save Nintendo. Nintendo has suffered from games built around gimmicks lately, like Luigi's Mansion for the GameCube controller, the E-Reader, the GC-GBA connectivity, and now the "dual-screen" gimmick. It's starting to get old.
Clearly this is about the Japanese Recession. Japanese have less spending cash, and are hoarding what they have.
Here in the US, we had fairly mild down-turn which is already reversing itself.
Japan's Recession(Which basically amounts to stagflation) has been going on for 10 years, and is not turning around.
Sangloth
I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.
In my experience....
Actually, I find the biggest problem to be not a lack of audience (Every child that I teach owns at least one system. More common are 2 or three systems). There just aren't any drop dead amazing games out right now for the big contenders (GameCube and PS2). And there really hasn't been for a while.
I always ask my kids what they're playing, and the answer is always Kirby AirRide or Mario Party. Both of which came out over a year ago. One few kids who are playing recent games (mostly all TV show based) say that the games were fun, but too short, too little to do, etc.
The biggest/best game I saw come out here lately was Ninja Gaiden. Unfortunately at 7000 yen when it first came out, in addition to NO ONE owning an Xbox (I'm the only person I know with one), I can't imagine the sales were very good. Onimusha 3 was a huge hit. But then again, that was also last year.
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Nothing can be done before the tremendous power!
RabidComics
that the long-sagging birth rate in Japan has really taken a bite out of game sales? The Japanese birth rate is only about 1.4 or so, compared to the US's 2.06. Thats pretty significant(and has long term implications for the country as a whole). Also note that 21.25% of the American population is under 14, versus only 14% of the Japanese. Now I realize that there are adult gamers, but a large chunk of the video game market is to kids and teens. In both raw numbers and percentages, the US has a much larger market, and the Japanese market is, and has been for a while, falling.
Sources:
US Demographics
Japan Demographics
My reason for the downturn is that we're at a lowpoint on the console replacement treadmill. Everyone's GOT their Xbox and Halo, PS2 and FFX/X-2, Gamecube and Mario Sunshine(Look, Miyamoto, the problem isn't 3d, the problem is outrageous difficulty/essentially arbitrary success)/Crystal Chronicles... when were each of these systems released?...
We've also got everyone waiting on their flagship sequel / major sequel for the next gen... no duh sales are down. I'm not going to buy the same TV every year guys, what makes you think I'm going to buy 5 Xboxes when one plays my Halo just fine?
(Yes, I saw it was a combined total, but go watch the history of video games special - the Xbox's limited success (the success portion) is due to it being the Halo-player)
Japan game market
Kinda like a dating sim
A whole lot of curve
U.S game market
Kinda like an action game
Take a hit, move on
</haiku>
While I do, on occasion, troll, whether out of boredom or chemical means, this was not meant as a troll. This is too nerdy a subject to troll about.
Let me elaborate on my previous comment.
When I suggest Nintendo shot themselves in the foot with the N64, I simply think it could have been so much better. Losing Final Fantasy VII due to their stubbornness on media type was a horrible decision. Likewise, the sound capabilities of the N64 are almost inexcusable[1]; whether this was the fault of the sound hardware or the simple lack of storage space on the cartridge, I don't know. The N64 had framerate and memory issues too--the expansion pack solved some problems, but should not have been needed in the first place. (Don't get me started on Nintendo's add-on gimmickry...)
The Nintendo 64 could've rocked the PSX's world if it was done right, but sadly it wasn't. We got our kickass first/second party titles (even though I never liked Rare's 3D platformer offerings) but got lackluster third-party support, which plagues Nintendo to this day.
The GameCube overcame the technical limitations of the N64 but by that time it was too late; Nintendo had firmly wedged itself into its current reputation. The sheer quantity of third-party titles that we had with the SNES is gone. And let's not get started on Rare[2].
I've always been a Nintendo fanboy--I'll admit that. But lately, Nintendo is starting to wear me out. Once, we were a Nintendo-only house. NES, SNES, N64, GameBoy, you know. Nowadays, we gave a PSX, PS2, and a Dreamcast along with our GameCube. I've been losing my dedication to Nintendo lately, seeing all the Great Games on the PS2 I was missing out on. Now, I've sold out. So shoot me. Or Nintendo.
[1] And if it wasn't for the Great Games of the N64; i.e. Super Mario 64 (still one of the greatest games of all time), Zelda 5 (the GameCube port kicks ass, by the way), StarFox 64 (one of the greatest games made), Paper Mario (say what you want but I still enjoyed it), GoldenEye (BEST. CONSOLE FPS. EVAR.), Superman 64 (I'm kidding); it would have been completely inexcusable.
I think that video gaming has reached a kind of "post-modernism" these days. That basically means that everything than can be done with a screen and a controller has already been done - which leaves very few original ideas left to develop on.
Maybe this is just a pessimistic view, but I just tried to think up a new game idea and realised that I'm coming up short.
Most of the other posters make the right comments though. I'm in Japan. There are fewer children. The adults that are here work long hours and have no time to play. The country is slowly recovering from recession, but the fact that there are few new Japanese kids means it won't get too far. The pension system is a mess... people are hoarding cash (I know I am).
The fact that new consoles don't offer anything new that hasn't already been done (can't rely on fancy graphics anymore), so there's no incentive to buy. Maybe when the PS3 comes out everyone will jump out to get one and we'll see renewed interest... but I don't know. Xbox in Japan is DOA now... VERY few titles on the shelves. Nintendo is losing their target market to a low birth rate.
If we're talking casual gamers in Japan... well they use cell phones mainly. Others use Gameboys.
The Japanese are more into fun cutesy games as opposed to the west where graphics and realism take a front seat.
Still, Japan has plenty of nerds and manga never seems to bore anyone. And as long as you write a cheap game with little playability, lots of scantily clad ladies, and make it a complete rip-off of the "dead and alive" series (as one budget game company just did in Japan), you can score highly on the Japanese game charts.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
... has been going down for quite some time now. The only decent original games that have been released in the last 4-5 years you could probably count on both hands. All the others are re-hashes and re-treads of existing franchises because companies are so entrenched in making money its hard for them to invest money in original ideas and games that defy or invent new gaming conventions, in short they are afraid of losing money and not keeping investors happy about quarterly profits.
I also think this has to do with the japanese gaming audience as a whole. Japanese gamers and gaming culture are more experienced and hardcore about gameplay then their us counterparts. They are really more hardcore about their games then north americans are. Why do you think that most games come with sissy difficulty settings or have been so easy in the last 4-5 years? To pander to a North american audience.
I think this is a real problem is that games are being dumbed down to a point where theres no challenge and the japanese do not like unchallenging games that lack depth. This is what made Streetfighter 2 such a hit on both shores was its strategic depth and skill based gameplay.
We saw more original games and content in the NES/SNES and Genesis era then in any other era in video game history (sorry to say it but pre-NES era of computer/console games had little diversity and lack of widespread adoption, the NES is what saved the industry).
Look at Nintendo for instance, they had the balls to release a 2D game for the gamecube (Zelda: Four swords) although it plays and looks much like it's snes and GBA counterparts the game was still fun. There needs to be a willingness to try new things just like nintendo knew that all games don't need to be 3D to be fun, this isn't to say that companies should go back to making 2D games, just that they need to come up with original games once again and not be so focused on refining already existing genres, they should be enhancing existing genre's. There is lots of room for innovation in existing genre's they really have to take a long hard look and study what tasks or game mechanics are fun.
There's always a market for fun games because the best games usually sell and gain their reputation by word of mouth anyway.
I don't see any great mystery here, nor do I see any particularly complicated factors or dark forces at work in the background. It's unlikely to be related to the Japanese recession; as I understand it, the Japanese economy has now very much turned the corner and was actually more severe in 1997, when, according to the article, the market was at its peak.
I just see this as a natural return to the norm from an absurdly high peak. The market's previous strength reflected a depth of obsession with gaming that was unlikely to be sustained. For a long time, the industry has talked about the Japanese game market on the same level as the US and European markets. When you consider the population of Japan (127 million) compared with the population of the United States (293 million) and Europe (200 million for just France, Germany and the UK, which is excluding a lot of big nations), this begins to seem absurd. I suspect we'll see the Japanese games market continue to "decline" until it reaches a level roughly proportional to the US and Europe.