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Japanese Console Market Grows For the First Time In 11 Years (kotaku.com)

According to Famitsu, hardware sales in Japan experienced a huge spike in 2017 compared to the previous year. In 2016, Japanese hardware sales were 117.05 billion yen ($1.05 billion), while in 2017, they jumped to 202.37 billion yen ($1.81 billion). Kotaku reports: Software sales also increased: in 2016, they were 182.4 billion yen ($1.63 billion) and the following year, they were 189.3 billion yen ($1.69 billion). A big part of this increase is due to the Nintendo Switch's brisk hardware sales. The PS4 has also continued to churn out steady numbers. The last time the Japanese gaming market saw an uptick was in 2006, when the Nintendo DS Lite, the Nintendo Wii, the PS3 launched.

34 comments

  1. Yeah, but can... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...it run Crysis...on Linux?

  2. Losers desu. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Noobo trendsu.

    1. Re: Losers desu. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Zakkenayo

  3. Kawasaki by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Word!

  4. better hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    money spent on stupid game shit is better spent building missiles to bomb the fuck outta north korea, you know, to protect your country.

    1. Re:better hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      money is better spent locking retards like you up to avoid inflaming unnecessary conflict. if you had your way the world would have long since been blown up, thankfully south Korea and Japan seem to be far more sensible than you.

    2. Re: better hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not attached to my country. It never did anything for me that I haven't already paid for.

  5. DDR4 prices? by SumDog · · Score: 1

    Maybe it's a lot of PC gamers not wanting to update their rigs since DDR4 prices are through the roof? So might as well just update your PS4 to the 4k version or get a Switch?

    1. Re:DDR4 prices? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      16GB is $150, you think ram prices are high now? I remember when 8MB was four or five times that. Get the HELL off my LAWN with your pokemon hunt!

    2. Re:DDR4 prices? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      16GB is $150, you think ram prices are high now? I remember when 8MB was four or five times that. Get the HELL off my LAWN with your pokemon hunt!

      An additional 512kB plus a RTC for the Amiga 500 cost over $100. Get the hell off my lawn with your fancy-pants multi-MB machines.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:DDR4 prices? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ha. PC gamers in Japan. Good joke.

      No, this is because people are finally starting to get tired of smartphone games, and console gaming companies are finally offering products the Japanese market wants again.

    4. Re:DDR4 prices? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      VIC-1210
      3KB RAM PACK
      C= commodore
      MADE IN JAPAN

      I bought it to extend RAM on a 1541 drive, or so I recall. Back in the wire wrap days.

      Paid $50 US or so in 1984. That's about $120 today. $17,000/MB then, or about $41,000/MB today. Per GB, that's 17 million USD then, or $41 million/GB today.

      I win! What did I win?

    5. Re:DDR4 prices? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I win! What did I win?

      If you still have it, you might be able to sell it to an enthusiast and recoup a fraction of your costs. Is that winning?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re: DDR4 prices? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if you have tiger blood and snort several lines of coke off hookers asses will you be... winning!

  6. Well yeah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Switch is pretty much surgically constructed to sell in Japan.

    Even though Japan basically pioneered the ubiquitous use of cell phones in modern cultures, they also have a long love of portable gaming beyond the reach of even that cell phone culture.

    They're basically the reason that Playstation Vita kept alive as long as it did, and I thank them for it too - that and the Playstation Portable have a great legacy as far as software libraries for future emulators.

    One big reason is subways. Being able to play halfway-comfortably while standing, packed into a train car filled with other folks is basically the prototypical usage scenario. Lets you spend that otherwise dead several-days each year worth of travel hours in a much better condition than anything else, including cell phone conversations or streaming content.

    As a pleasant side-effect, the games have to be compatible with being paused at any time, and tend to focus on being long-form or repayable entertainment far better than 99% of cell phone games. Experiences you can enjoy as focused entertainment, rather than just distractions or odd toys.

    1. Re:Well yeah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you. I enjoyed that post, and I believe that it should be rewarded with "Mod points".

  7. Re:The Donald by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's wrong with your computer? It keeps injecting illegible characters.

  8. Re: The Donald by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's their iPhone doing stupid things.

  9. Obviouly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Switch is a portable device and a console in one. Nintendo sacrificed their portable and home division to make one unit that does both. So the overall rate of console sales doesn't just have to be high, it needs to be higher than both their old console and old portable sales figures combined.

  10. I didn't know DDR was still popular by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I used to enjoy myself beating Afronova and Paranoia Rebirth, and who can forget timeless classics such as Butterfly?

    DDR 3rd Mix was the best one anyhow.

    1. Re: I didn't know DDR was still popular by Jesus+H+Rolle · · Score: 1

      I still have Butterfly stuck in my head two decades later. Also, there's a quadcopter in the original music video from 1998.

  11. I admire them for being loyal to their companies by elrous0 · · Score: 1

    These days in the U.S., if you suggest that it might be a good thing to support an American console company like Microsoft, everyone glares at you like you just said "I love Hitler" and kicked a puppy. But the Japanese will almost always support their own companies over foreign competitors. It's nice to know there is still at least one country in the word that supports its own (even if everyone actually manufactures their consoles in China).

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  12. Growth vs. Spike by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The spike is what happens when a new product hits the market. Bored people are curious about it. It means nothing in the long term if there is no value in it.

  13. Re:I admire them for being loyal to their companie by gravewax · · Score: 0

    because being racist/patriotic or whatever the fuck you want to label it is what is so badly wrong with the world at the moment. Buy whatever you think is best regardless of who or what country makes it.

  14. Re:I admire them for being loyal to their companie by blahplusplus · · Score: 0

    if you suggest that it might be a good thing to support an American console company like Microsoft, everyone glares at you like you just said "I love Hitler" and kicked a puppy. .

    You may not be aware that's because american companies treat their paying customers like dirt, like Microsoft trying to get rid of game ownership for the xbox and make every future game "always online" internet connected, aka getting rid of your customers rights to own their own games and be left the fuck alone. But ideological hyper capitalist chimpanzee's seem to think anything a big company does must be good for everyone(tm). Right now the entire game industry is literally destroying and doing nasty shit to videogames making them impossible to preserve and use in 20 years, no one with half a brain as a paying customer is going to respect an organization that is outright criminally hostile towards you and kicking you in the nuts in terms of game ownership.

    Loot boxes, microtransactions, drm and attack on game ownership are the reason everyone looks at you like you're stupid because you are lacking any awareness of what these companies have been doing to their customers: Treating them like shit.

    If you treat your paying customers like shit and like they're criminals, then you should expect to become a despised company in return for your gloriously corrupt anti customer policies.

  15. Re:I admire them for being loyal to their companie by gravewax · · Score: 1

    Japanese companies are no different, if anything they are even worse and will abuse the consumers right up and sometimes past what they are willing to swollow, e.g. Sony's rootkit or the "get a second job" so you can buy their console.

  16. Re:I admire them for being loyal to their companie by blahplusplus · · Score: 1

    American companies take the cake - windows 10 is literally spying on its own customers, and steam was much more invasive then anything sony released since Steam is now inside most popular high budget games. American's have out done the japanese by a large margin because they control the hardware and operating system that runs the worlds computers.

    American companies are undermining the privacy and civil rights of the entire planet, it's hard to compete with valve /w steam, apple, and microsoft's windows 10.

  17. Hentai games on the Switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's what would take to grow it even more. Mobility, restroom gaming, Japan: it's a growth boom waiting to happen.

  18. That's a good news by aisanled · · Score: 1

    Hope Janpanese economy will recover soon,so does the world.

  19. Re:I admire them for being loyal to their companie by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

    like Microsoft trying to get rid of game ownership for the xbox and make every future game "always online" internet connected, aka getting rid of your customers rights to own their own games and be left the fuck alone

    Microsoft only did what they see coming. Because digital downloads are exactly that, and are the biggest and fastest growing part of both Sony and Microsoft's stores.

    At least the Xbox let you sell your games. But because everyone hated it so much, they got rid of it back to the old way, which meant digital downloads are stuck to your account. You can't sell them "used", unlike Microsoft's proposal.

    The only thing Microsoft did was make discs worse, but that's irrelevant these days, since most games now either don't have a disc release, or they ship so few copies of discs that if you're the guy looking for it, you better have preordered it months in advance.

  20. Re:I admire them for being loyal to their companie by blahplusplus · · Score: 1

    Your whole post is irrational, you "digital download" files from a DVD/CDROM to your computer when you copy it. A game is just a bunch of files, whether those files are on disc or on another computer that you copy.

    The reality is any drm infested game, part of its files are held hostage on a computer at company headquarters, they can literally shut down the game you paid for, that's the fraud right there buddy because they've fraudulently taken the files and computer instructions hostage, they've coded the game in a way that's fraudulent and criminally against your rights as a paying customer to always access the game you paid for.