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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.
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?
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.
It's their iPhone doing stupid things.
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.
I still have Butterfly stuck in my head two decades later. Also, there's a quadcopter in the original music video from 1998.
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.
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.
Hope Janpanese economy will recover soon,so does the world.
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.