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[Mass_Pincup]

Do you guys think 2015 will plummet even further or will it stabilize at this rate?

It'll go down I think. The 3DS is getting old and I don't see what could sell as well as Youkai Watch, Monster Hunter and Pokemon this year. The PSV will maybe sell a bit less, the PS4 will sell more (thanks to Bloodborne, DQ Heroes, Disgaea 5, Persona 5) but not enough to mitigate the 3DS decline. As for the WiiU except maybe Zelda there's not a lot that could improve it's situation and the Xbone is irelevant. So no I really don't think it'll stabilize this year.

 

[JordanN]

One of the reasons I hope PS4 lasts 10 years is because it's likely the last home console Japan will support.

If Sony introduced a PS5 very early, I don't think any Japanese Publisher will care for it or we'll just see last gen up ports like how PS4 is getting PS3 titles, sadly.

 

[Xando]

Crazy to see the record console numbers in some western markets and then this huge decline in japan.

 

[dugdug]

Japanese people are frequently on the go. With mobile gaming (whether handheld or smartphone) getting more advanced and accessible, it's no wonder people are playing less at home.

So, is it more a case of, they're more on the go than they used to be?

Or they just get enough gaming out of handhelds, so, when they go home, they don't want to fuss with a console?

It's really interesting to me to see it fall so hard. Especially as someone who doesn't prefer phone gaming.

 

[ArcaneFreeze]

Top 10 software for the entirety of 2014 is all Nintendo consoles? I would have expected something on Vita to have at least broken half a mil. Actually surprised Smash WiiU made it at 10.

 

[Spaced Harrier]

Jesus, that's kinda heartbreaking.

Mikami was right.

As an aside do we have have decent charts on critical acclaim of Japanese games over the period?
A comparison between Western and Japanese acclaim would be interesting.

 

[Tetranet]

At least, handhelds, or more like Nintendo's current and future handheld remain a safe haven for the Japanese games most of us are used to and want to play.

Time will tell.

 

[Blablurn]

Port Yokai Watch to consoles

 

[Nirolak]

Top 10 software for the entirety of 2014 is all Nintendo consoles? I would have expected something on Vita to have at least broken half a mil. Actually surprised Smash WiiU made it at 10.

The best selling Vita game in Japan has only sold 396K: https://sites.google.com/site/japanltdrank/show?platform=PSV

To be clear, that's in the system's entire lifespan, not just this year.

 

[Spineker]

The fact that Sony have failed so hard with the Vita in Japan in this climate is a testament to how badly they fucked up that handheld

 

[Nirolak]

Port Yokai Watch to consoles

In case it's not clear, this is a chart that combines console hardware/software and handheld hardware/software.

 

[JordanN]

At least, handhelds, or more like Nintendo's current and future handheld remain a safe haven for the Japanese games most of us are used to and want to play.

Time will tell.

Not counting Nintendo games, I don't think that's true.

Compare DS support to 3DS support, there's a big drop in who's making what.

There will always be niche but companies like Capcom or Square aren't motivated to even make sequels like Resident Evil for it. They're going all in for mobile.

 

[InsaneZero]

Port Yokai Watch to consoles

You're going to be getting Youkai Watch on mobile long before L5 starts to even seriously consider consoles and you're going to like it.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

The fact that Sony have failed so hard with the Vita in Japan in this climate is a testament to how badly they fucked up that handheld

What?

 

[Pie and Beans]

The confusion of last gen really did a number on JPN homeconsole devs. Inititally some woo'd by Microsoft's "dedication" crows and so dev'd for 360 exclusively, then the Wii offered the illusion of a new dawn and of course required exclusive dev by default, and finally things settled back to PS3. Making things even more confusing, some devs did PSP instead, and while experienced great JPN sales, globally they were shit outta luck.

Sad really as my tastes lean a lot more towards Japanese dev'd titles and they seem to be really hard up against it.

 

[FDC1]

Do you guys think 2015 will plummet even further or will it stabilize at this rate?

Everything will go down outside of PS4 (maybe Vita can stay stable if they lower the price).

 

[Guevara]

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1991

 

[Nirolak]

Everything will go down outside of PS4 (maybe Vita can stay stable if they lower the price).

And before people get excited, the PS4 really isn't going to sell all that much even if it does better.

 

[Spineker]

What?

It's a high powered gaming device in a mobile centric market that's really comfortable to hold (which makes it easy to play while traveling) with a lot of great Japanese games on it. It should be pushing 2.5 million in a year

 

[Bruno MB]

One fun fact.

In 2014 (we're missing the last week of the year) software sales have dropped by 11.73%. Without Youkai Watch series, sales would have declined by around 25%.

Source: Media Create.

 

[InsaneZero]

The confusion of last gen really did a number on JPN homeconsole devs. Inititally some woo'd by Microsoft's "dedication" crows and so dev'd for 360 exclusively, then the Wii offered the illusion of a new dawn and of course required exclusive dev by default, and finally things settled back to PS3. Making things even more confusing, some devs did PSP instead, and while experienced great JPN sales, globally they were shit outta luck.

Sad really as my tastes lean a lot more towards Japanese dev'd titles and they seem to be really hard up against it.

That seems like a strangely worded and awfully verbose way of saying 'Japanese publishers got hit hard by costs of HD development'.

 

[Nyoro SF]

It's a very disconcerting and sad prospect. Even now, most of the games I enjoy are Japanese.

I would like a sustainable console market in Japan to keep going to fuel my PC gaming using ports. It seems like a lot of Japanese companies have jumped on board for Steam recently, but I feel that if the console industry collapsed we'd be seeing a huge downturn of that flowchart.

 

[Pie and Beans]

It's a high powered gaming device in a mobile centric market that's really comfortable to hold (which makes it easy to play while traveling). It should be pushing 2.5 million in a year

It is also not a mobile phone, so is doomed to always be a "ugh, I have to pack an EXTRA device?!" addendum.

You could argue Sony should have aggressively definitely had Vita phones of some kind though. They really didn't try very much there, instead now hoping the Remote Play and Now stuff will help lessen the slippage.

 

[Spineker]

That seems like a strangely worded and awfully verbose way of saying 'Japanese publishers got hit hard by costs of HD development'.

By Japanese publishers, you mean Square with their bloated engine budgets, right?

 

[Mass_Pincup]

It's a high powered gaming device in a mobile centric market. It should be pushing 2.5 million in a year

It as nothing to do with power it's more about convenience. From my understanding people in Japan started to play a lot more during commute, they already have phones that can play games, they don't really have any incentive to buy another expensive piece of hardware. The only reason the 3DS is selling better are because Nintendo locked the biggest 3rd party games and have some of the most mainstream IP. The Vita just came to late.

 

[The Llama]

Ouch, thats rough.

Spoiler

I don't really like most Japanese games outside of Nintendo stuff, though, so I don't really care >_>

 

[Kazerei]

Good thing Yo-kai Watch became such a huge hit in 2014. Sales would look so much more dire without it.

 

[lyrick]

It as nothing to do with power it's more about convenience. From my understanding people in Japan started to play a lot more during commute, they already have phones that can play games, they don't really have any incentive to buy another expensive piece of hardware. The only reason the 3DS is selling better are because Nintendo locked the biggest 3rd party games and have some of the most mainstream IP. The Vita just came to late.

The Vita never had a chance. Outside of MonHun, even the PSP didn't have a single title that could break 1M units in Japan. Without MonHun it really was DOA.

 

[Nightbird]

One fun fact.

In 2014 (we're missing the last week of the year) software sales have dropped by 11.73%. Without Youkai Watch series, sales would have declined by around 25%.

Source: Media Create.

Holy Shit. I knew this Series is a Beast, but it being a pillar of the Industry a year after it began is just insane.

 

[GifGafIsTheBestGaf]

there is still kickstarter though for the j-games fix! if all things fail

 

[TheSlySoul]

Wow, consoles are truly dead in Japan huh?
I mean PS4 sold 18 million and only 1 million came from Japan.

Edit: Also seems Yokai Watch and Monster Hunter is keeping 3DS alive in Japan.

 

[Nanashrew]

"I think we'll see a console focus again when the smartphone boom settles down" Horii Yuji

Well, that looks pretty far off with this data. Then again, I was cynical to begin with.

 

[Vaddon]

One fun fact.

In 2014 (we're missing the last week of the year) software sales have dropped by 11.73%. Without Youkai Watch series, sales would have declined by around 25%.

Source: Media Create.

Wow, that is incredible.

 

[Kouriozan]

You better start to like mobile as a gaming platform, if you love Japanese games.
But only a few company are making real effort, for the moment.

 

[DeliciousDoc]

The fact the ps4 isn't selling isn't surprising at all. The only ps4 only Japanese games announced for it is Disgaea 5 (other than the very distant FFXV). The ps4 doesn't offer anything to Japanese gamers (they like GTA but they can buy it on ps3)

 

[InsaneZero]

By Japanese publishers, you mean Square with their bloated engine budgets, right?

Japanese publishers banked primarily on the PS3 due to it being the successor of the dominating PS2. Problem was, the PS3 was very difficult to develop for. Add the already exponentially increasing complexity of game development in general on top of that, and you've got one part of a console market decline recipe.

The other part being handhelds and mobile being cheaper and easier to develop for while better fitting the needs of the Japanese market.

 

[DR2K]

I imagine none of this is accounting digital software sales. I imagine this would be the highest yearly for that.

 

[sublimit]

I hope the mobile gaming bubble will burst one day and Japan will return to consoles.I just pray that consoles will still exist that day.

 

[ActuallyHulk]

Not going to lie, I find this EXTREMELY depressing. The vast majority of games I enjoy are Japanese. I wouldn't enjoy an industry where they aren't present. I really, really hope they just make the move to Steam rather than focus only on Pachinko and smartphones. Other Japanese devs have found success on there so I hope the others realize that there's a market.

I tend to assume the worst though so I'm sure that's part of what I'm feeling.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

It's a shame. My favorite video games, by far, are from Japan.

 

[Kyougar]

This gets rarely mentioned but aside from mobile taking bigger part of the cake Japan has also huge demographics problems and it's probably already starting to affect gaming market. They have shrinking population and especially the amount of people between 0-25 is shrinking a lot every year.

thats partly a misunderstood concept. Most of Europe has also a shrinking population and demographic problems. But gaming when you are older is not an issue like in japan.

 

[Moor-Angol]

It as nothing to do with power it's more about convenience. From my understanding people in Japan started to play a lot more during commute, they already have phones that can play games, they don't really have any incentive to buy another expensive piece of hardware. The only reason the 3DS is selling better are because Nintendo locked the biggest 3rd party games and have some of the most mainstream IP. The Vita just came to late.

PSP had MH and 3rd party support with S-E (FF,KH), Konami (WE and MGS), Capcom (MH already mentioned)

Vita has none of them, if you take out those brands from PSP chart you have Phantasy Star Portable (670k) then God Eater (615k)
PSO2 is a F2P game which also had a retail release on Vita, it had around 500k players (100k retail FYI); the top seller retail game is God Eater 2 (400k), so the difference between PSP and Vita is more or less the first part of my post

 

[Li Kao]

I guess Japanese people are just so on the go constantly that mobile games are just more convenient for them. Plus, their aging population probably doesn't help

Well it makes perfect sense but what I fail to understand is... we can agree that mobile games are nowhere near the same thing that traditional games, in Japan at least. Not a quality thing, really two different things.
I wonder how someone that have played games during the past gens can satisfy himself with "just" mobile. Again, I'm NOT talking about quality, but you can't compare, err, let's say a Dragon Quest with a Monster Strike or your typical freemium Japanese title. It's just not the same thing. Don't Japanese people miss the older games ?

 

[Tetranet]

Not counting Nintendo games, I don't think that's true.

Compare DS support to 3DS support, there's a big drop in who's making what.

There will always be niche but companies like Capcom or Square aren't motivated to even make sequels like Resident Evil for it. They're going all in for mobile.

Well, I don't own a 3DS so my knowledge of its library isn't from first-hand experience, but stuff like Bravely Default, Fire Emblem, Etrian Odyssey happened on the 3DS and give me the impression that Nintendo's hardware can play that role.


After that, I don't know what's there. Tablets and Smartphones can't do these games, and the devs in Japan won't move en masse to PC in the event of failure of both handheld and desktop console (unfortunately). Some PC ports came as a surprise to me this year, but there's only a few of them and intended for the overseas people.

The fact the ps4 isn't selling isn't surprising at all. The only ps4 only Japanese games announced for it is Disgaea 5 (other than the very distant FFXV). The ps4 doesn't offer anything to Japanese gamers (they like GTA but they can buy it on ps3)

Sony should have done a better (or an actual, seeing there was none) job securing games that would be attractive to the Japanese gaming audience for early on, to be honest.

 

[Darkener2]

I hope the mobile gaming bubble will burst one day and Japan will return to consoles.I just pray that consoles will still exist that day.

I doubt it... if it did happened it will be the PC not consoles that will be used by default.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

It's a shame. My favorite video games, by far, are from Japan.

Persona 5, Metal Gear Solid V, FFXV, KH3

Atleast they are going out with a bang

 

[sublimit]

I doubt it... if it did happened it will be the PC not consoles that will be used by default.

Japan was never into PC gaming though.

 

[Cosmo Clock 21]

I imagine none of this is accounting digital software sales. I imagine this would be the highest yearly for that.

Japan doesn't really do digital though.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

99% of the games I play are japanese, and I really do not think that traditional games will just die, budgets might go down but hopefully Nintendo's next handheld is a hit(we're in big trouble if this doesn't happen haha) and maybe they start noticing PC gaming as an avenue for games that aren't eroge, I'm glad that even SE is releasing games on Steam these days.

 

[MakeMeFeelAlive]

Not surprising. The ps3 is still rolling and there arent as many ps4 only japanese games. Im sure sales will pick up once these games start rolling in.

MGS5 and FF15 will bring in sales. I suspect we'll begin to see more titles this year at tgs that will move consoles in japan.