Because in a lot of ways it is being marketed as such.
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Japan 2014 Console/Handheld Market: Lowest in 24 Years + Top Games
- Thread starter Road
- Start date
Because in a lot of ways it is being marketed as such.
Considering it's release schedule last year? I assume Wii U sales will increase, MK8 and Smash are still selling, Xenoblade X, Mario Maker (possibly?), Zelda (possibly?), SMTxFE (this should be coming as it's been in development for over 2 years now), Devil's Third, Splatoon and possibly their big title for japan could be announced soon (Animal Crossing U)
I don't see the numbers falling for Wii U, but they really do need some more help from their developers if they want to see growth beyond 10 - 15%.
DS boom.
As for the aging population, the increasing number of elderly, which is what's causing all kinds of problems in society, is not a factor -- they never played video games, and can't be expected to start (though I'd love to see it) -- but the steady decline in the birth rate certainly is a factor. There just aren't as many kids as there were in the '80s when games like Super Mario Bros. sold millions and millions and were social phenomena that turned a whole generation into lifelong video game fans.
It's in that generation (of which I am a member) where I think the problem lies. The kids of the 8-bit era are in their 30s and 40s now, and in Japan, once a man gets married and has children, the TV set -- broadcast television, and the six or so channels that everyone gets -- becomes the centerpiece of the family home. It is hard to overstate just how completely a few TV channels dominate the Japanese home -- that TV might well stay turned on from when the first person gets up in the morning until the last person goes to sleep. It stays on in the background even when guests are in the house talking with the hosts. Dad (or Mom, for that matter) simply cannot pop a game in and play it unless he's the only one in the house. You might think that given the working hours of a typical salaryman, he'd love to unwind with a game before going to bed, but broadcast TV blocks him.
He still likes video games, though, and on the train you will see salarymen of all ages, even older ones, playing games on PSPs, DSes, Vitas, phones... just not at home. Young women and kids too. I see these handheld players every day on my way to work (where they presumably are looking over at my Vita with its collection of turn-of-the-millennium RPG classics and wondering why the gaijin like those old games so much).
If there is hope for full-size-screen home gaming for adults in Japan, I think it lies with the PC, which also tends to have a prominent place in the home, and is not quite as weird-looking for Dad to be seen playing when someone visits.
I love the Vita and think it's a great compromise -- much closer to a modern experience -- compared to IAP-laden smartphone shovelware. Some kind of PC-linked high-spec handheld/tablet could probably offer the same experience that the PS4-Vita tandem does, only with much more cross-generational consumer appeal. I'd love to see that, because I just don't see Japanese society accepting adults becoming console gamers like Western society has.
Addendum to my post about TV dominating Japanese households: a day or so after my better half and I moved in together, she had gone out for something and came back to find me reading a book in a silent apartment. "Is the television broken!?" she started to ask, and when I pointed out that I was reading a book, not watching TV, she realized that she had unconsciously been having the TV on basically all the time, whether she was actively watching it or not. That's what she had grown up with, after all.
Nikodemos
Member
Do Japanese homes have on average a single television set?
Laws00
Member
Should have included 2006 but I see. I was interested in how big of a serge or what could have led to that then to taper off like it did but that kinda makes sense
I can shit on Ubisoft and their ways, but at least they're willing to continiously show some ambition. These Japanese publishers need to grow some balls and show some ambition too.
Hino might drag Yokai Watch into the ground soon enough but it's great to see Level 5 give a game like Pokemon some damn good competition.
Hino might drag Yokai Watch into the ground soon enough but it's great to see Level 5 give a game like Pokemon some damn good competition.
3DS had another good year, even compared to good selling systems from prior generations, only NDS sold considerably more. The problem really is that in past generations there were 1-2 other systems besides the market leader that also sold well.
Here a comparison I made last week.
PS4 sold worse than WiiU launch aligned.
WiiU week45 (Famitsu):
1.078.560
PS4 week45 LTD (Famitsu):
925.570 (Famitsu)
Here a comparison I made last week.
PS4 sold worse than WiiU launch aligned.
WiiU week45 (Famitsu):
1.078.560
PS4 week45 LTD (Famitsu):
925.570 (Famitsu)
I would say yes, particularly in the big cities where homes are small (~60m^2 would be spacious). And it can be heard from any place in the apartment/house.
2015 will be a graveyard. This year wasn't expected to be so bad. Vita and Wii U were predicted to rise and 3DS was not expected to fall as hard as it did, PS4 and XB1 also hugely underperformed. Things will be far, far worse in 2015. I predict the biggest yearly % drop in a while.
Ninja Scooter
Member
I do wonder sometimes, was Japan being such a huge player in the video game console market sort of an anomaly to begin with, and now it's sort of settling in to something closer to where it probably belongs in proportion to it's population if that makes any sense?
shark sandwich
tenuously links anime, pedophile and incels
You could probably make another similar one regarding their population decline. I'm sure that is ONE contributing factor.
diablos991
Can’t stump the diablos
Are we flying under the assumption that Japanese people still have the same hunger for games?
Is it possible the Mobile market isn't responsible for this shift as much as a cultural shift away from video gaming in general?
Is it possible the Mobile market isn't responsible for this shift as much as a cultural shift away from video gaming in general?
shark sandwich
tenuously links anime, pedophile and incels
This is eerily similar to the things people were saying about Wii U for 2 years now. Look how that turned out.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
I don't see how population is a useful metric for video game influence. Even if it is, it's the 10th most populous nation on earth. It should have a fairly decent place in the market.
But the PS4 is actually going to have games Japan should be interested in. The Wii U has never ever done a good job with that. Frankly it's done a poor job with that worldwide. The PS4 is in a totally different situation worldwide. The PS4 won't completely revitalize Japanese console gaming, but it should do better in 2015 than 2014.
I'm not saying: "PS4 is saved in Japan." I'm saying: "PS4 will sell more in 2015 than it did in 2014." Do you disagree?
Delusibeta
Banned
I would bet sales figures for the mobile industry would suggest that the answer to this question is "no".
shark sandwich
tenuously links anime, pedophile and incels
I honestly don't know. If there's one thing I've learned from reading these sales threads, it's that pretty much anybody who thinks they understand the Japanese market, doesn't.
The graph in OP certainly suggests this is a long-term decline that has been going on for years. It also shows a large spike following the launch of Wii and PS3 that has most definitely not repeated itself following the PS4/Wii U launches.
In 2013 3DS declined YoY despite megaton launches like Monster Hunter 4, Pokemon X/Y, Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem, and Zelda. Wii U declined in 2014 YoY despite Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros, Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta 2, and Amiibo.
So my best guess is that yes, PS4 will decline in 2015 along with everything else. We'll see spikes along with the big-name releases, followed by a rapid return to baseline.
I don't know if population has anything to do with it... I mean, how many great Indonesian games or Nigerian games have you played?
The decline of Japanese console sales isn't just because mobile phones disrupted everything... there's also demographic decline and a struggling economy, those Abe tax hikes harmed a lot of consumer spending.
I do think that the Japanese console games will still keep coming, but they will be either the big budget titles that are mainstream in the west (FF, MGS, RE, SF) to keep the western gamers happy, or the niche titles that have both the otaku Japanese and western market (Neptunia). Mid-tier games and series (Wild Arms, Star Ocean, Genji, all those hidden gems you loved in the PS1/2 era) are gonna be near extinct though
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Well that's depressing.. The home market is now lower than it was when I discovered video games (which was a Japanese industry).
It's officially smaller than I've ever known, and I'm 30
It's officially smaller than I've ever known, and I'm 30
Pennywise83
Banned
To be fair, the Wii & DS era seems more an anomaly than anything else. Sure, the market is declining, but the early 2000s were slow years as well without any relevant mobile market.
Pennywise83
Banned
YOY comparison in late November suggested an even worse decline. Anyway, if you take out big IPs from yearly sw sales you will get similar results, even when the market was bigger. Like, take it out Pokémon in 2010 or Mario in 2006 and see what happens.
What you're saying makes sense. I do want to believe that this year's PS4 games—which might appeal more to the Japanese market—will have at least a significant enough impact for units to sell relatively well compared to last year, or at least prevent a substantial decline.
That's part of the significance here though.
Not only have we dipped well below the Wii/DS era, which had brought in a lot of vitality to the market, but also notably below the 2000-2005 era as well by ~15-30% depending on what year we want to look at.
Game revenue in particular seems to have taken a hit as well since those blue hardware bars get pretty short in parts of the 2000-2005 block.
So we seem to be losing business not only on the front of losing all the boost from the Wii/DS era, but also from the PS2/GBA era.
XxRampage07xX
Member
What are you waiting for, Japanese developers? Bring all your games to the West, won't you? I'm tired of waiting for Japanese games to be localized.
Pennywise83
Banned
Soon, there will be another YW game that'll beat Pokémon, in a shorter span of time.
Just asking, which online components are considered in 2002 / 2003 / etc.? Like subscriptions from PS2 MMORPGs?
But revenues as a whole are not down, not when mobile gaming revenues exceed the traditional market.
This would be like claiming gaming revenue was in a decline in the 90s cause arcades/PC games were. Or in the 00s cause home consoles were.
Pennywise83
Banned
True, but in the whole picture, and also considering online on those handheld and home consoles, the decline is not as severe, and you might say that the market came back to pre-DS levels, or at least is almost in line with the early 2000s... which, considering how big the mobile market is, is quite astonishing.
Oh no, as I mentioned in my first post in the thread, mobile is having stratospheric growth.
I think the Japanese industry is actually larger than ever if we include it.
It's like the whole NPD issue, right?
To note, by "game revenue" I was solely referring to video game revenue on dedicated devices if that wasn't clear, since this chart combines both hardware and software revenue. That was the distinction I was trying to make.
The question is kind of where it goes from here right?
If it stays stable or goes up it's not as bad as it could be, certainly.
If it continues on this path of like 10% a year or so, it's not looking so hot.
How are things gonna pick up? If it does without Sony, they'll never be able to catch up.
I have a crazy idea.
What if Sony made the PS4 mobile, just for Japan? Make the slimmest model possible, and attach a screen to it. Call it PSfour. Similar to how there was a PSone.
And yeah, I realize something similar can already be done with Wii U
Expand that screen to be the size of the console -- easy enough in this age of the iPad -- and I'd Day One that thing. I'd pay more than the full price of the regular console, PS3 or PS4.
In fact, make a PSthree with full PS1/2 disc BC and I'd pay the price of a PS4 for it. What an amazing machine that would be.
Blueingreen
Member
I doubt it exists in a vacuum but this was taken from a Telegraph article from last year.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...pulation-suffers-biggest-fall-in-history.html
Is it possible that people are simply..growing out of gaming ? I'm no expert cultural analyst, so there's more than likely someone more lectured than me on this board, or perhaps we're looking too far into this ?
jesus christ
entremet
Member
I have a crazy idea.
What if Sony made the PS4 mobile, just for Japan? Make the slimmest model possible, and attach a screen to it. Call it PSfour. Similar to how there was a PSone.
And yeah, I realize something similar can already be done with Wii U
The power draw of the PS4 is way too much for it work with current battery tech. Also, if it can't fit in your pocket, forget it.
Pennywise83
Banned
One thing that became quite apparent is that sales will be concentrated on a fewer platforms. So, for example, I'm not expecting Sony developing another traditional handheld platforms, and therefore focusing on its home platform. In early 2000s, the market was basically one home - one handheld; the other systems were just noise and were not relevant at all.
Yeah, that's pretty impressive.
Unless you're making indie/mobile stuff you can't just focus on the Japanese market anyway.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
Outside of mobile, digital game sales haven't really caught on in Japan like they have in NA.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Hell I've gotten to the point where I don't even mention One when talking JPN hardware sales for the generation.
I'll be shocked if it gets to 150k units.
drotahorror
Member
I'd like to see how much money has been made off mobile games over there(not 3ds/vita/psp etc). Especially compared to other countries.