Can someone please explain to me why japanese people prefer mobile gaming over console? You can`t exactly compare console gaming to crappy mobile games with microtransactions.
It's really a matter of the social structure and the amount of alternative entertainment available.
Especially for those of us that grew up in the Urban areas...it's like placing someone in the West into a low crime, populated at all hours + street vendors everywhere version of New York City. I can honestly just hang out at manga cafes + bookstores and eat street food for most of my days if I want to. Do you think in-home console gaming would be that high on most people's form of entertainment then?
And since most people are going to be out most of the time, portable/mobile gaming just make much more sense. F2P also means that all of your friends can get in on it if they're interested.
It also doesn't help that kids are basically raised to be addicted to gashapon toys/cards machines. My childhood version of the slot machine.
Micro transactions on games like PAD don't feel as big of a deal after you've been spending hours/$$$ of your childhood on stupid trading cards/cheap toys.
Heck, PAD deliberately make their monster drawings to be like a gashapon machine.
(man, just thinking about that stupid knob turning is sending chills down my spine.)
