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[Bragr]

I looked for the movie industry's yearly revenue, and according to this site, it earned 25.8 billion in the United States in 2022. So at least in the U.S. (if this is real), gaming is twice the movie industry.

https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market-size/movie-video-production-united-states/

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

So many of those at the top are militarily allied and practice war GAMES together, coincidence?



I think he was pretty clear, it's a per capita metric.

Except he isn't, at least not the correct model economists would use for a direct comparison.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Its simply a reflection of the cultural place that Videogames have in Japan.

Actually it's more that Japan is the biggest adopter of handheld gaming and so it's hard to view it from a post-PS3 lens as Japan being second business until you see the sales there for DS/3DS/PSP/Vita/WS/TV/Switch/2DS which goes over alone maybe 2-4x the amount of consoles+handheld sales in other countries.

Console market may be on death row but the handheld market is still a big deal, just look at Switch sales in Japan compared to consoles sales of the Xbox One and PS4 + PS5 and XBS in European countries outside the UK, you can pick 3-4 of them together and they won't meet the same numbers. Maybe even up to 8 countries put together if you exclude Germany and France with the UK.

Japan would be fighting for second if there was a disruptor in the console space over there.

 

[ÆMNE22A!C]

Cod and fortnite?

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

There are like 400 to 500m people that are at least comparable to Western middle class. What a weird thing to say really.

You are ignoring distribution and ratios because why?

China is basically having it's middle class confined mostly to a specific area of the country and within that area segmented communities which are surrounded or isolated by where the average working chinese citizen lives who aren't actually able to afford these. But they can make the numbers appear to be better because of the population count but it's not much different, maybe even worse, than Brazil in this sense.

But back to gaming, accessibility is the main thing. It's why many "gaming" markets in other countries in the world are dominated by mobile. Consoles will increase presense if they work on acessibility, whether that's price, financing options, or having an alternative route to the same set of games. This is why Sony cloud and Xcloud will eventually become more important than they are now.

And All-Access by Microsoft to finance Xbox consoles keeps growing strong with over 20 countries just recently hitting Brazil.

As long as accessibility is high in the US it will be hard for it to not be number 1. Unless China's government does at least half a 180 on many of their decades of policies and restrictions. But China believes recently they cracked down on gaming addictions so they won't be changing anything anytime soon at the least. The fact they are that close despite that is really something.

 

[Woopah]

The Gaf Japanese Sales crew migrated to Era, and then the Era crew migrated elsewhere. That was one of the main threads that kept me a lurker on Gaf for years. When they migrated to Era, they kept going for a while, then some drama happened. Era still has Japanese Sales threads, but it's a ghost town now pretty much.

But most of the sales threads aren't what they used to be though. I think one of the main sales bodies stopped provided numbers for Japan sales, and NPD switched to revenue instead of units, so both threads became a bit less exciting for me personally. Nowadays its...well...times change. Sorry for double post.

Correct, NPD stopped sharing numbers and in Japan we lost numbers from Media Create and Dengeki. On the flip side we do get more information from Europe than we did in the past

Actually it's more that Japan is the biggest adopter of handheld gaming and so it's hard to view it from a post-PS3 lens as Japan being second business until you see the sales there for DS/3DS/PSP/Vita/WS/TV/Switch/2DS which goes over alone maybe 2-4x the amount of consoles+handheld sales in other countries.

Console market may be on death row but the handheld market is still a big deal, just look at Switch sales in Japan compared to consoles sales of the Xbox One and PS4 + PS5 and XBS in European countries outside the UK, you can pick 3-4 of them together and they won't meet the same numbers. Maybe even up to 8 countries put together if you exclude Germany and France with the UK.

Japan would be fighting for second if there was a disruptor in the console space over there.

It's more of a software thing than a hardware thing. PlayStation's and Xbox's issue in Japan is not that they aren't handhelds, it's that they lack software with wide appeal.

The franchises that primarily drive those ecosystems in the West (such as COD, Assassin's Creed, EA and Take 2 sport games) simply aren't popular in Japan. A handheld with the same lineup as the PS5 would not do noticeably better than the PS5 is doing.

 

[Vr46]

lol in italy we pirate everything...

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

It's more of a software thing than a hardware thing. PlayStation's and Xbox's issue in Japan is not that they aren't handhelds, it's that they lack software with wide appeal.

Post-PS2 there's been a radical drop even among games that used to traditionally be appealing or similar in Japan. Wii was the only real outlier and that was pushing a different type of gaming experience for the most part that died off harder than everywhere else because Move and Kinect was able to ride that wave for a bit, where as in Japan both didn't do much at all relative to other countries.

Software situation was always drastic, it's just much worse now because Nintendo has left the market to push unified teams for their handheld and they already dominated third-parties since post-PS2 in Japan specifically for their handhelds even with early 3DS when it wasn't looking rosy. AAA is basically the only thing Sony had and they made a lot of decisions that shot themselves in the foot there that made it so several games are now leaving Sony's bubble to go to Xbox, or as we have seen a big increase in PC storefronts, or retreating to mobile.

The franchises that primarily drive those ecosystems in the West (such as COD, Assassin's Creed, EA and Take 2 sport games) simply aren't popular in Japan. A handheld with the same lineup as the PS5 would not do noticeably better than the PS5 is doing.

EA sports games were somewhat popular in Japan, and then software collapsed in general, in fact EA proves my point it's not so much about appeal outside a slight margin but rather console has failed to appeal to the japanese gamer. Many PS5 sales aren't even being sold to Japan.

Several of the games that lead sales for western consoles are popular in Japan with what consoles or there to an extent, or on other platforms like the PC or mobile versions. Games like Assassins creed aren't really systems movers the way people think not just in Japan but the west so not the best example. Take 2 sports games were also somewhat popular and fell for the same reasons.

Third-party game companies domestically there in general are moving more to PC and mobile, before that post-PS2 it was PC and Handheld and that's what's been the cause of the software drought. Sure there are some better decisions that could have been made for appeal that may have helped but it wouldn't have resolved the problem.

Even on the dominant switch where much of the TP currently is that hasn't shifted to PC or mobile, I don't think there are even 6 standalone third-party developed/published games that have sold over 1 million on the Switch, In fact I would even say I'm not even sure there's 4 of them in japan.

 

[Daymos]

I thought Japan was dead in terms of gaming.. if the US was 55 bn then I would have guessed Japan was 2bn. As a big fan of Japanese gaming maybe I can stop hoarding games and ease up on the apocalypse claims after all...

 

[Woopah]

Post-PS2 there's been a radical drop even among games that used to traditionally be appealing or similar in Japan. Wii was the only real outlier and that was pushing a different type of gaming experience for the most part that died off harder than everywhere else because Move and Kinect was able to ride that wave for a bit, where as in Japan both didn't do much at all relative to other countries.

Software situation was always drastic, it's just much worse now because Nintendo has left the market to push unified teams for their handheld and they already dominated third-parties since post-PS2 in Japan specifically for their handhelds even with early 3DS when it wasn't looking rosy. AAA is basically the only thing Sony had and they made a lot of decisions that shot themselves in the foot there that made it so several games are now leaving Sony's bubble to go to Xbox, or as we have seen a big increase in PC storefronts, or retreating to mobile.



EA sports games were somewhat popular in Japan, and then software collapsed in general, in fact EA proves my point it's not so much about appeal outside a slight margin but rather console has failed to appeal to the japanese gamer. Many PS5 sales aren't even being sold to Japan.

Several of the games that lead sales for western consoles are popular in Japan with what consoles or there to an extent, or on other platforms like the PC or mobile versions. Games like Assassins creed aren't really systems movers the way people think not just in Japan but the west so not the best example. Take 2 sports games were also somewhat popular and fell for the same reasons.

Third-party game companies domestically there in general are moving more to PC and mobile, before that post-PS2 it was PC and Handheld and that's what's been the cause of the software drought. Sure there are some better decisions that could have been made for appeal that may have helped but it wouldn't have resolved the problem.

Even on the dominant switch where much of the TP currently is that hasn't shifted to PC or mobile, I don't think there are even 6 standalone third-party developed/published games that have sold over 1 million on the Switch, In fact I would even say I'm not even sure there's 4 of them in japan.

I think we're saying the same thing. That Japanese third parties have fundamentally been unable to appeal to their home market in recent times.

A lot of the third party franchises that were popular on the PS1/PS2 have declined since then (Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Warriors, etc.), but unlike the West there hasn't been many consistently successfully new/growing IP to replace them. Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, and Take 2 Sports games are definitely system movers but we don't have as many third party examples from Japan.

Monster Hunter has been the main breakout franchise with staying power in that country, and we got Elden Ring this year which looks to have a promising and future as well. At one point it looked like Level 5 would be the third party to gain a lot of power in Japan (with Layton, Yokai Watch, Inazuma 11 etc) but then they imploded in spectacular fashion.

The current state of the Japanese industry can mostly be explained by Nintendo being the only publisher to be consistently creating popular new franchises. Some of them were popular from being on handhelds but others (Wii Sports, Splatoon and Ring Fit Adventure) were not. At the same time, they have also been able to grow existing franchises ( Zelda, Animal Crossing, Pokémon) in a way that other publishers haven't.

This has led to the situation today where Nintendo controls 70%+ of the software market.

Things are looking up for PS5 next year in terms of releases, and with a new Switch coming in the not too distant future, we will hopefully see more third parties creating new hits and growing their sales on the PlayStation/Switch ecosystem

 

[BennyBlanco]

One big reason U.S. generates more revenue than China despite having a much smaller population is the strong console market here in the States. PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo all selling millions upon millions of units every year with games that now cost $70 while China is mostly a PC driven market where I wouldn't be surprised if over 50% of games played there are pirated.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I think we're saying the same thing. That Japanese third parties have fundamentally been unable to appeal to their home market in recent times.

Not quite, it's more that the home platforms they are on (PS5, XBS) are not appealing to the home market. As games that did put out separate, or ported games to the Switch did better (although not as good as they used to on previous home platforms) than the current home platforms now (except maybe XBS because of GP and Xbox One doing so bad it only sold 100k in 8 years).

You seem to be blaming the third-parties but that doesn't seems to be the case, or at least not the primary case just based on the Javanese performance differences between releases on PS5/XBS and Switch.

Also factoring in is the PC, which some japanese devs have run to with success. This seems to be a dying console market thing with none of the two big players having any plan or interest in a plan to fix things.

Now with that said, there is still an issue with third-parties in regards to Switch placement however Nintendo is also hogging more of the spotlight, even from partners, and has been less flexible with the Switch compared to it's previous platforms (In japan) but even 3DS was less flexible than the DS and GBA, which had better high-sales representation from third-parties as the Switch does, but not by much.

Honestly, outside the ones who are taking a chance on PC, third-party japanese devs don't really have a "fair" platform to go too for high-software sales, especially for AAA. PS5 has the units but not the software, and some of those units aren't even going to Japan according to reports, and are being sent to other parts of asia.

The current state of the Japanese industry can mostly be explained by Nintendo being the only publisher to be consistently creating popular new franchises.

The vast majority of the Switches most popular games are not new franchises at all. One is even a rerelease of a game from the Wii U.

 

[Woopah]

Not quite, it's more that the home platforms they are on (PS5, XBS) are not appealing to the home market. As games that did put out separate, or ported games to the Switch did better (although not as good as they used to on previous home platforms) than the current home platforms now (except maybe XBS because of GP and Xbox One doing so bad it only sold 100k in 8 years).

PS4/PS5/XBS are not appealing that much to the home market because of their software. It was third parties that were able to make PS2 and PSP successful by developing a lot of appealing software. They did not / were unable to do that on PS4 and PS Vita. Switch's large userbase can definitely help third party games to sell, but simply putting games on Switch isn't enough. As you say yourself, third parties are unable to have their franchises reach their past success, even when they do put them on Switch.

You seem to be blaming the third-parties but that doesn't seems to be the case, or at least not the primary case just based on the Javanese performance differences between releases on PS5/XBS and Switch.

Its up to third parties to decide what sort of games they make and where they release them. I'm not saying its easy to create successful new franchises and to grow existing ones, but they are responsible for doing so.

Now with that said, there is still an issue with third-parties in regards to Switch placement however Nintendo is also hogging more of the spotlight, even from partners, and has been less flexible with the Switch compared to it's previous platforms (In japan) but even 3DS was less flexible than the DS and GBA, which had better high-sales representation from third-parties as the Switch does, but not by much.

How are Nintendo being inflexible or "hogging the spotlight"? They show off third party games in their Directs all the time, and a lot of the spotlight goes on Japanese third parties.

Honestly, outside the ones who are taking a chance on PC, third-party japanese devs don't really have a "fair" platform to go too for high-software sales, especially for AAA. PS5 has the units but not the software, and some of those units aren't even going to Japan according to reports, and are being sent to other parts of asia.

Switch is a fair platform for high software sales in the vast majority of cases. I agree with you that its lack of power does stop it getting AAA efforts, but the number of AAA efforts in development in Japan is very small (1-2 a year on average)

The vast majority of the Switch's most popular games are not new franchises at all. One is even a rerelease of a game from the Wii U.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I wasn't just talking about the Switch, but the longer history that led them to their current position. For the past 20 years they have been:

1. Creating new million-seller franchises
2. Turning old franchise into million sellers

in a way that no one else really has (except Level 5 before their implosion). That is why they have the dominance they do today.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

PS4/PS5/XBS are not appealing that much to the home market because of their software.

partially, but you can't skip the last two gens and ignore that top selling software wasn't already dropping at a brisk pace because that doesn't make sense. You are looking at the PS5/XBS in isolation, ignoring the many Japanese games that were running more toward mobile and handhelds starting last PS3 gen, and accelerated the PS4 gen especially the second half.

As you say yourself, third parties are unable to have their franchises reach their past success, even when they do put them on Switch.

But they still sell higher, and those home console audiences are clearly not all on the switch they have scattered to mobile or recently more and more to PC as well, perhaps even buying older consoles later can be added to that. This means that accessibility and the actions of the hardware manufacturer matter to how far these third-parties can reach.

Some appealing games on PS5 sell MORE on the Switch in Japan despite the downgrade. This isn't just third-parties that are the issue, but also Sony, and MS, though MS seems to be doing better there this gen and maybe GP is doing something but it's still not enough to fix the problem.

If you look at Japanese sentiment it's looked at as there's a "lack" of effort by Sony to really get the Japanese market on board and they have been treating Japan as second fiddle 3 gens in a row. They are an example and influential in perception and have not done a lot to help facilitate software adoption, TP can't so all the legwork alone we can't simply ignore all these factors and conclude almost EVERY domestic (or international) TP is releasing unappealing games that is just not logical, especially when games seem to do better on Switch even if they are capped that release on both. Add in mobile and the increase in PC gaming this should be obvious that this is not such a simple problem.

Its up to third parties to decide what sort of games they make and where they release them. I'm not saying its easy to create successful new franchises and to grow existing ones, but they are responsible for doing so.

This doesn't address what you quoted.

How are Nintendo being inflexible or "hogging the spotlight"? They show off third party games in their Directs all the time,

You are confusing a gaming forum audience with the general gaming population of Japan.

but the number of AAA efforts in development in Japan is very small (1-2 a year on average)

No? You do realize the japanese AAA, or close to AAA games, that release in the west also released in Japan right?

 

[Fafalada]

Honestly, I was always under the impression that the UK was the 4th biggest gaming industry but it seems that was actually South Korea all along. There's a pretty big distance between the two as well that really surprises me.

Not all along. Korea (and China) were around 4B$ back in 2008/9. From what I recall - UK and Germany were definitely bigger back then. I do find their respective numbers to be - quite lower than I'd expect, either the mobile growth just hadn't happened there, or they are missing the coverage for it.

It seems this isn't including mobile or India would be on the list, so this seems to be focusing on traditional gaming metrics.

I don't know what you mean by 'traditional' metrics - but this is absolutely including mobile & F2P. Else neither China or Korea would even be on the chart at all.
But don't forget these are estimated metrics, and companies doing this research don't have 'all the data' - so India absence could be any number of reasons - including just general lack of data. But the market is still much smaller there, I'd be surprised if it was even at China 2008 levels already.

Given how popular f2p is, and how many more of the upper glass groups are buying consoles in China I'm surprised they have yet to beat the US, even before the recent crackdowns. Look how close they were in 2017 for example.

I mean the charts show how much US market itself has grown in recent decade (mostly on the back of mobile/GaaS - which was much smaller in the West for a long time and it took awhile to catch-up).

 

[Woopah]

partially, but you can't skip the last two gens and ignore that top selling software wasn't already dropping at a brisk pace because that doesn't make sense. You are looking at the PS5/XBS in isolation, ignoring the many Japanese games that were running more toward mobile and handhelds starting last PS3 gen, and accelerated the PS4 gen especially the second half.

I'm not ignoring that. Third party's seeing their software sales decline for the past 2 gens is precisely my point. I'm looking at how third parties were able to offer a lot of appealing software on DS and PSP, but have been unable to since. I fully agree with you that the current situation did not start with the PS5/XBS

Some appealing games on PS5 sell MORE on the Switch in Japan despite the downgrade. This isn't just third-parties that are the issue, but also Sony, and MS, though MS seems to be doing better there this gen and maybe GP is doing something but it's still not enough to fix the problem.

If you look at Japanese sentiment it's looked at as there's a "lack" of effort by Sony to really get the Japanese market on board and they have been treating Japan as second fiddle 3 gens in a row. They are an example and influential in perception and have not done a lot to help facilitate software adoption, TP can't so all the legwork alone we can't simply ignore all these factors and conclude almost EVERY domestic (or international) TP is releasing unappealing games that is just not logical, especially when games seem to do better on Switch even if they are capped that release on both. Add in mobile and the increase in PC gaming this should be obvious that this is not such a simple problem.

Games sell more on Switch than PS5 because Switch has a larger userbase, due to having more appealing software (primary provided by Nintendo).

For PS5 there's definitely more that Sony can do in terms of adding more supply. And of course the other big thing that Sony and Microsoft can do is develop more games that appeal to the Japanese market.

But again that brings me back to the main point, which is that the issue with PS4/XB1/PS5/XBS is one of software, not hardware. You are right though that Sony and Microsoft do also have some responsibility for generating appealing software, it doesn't just rest on third parties.

This doesn't address what you quoted.

You said that I shouldn't be blaming third parties for their software sales. But I should, because they are responsible for selling their games.

You are confusing a gaming forum audience with the general gaming population of Japan.

I'm confused by your point. Please can you explain what you mean by Nintendo "hogging the limelight" or "being inflexible"

No? You do realize the Japanese AAA, or close to AAA games, that release in the west also released in Japan right?

Yes? I never said anything about games not releasing in Japan. This year the AAA title from Japanese third parties was Elden Ring. In 2021 it was Resident Evil VIII and Monster Hunter Rise. There might be some I'm forgetting but only a very small proportion of the games that Japanese publishers make would not be possible on Switch. (next year there are more than usual though though).

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Crazy how much Japan revenue is in totality and per capita. Its not like Xbox or Sony is doing great there. I dont think PC gaming is huge either. But Switch and mobile must be off the charts.