Support NeoGAF

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Game industry data provider KADOKAWA ASCII Research Laboratories just published a new set of numbers on the state of the Japanese market.

According to the company, the overall gaming market in Japan grew 1.4% year-on-year to 2.03 trillion yen in 2022 – which currently converts to US$13.9 billion (please note the Japanese yen is extremely weak at the time of writing).

It is interesting that Kadokawa ASCII found the gaming market worldwide contracted by 7.0% in the same time frame to reach 26.8 trillion yen (US$183.7 billion), meaning Japan grew against the global trend.

JAPANESE GAME MARKET SIZE: CONSOLE VS MOBILE VS PC

For Japan, Kadokawa ASCII saw the console hardware segment growing 3.4% year-on-year to 209.8 billion yen (US$1.4 billion) in 2022, and the console software segment even growing 5.9% to 389.3 billion yen (US$2.7 billion).
(It is important to note that the software estimate not only includes digital downloads of games but all online sales generated on console, i.e. micro-transactions or downloadable content.)

Smartphones remain Japan's biggest gaming platform, with game apps reaching 1.2 trillion yen (US$8.5 billion) in market size in 2022 – down 4.4% on the year.

And finally, there is the Japanese PC gaming market, which has been expanding quickly in recent years.

For that segment, Kadokawa ASCII reports another significant jump year-on-year, up a whopping 43% from 131.3 billion yen (US$0.9 billion) to 189.2 billion yen (US$1.3 billion) in 2022.

Japan’s Gaming Market Slightly Grew in 2022 – Against The Global Trend – Kantan Games Inc. CEO Blog – From Tokyo, Japan

www.serkantoto.com

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

Holy shit 43% growth in the PC market in Japan, that's massive!!

 

[Unknown?]

It's good to see home consoles making a small comeback in Japan. Handheld doing well is good and all but it was sad to see everything after PS2 come nowhere near traditional sells. Even the Wii couldn't overcome portable gaming.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

By the way, for anyone surprised by the PC growth, apparently F2P games like Apex Legends and Valorant have become very popular in Japan. They even have Apex Legends merch there in some of the stores.

 

[Zheph]

mobile revenue drops

 

[Sleepwalker]

43% growth, japan discovered handheld pcs?

 

[Saber]

The true good news is mobile revenue dropping.

 

[Roxkis_ii]

Mobile revenue drops!

Will gaming break free from the gotcha curse?

 

[Woopah]

Quite possible that PC software is or will become bigger than PS software in Japan.

43% growth, japan discovered handheld pcs?

Its the rise of F2P from the West (Fortnite and Apex) plus Japanese publishers getting better at supporting PC. We've seen a big increase in Steam usage in Japan.

 

[Dane]

I've noticed that ever since Ai Channel (The first Vtuber) came up on youtube back in 16-17.

 

[Interfectum]

 

[Hudo]

Quite possible that PC software is or will become bigger than PS software in Japan.

Falcom will suddenly realize their roots as PC developer again, I bet.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Ive been trying to say PC is seeing huge growth in Japan and people were telling me im crazy and no one uses PC.

Consoles are going to slip more and more into irrelevance.

 

[Woopah]

Falcom will suddenly realize their roots as PC developer again, I bet.

Knowing Falcom it will be about 5 years too late.

 

[TheRedRiders]

Consoles are going to slip more and more into irrelevance.

It's actually going in the opposite direction.

 

[BlueLyria]

I need detailed info on that mobile drops!
Which games dropped? which retained their baseline and which grew?

 

[OverHeat]

PC is the way they all ready figure that they are the master race lol

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

PC is the way they all ready figure that they are the master race lol

Japan still loves their handhelds and smartphone gacha games so I don't know about that.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Awesome to see PC blowing up in Japan.

I wonder what the growth breakdown is between consoles?

 

[Woopah]

Ive been trying to say PC is seeing huge growth in Japan and people were telling me im crazy and no one uses PC.

Consoles are going to slip more and more into irrelevance.

Both consoles and PC are growing though...

 

[Woopah]

Awesome to see PC blowing up in Japan.

I wonder what the growth breakdown is between consoles?

Increased PS5 supply would have definitely contributed, but also the fact than an OLED Switch generates more revenue than a standard Switch.

On the software side, the vast majority of the growth would be from Switch.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

It's fucking great to see Japanese devs taking PC more seriously over the last several years.

I hope the trend continues. Used to be that Japanese PC game = several years late console port that's poorly optimized, supports only 16:9 and capped at 60 FPS. It's been getting better and better.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

I am actually if mobile will eventually hit the limit and PC will overtake it. Number of PCs in the world might eventually rival the amount of mobile phones - especially with phones becoming closer and closer to pc.

I hope the trend continues. Used to be that Japanese PC game = several years late console port that's poorly optimized, supports only 16:9 and capped at 60 FPS. It's been getting better and better.

pfff. Ports used not to support mouse at all.

 

[lestar]

Hope this means better PC ports

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I am actually if mobile will eventually hit the limit and PC will overtake it. Number of PCs in the world might eventually rival the amount of mobile phones - especially with phones becoming closer and closer to pc.


pfff. Ports used not to support mouse at all.

Also no FOV adjustment, little-to-no graphical options, weird stuff like animations/game logic tied to framerate, button prompts that don't adjust to your input device, etc.

Guess it helps that nowadays game consoles are just PCs in a box and games are all built with platform agnostic game engines that scale all the way from smartphones to high-end PCs.

 

[mckmas8808]

By the way, for anyone surprised by the PC growth, apparently F2P games like Apex Legends and Valorant have become very popular in Japan. They even have Apex Legends merch there in some of the stores.

Thanks for that info.

 

[rofif]

Who in their right mind would switch from console gaming to pc nowadays?! Pcs are so expensive and have ass problems sometimes.
Even if money is no issue, there are still legit reasons to use a console

(yeah I know I know)

 

[DemonGamerTTT]

mobile revenue drops

Amen brother!

 

[DemonGamerTTT]

Who in their right mind would switch from console gaming to pc nowadays?! Pcs are so expensive and have ass problems sometimes.
Even if money is no issue, there are still legit reasons to use a console

(yeah I know I know)

Bait?

 

[Kataploom]

Who in their right mind would switch from console gaming to pc nowadays?! Pcs are so expensive and have ass problems sometimes.
Even if money is no issue, there are still legit reasons to use a console

(yeah I know I know)

Those are only problem of day 1 AAA games though... the popular eSports and most AA and indie games (in which Japan had always had strong PC market) don't have those weird issues

 

[DemonGamerTTT]

Those are only problem of day 1 AAA games though... the popular eSports and most AA and indie games (in which Japan had always had strong PC market) don't have those weird issues

This has been debated to death on the last 13 years.

Pc it's not expensive than console unless you go enthusiast tier.

Games are cheper and you can play them forever. Also no subscription bullshit or mid gen upgrades.