Japan is an amusement oriented market.Serious question, is console gaming viewed as strictly a kids hobby over there? Like is that why all these cartoony ass low budget games sell well over there?
While there sport simulations and cinematic games can sell well those kind of games aren't the pillar of the mass market (those games sell less than 1 million units to give you a reference) as instead happens in US and Europe (where Madden/Fifa, CoD, GTA/RDR are among the best sellers each year alongside the Nintendo big hits).
Japanese mass market is more attracted by gameplay oriented experiences especially the ones that can generate good word of mouth and possess good social qualities.
The peculiarity on how the events in the console space evolved in Japan compared to US and Europe is that Nintendo sells a lot of games on both of these markets however if in US/Europe markets other western third-party publishers sell a lot of software too (EA, Activision Blizzard, Take 2), in Japan only a couple of third-party game franchises can nowadays be certain to sell well over 1 million units (basically Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest) with a few unexpected hits on the side (the foreign owned Minecraft for instance).
In Japan the situation is currently so lopsided in favor of one publisher that Nintendo is as strong or stronger than all the other japanese publishers combined (I mean in term of software sold in the domestic market).
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