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[EverydayBeast]

Consoles are regularly purchased no matter what generation, no matter what country.

 

[Deerock71]

As for their gaming devices of choice, the top five answers reveal a significant preference for handhelds and the PC. Devices/consoles rank in as follows:

• Mobile 94.7%
• Nintendo Switch 38.5%
• PC 33.2%
• Tablet (26.5%)
• DS (12.2%)

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Xbox is unpopular with every generation in Japan.

True, but 360 had a good shot for a few years.

Bigger issue IMO is, PlayStation is heading down a very similar path of irrelevancy in Japan, if they don't start taking the market more seriously. Which includes more kid-friendly (more non-mature Hollywood style blockbuster cinematic) games, and a genuine portable/handheld effort.

And also, adjusting their multiplatform strategy to synergize that with mobile, and less of what they've been doing so far prioritizing PC (at the potential long-term expense of their own console).

Ahead of the curve.


I think mobile dwarfs every platform in terms of revenue (and presumably profits).

Oh yeah, by far. Mobile dominates in revenue; profits would depend on specific platforms and publishers, but I'm sure at least a few of them have Nintendo-tier profit margins (or maybe even better in some specific cases).

you simply can't compete with accessibility. Billions of phones versus millions of consoles. Consoles need to become a lot more powerful and start pushing graphics and tech where its the only place you can play certain games. Again with wont make it more popular it will simply drive more interest and demand. Tech moves too fast and consoles need to follow suit.

What? Bro, consoles can never outright win the "power battle" because there will always be PC GPUs & CPUs that run circles around what a console can have in a small box of embedded design. Also notice that as these consoles get more and more powerful, games are taking longer and longer to make in order to even leverage the power (not to mention, getting more expensive).

So unless you want a future where AAA devs take 10 years to make a single $1 billion game that might flop and then the entire publisher goes bankrupt, chasing power isn't going to help consoles, just like how it didn't help arcades in the late '90s. Consoles have to focus on immersion as their big draw; that includes both doing things that are impractical for the vast majority of PCs or mobile phones, and also bringing some of the multimedia functionality from those platforms to the console experience.

We can technically already get photorealistic visuals on a PS5 and Series X; the cost and time to do so is just prohibitively expensive.

 

[AJUMP23]

Having mobile as a preferred platform is terrible. But I guess I am a Dinosaur.

 

[ShirAhava]

Never thought it would happen but I'm finally getting into mobile gaming

Getting paid actual money to play these games is 70% of the appeal tho

If mobile didn't exist Japan still wouldn't enjoy these new xbox/ps consoles they are very very western
I have a few gamer friends in Japan its like they never came out lol

 

[squidilix]

PC and Nintendo is all you need.

Why need Nintendo when PC MasterCringe get mad when Nintendo nuke Yuzu

 

[Celine]

 

[Radical_3d]

The answers do not add up to 100% as

 

[StereoVsn]

Participated in a game dev class recently, and at one point the teacher asked his students (all gen z) what was their main platform and what they played more frequently.

The overwhelming majority had PC as their main platform (with mobile secondary), and the more frequent choice of games were older and indie ones, mainly single player.

There could be some bias given the enviroment, but it did stood out to me.

Thing is PCs can be used for lots of different purposes and not just gaming. But even PCs with integrated graphics with newer AMD and Intel chipsets can play games.

So it is understandable, plus Japan’s economic situation isn’t amazing for a lot of regular folks, especially those not working for large Corpos.

So playing games on PCs, even if it’s older games or through emulation, it’s a lot cheaper. As long as they don’t modify their Pokémon saves!

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

A 2023 survey on the gaming habits of Japanese youths has recently garnered attention on social media, as it indicates that a majority of Gen Z do not own or use a PS5 or Xbox.

The report, published by SHIBUYA109 Entertainment, compiles data obtained through web surveys and interviews conducted with about 700 Gen Z individuals aged 15 to 24 years old. According to the data, 80% of Gen Z individuals in Japan play video games, 44.9% of whom play every day and spend an average of 100 minutes a day gaming.

As for their gaming devices of choice, the top five answers reveal a significant preference for handhelds and the PC. Devices/consoles rank in as follows:

• Mobile 94.7%
• Nintendo Switch 38.5%
• PC 33.2%
• Tablet (26.5%)
• DS (12.2%)

(The answers do not add up to 100% as the question allowed multiple choices).

Based on this, it would seem that the Xbox and PS5 are less represented among young Japanese gamers than the discontinued DS. Even among those who identified as “hardcore gamers” (as opposed to social and casual gamers), the top three gaming devices remained smartphones, the Nintendo Switch and PC.

Users on social media have pointed out that a big contributor to these statistics may be how financially challenging it is to buy a PS5 and full-priced games for an adolescent. Indeed, the very same survey cited above also states that Gen Z gamers spend an average of 10,446 yen on games yearly, which is under 70 dollars – the amount a single full-price console game can cost. According to Gen Z commenters, free-to-play games, FPS titles and affordable small-scale games popularized by streamers enjoy far more popularity than AAA titles.

Source - Automaton West

Yeap this is the case everywhere. When we were kids the mass market way to play games was consoles, for these kids it's phones. Even getting something like a laptop is more of a mass market product for these kids than buying a box that sits on your TV and ONLY plays games. At least people still like buying laptops to do work, study etc. Consoles have no use but playing games and the most popular games are all on phones (Minecraft, Roblox) anyway.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

It's time for Sony to make PS5 versions of their PC software. Time for some ports the other way around.

 

[Synless]

Don't blame mobile games when next gen game plays like last gen game.

So they downgrade further to games that look worse, play worse, and are designed to drain them of every dollar? Makes sense. I will continue to blame them for their stupidity.

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

If this was strictly about price, Switch wouldn’t be there either.

Smartphones are device of their choice, plain and simple.

Why does PC get a pass will always be a mystery to me?? Their favourite streamers use it, sure. But they also use PS/Xbox.

Most streamers are PC gamers by far. Most streamed games are played on PC, streaming console games is wonky and limiting compared to PC. A PC for a streamer provides the best experience for viewers because it's not limited to being cheap and un-upgradable. A PC can single handedly handle your live stream, the rendering of the game and the encoding of said live stream all in real time. It can also handle video editing later. A PC can also render at the highest fidelity (native 4k and higher) should you have the HW, making the stream look better to viewers post compression.


And finally and this is a big one, a PC acts as a premium device streamers use to legitimize their stream set up. It's basically like using an expensive car to go to work, streamers advertise their specs on their stream and brag about any PC with an Nvidia xx70/Intel i7/AMD Ryzen 7 or higher. Viewers who can't afford to play at such fidelity tune into the stream to see what games look like at their best. A console provides none of this, the advantage of consoles is exclusive games and those steadily died out post PS2 era.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Gen Z filled with soy boys

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

Generation z is stupid in general. Makes sense they're into mobile garbage.

Millennials are even stupider imo. Gen Z didn't ruin games, millennial devs did. Many millennials fathered Gen Z kids and taught them their views as well.

 

[Impotaku]

Lool the meme has evolved.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Why need Nintendo when PC MasterCringe get mad when Nintendo nuke Yuzu

Because Nintendo cries about everything.

 

[dreamcastluvr]

It's a shame 'cause there's actually some pretty fun mobile games out there; problem is that I'm a comfy couch kind of guy and am not interested in playing games on a tiny screen.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Don't blame mobile games when next gen game plays like last gen game.

Last Gen games are still more entertaining than mobile trash.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Let's remember that globally mobile gaming revenue is over console and PC combined. Which basically means everyone without a console plays with a phone and a good chunk of those with a console also play with the phone.

 

[playtillyadrop]

True, but 360 had a good shot for a few years.

Bigger issue IMO is, PlayStation is heading down a very similar path of irrelevancy in Japan, if they don't start taking the market more seriously. Which includes more kid-friendly (more non-mature Hollywood style blockbuster cinematic) games, and a genuine portable/handheld effort.

And also, adjusting their multiplatform strategy to synergize that with mobile, and less of what they've been doing so far prioritizing PC (at the potential long-term expense of their own console).



Oh yeah, by far. Mobile dominates in revenue; profits would depend on specific platforms and publishers, but I'm sure at least a few of them have Nintendo-tier profit margins (or maybe even better in some specific cases).



What? Bro, consoles can never outright win the "power battle" because there will always be PC GPUs & CPUs that run circles around what a console can have in a small box of embedded design. Also notice that as these consoles get more and more powerful, games are taking longer and longer to make in order to even leverage the power (not to mention, getting more expensive).

So unless you want a future where AAA devs take 10 years to make a single $1 billion game that might flop and then the entire publisher goes bankrupt, chasing power isn't going to help consoles, just like how it didn't help arcades in the late '90s. Consoles have to focus on immersion as their big draw; that includes both doing things that are impractical for the vast majority of PCs or mobile phones, and also bringing some of the multimedia functionality from those platforms to the console experience.

We can technically already get photorealistic visuals on a PS5 and Series X; the cost and time to do so is just prohibitively expensive.

Consoles are more accessible than PCs to the mainstream. When i say more powerful not just graphics but AI, physics, and etc. Your point about immersion is also spot on and tech only helps with immersion. The game industry put themselves in this position by spending big money and increasing budgets year over year. They need to get more streamlined. The original Crysis on PC for example was made by a smaller team and with a lower cost. But because most people never had seen graphics like that it got a lot people in the PC space and also enthusiasts trying to push their systems harder, and chasing more power to get better results.

I also don't think we will ever see this again. Companies are chasing users and the most users are on mobile and it has a lower cost of development. The game industry has changed and it wont ever be the same again.

 

[M1chl]

terminal virgins

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

Surprised PC is so high in Japan. They've always been a console and mobile/handheld market.

Streamers, Vtubers the PUBG explosion and then Apex all contributed heavily to the rise of PC in Japan in the last 5 years. Streamers/Vtubers playing on PC like streamers outside Japan do was a huge contributor.

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

The younger generation that’s playing all of these ftp/gaas games are going to ruin things for older players that enjoy traditional style games.

Indies will be fine, but I think traditional AAA will be an endangered species.

That already happened. The younger generations that grew up with Korean F2P MMOs ruined the 360/PS3 gen by accepting all the MTX BS of those games but now on buy 2 play console games. The people that grew up on Nintendo/Atari/Sega in the era where you bought your game and got 100% of all content included had the industry ruined for them by the above. Now everyone just accepts F2P MTX bullshit in paid games.

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

Consoles are regularly purchased no matter what generation, no matter what country.

Consoles have receded. They peaked in the 360 era in terms of consumers interested in buying them and have since stagnated at attracting more consumers meanwhile phone gaming continues to grow in userbases because gen Alpha loves gaming on phones more than anywhere else. Back in the day if you wanted to game the only mass market way of doing that was buying a console so people bought consoles in droves. These days the mass market way is just buying a phone, there is literally no need for the average consumer to buy a console when the biggest games (Minecraft, Roblox etc) are on phone.

The PS5 is selling as well as the PS4 did but the Xbox is selling worst than X1. This is terrible because normally that market share would go to playstation like it did last gen but instead PS5 isn't selling any better. Consoles have lost a lot of appeal since the launch of the 360 in 2005.

 

[Pop]

Phone babies that like to play waifu inspired auto play garbage

 

[MikeM]

Where is the Steam Deck? You’d think a PC crowd like that would want the mobile platform too.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Most streamers are PC gamers by far. Most streamed games are played on PC, streaming console games is wonky and limiting compared to PC. A PC for a streamer provides the best experience for viewers because it's not limited to being cheap and un-upgradable. A PC can single handedly handle your live stream, the rendering of the game and the encoding of said live stream all in real time. It can also handle video editing later. A PC can also render at the highest fidelity (native 4k and higher) should you have the HW, making the stream look better to viewers post compression.


And finally and this is a big one, a PC acts as a premium device streamers use to legitimize their stream set up. It's basically like using an expensive car to go to work, streamers advertise their specs on their stream and brag about any PC with an Nvidia xx70/Intel i7/AMD Ryzen 7 or higher. Viewers who can't afford to play at such fidelity tune into the stream to see what games look like at their best. A console provides none of this, the advantage of consoles is exclusive games and those steadily died out post PS2 era.

Eh, can't really argue with a lot of that. Streamers definitely prefer PC for their games; even with Helldivers 2 for example I've seen very few actually playing it on a PS5 on-stream.

The things you are mentioning, is stuff where I'm thinking Sony could actually add more QOL and features to PS5 (and future consoles) to make the platform more robust, but keep additions mainly gaming-centric. They literally have professional video editing & audio software on PC, they could make versions of those for the console. Dreams would've been a great gateway into such an initiative if they didn't hamper the game's longevity and got a real storefront going.

A future where they could treat PlayStation consoles more like an Amiga or Sharp 68K, like a controlled microcomputer platform focused on games (but with gaming-adjacent productivity applications) would be nice, especially considering, again, Sony make some of that type of software already for PC. Sure they would not be able to outdo a top-of-the-line PC built for gaming + video production + graphic illustration, but they definitely have room to improve in that space with a $500 console box.

Some of that could also be helpful in adding options to make PS+ a more attractive service and phase out paid online, which is starting to fall out-of-fashion anyway (and will be a continued issue for SIE GAAS titles on console & PC where the latter doesn't have to pay for online, unless they start tying in MTX/add-on cosmetics perks for console buyers with a PS+ sub).

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

Welll, not very surprised from Zombies walking and watching mobiles all day.

 

[Tams]

Where is the Steam Deck? You’d think a PC crowd like that would want the mobile platform too.

It would come under PC.

But it arrived in Japan late, and is only available through a third-party. It's also not very good as a general PC that someone mught also use for work/school, or for streaming.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

I can't blame them, this generation has been largely a bust in terms of gaming output.
Covid certainly didn't help but I'm sure there's more to it.

 

[Hudo]

That generation doesn't even know what RTS stands for. They can all glue themselves to their phone and jump off a cliff while streaming it.

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

Time for a new PSP Sony...

 

[Wildebeest]

They should Pokemon go to the couch to game like a 40-year-old balding American Millennial.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Don't blame mobile games when next gen game plays like last gen game.

What does that even mean?

 

[Goalus]

Xbox is unpopular with every generation in Japan.

Playstation will be too, soon.

 

[UltimaKilo]

Playstation will be too, soon.

I can hear the fanboy console warriors crying from the other side of my monitor.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Playstation will be too, soon.

This coming from a major Xbox Warrior? Please.

 

[Woopah]

Woopah

Looks like people in Gen Z can only really afford one big console game per year, they prioritise the one that offers them the most value (outside of those who only play f2p).

In Japan as whole we continue to see stronger sales for the game with the most appeal, rather than the lowest price, so I wonder if that is true for Gen Z as well.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Looks like people in Gen Z can only really afford one big console game per year, they prioritise the one that offers them the most value (outside of those who only play f2p).

In Japan as whole we continue to see stronger sales for the game with the most appeal, rather than the lowest price, so I wonder if that is true for Gen Z as well.

Sony is going to have to offer significant discounting on PlayStation hardware and offer my choices of play i.e. handheld in order to increase sales in Japan.

But as I mentioned before if the Switch 2 is relatively expensive, it may struggle as well.

 

[Woopah]

Sony is going to have to offer significant discounting on PlayStation hardware and offer my choices of play i.e. handheld in order to increase sales in Japan.

But as I mentioned before if the Switch 2 is relatively expensive, it may struggle as well.

I see Switch 2 being more expensive than the OLED, but less costly than the PS5.

As long as Nintendo gets the software right, Switch 2 will do good at a higher price.

As difficult as dropping the PS5 price is for Sony, increasing the appeal of the software ecosystem is even more difficult. And it could become harder if the Switch 2 improves Nintendo's third party support.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Pretty clear that traditional gaming consoles are on the way out.

 

[digital_ghost]

I see Switch 2 being more expensive than the OLED, but less costly than the PS5.

As long as Nintendo gets the software right, Switch 2 will do good at a higher price.

As difficult as dropping the PS5 price is for Sony, increasing the appeal of the software ecosystem is even more difficult. And it could become harder if the Switch 2 improves Nintendo's third party support.

Now thats out of my system.

Carry on with your regularly scheduled NeoGaf programming.

 

[Woopah]

Now thats out of my system.

Carry on with your regularly scheduled NeoGaf programming.

This was the inspiration.

 

[digital_ghost]

This was the inspiration.

This was my inspiration

 

[Woopah]

This was my inspiration

Not your inspiration to get pregnant I hope.

 

[lachesis]

Consoles are parents thing for them, unfortunately. Times have evolved.
It is good to see PC gaming is going much better than I thought. I've been feeling that I can get most Japanese games that I care about with PC and Switch combo these days... and seriously thinking of going that route next gen on - as I don't much care for western games, and even Sony's 1st party games seem to get released on PC eventually.

Only thing is.. I love getting a next gen console hardware - as it excites me. Same goes for my love for physical media too...

Do better, Sony and MS.

 

[hussar16]

Y play this gen when most popular games are on phone

 

[Goalus]

This coming from a major Xbox Warrior? Please.

It's not what a major Sony warrior likes to hear, no doubt about that.

 

[BennyBlanco]

It’s no coincidence that every console warrior on twitter and YouTube looks like this