(Valve), Japan has probably the biggest growth rate for PC gaming right now, Steam Deck preorder exceed expectation in Jpn

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ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
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「日本のSteam市場の成長率は世界トップレベル」Valveに訊くSteamとSteam Deck、そして日本 - AUTOMATON

いよいよ日本上陸迫るSteam Deck。東京ゲームショウ2022にあわせて来日していたValveスタッフ2名と日本販売代理店KOMODOの社長に、SteamとSteam Deckについて話を訊いた。
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Got some personal observations:
  • It is a physical-game dominance country, while PC is mostly a digital-only market. Perhaps the Japanese is starting to embrace digital more
  • People often claim Xbox is not a Japanese product hence it is not doing well there, but that theory doesn't work for Steam Deck. Probably because Komodo is the authorized reseller there. One of Komodo's co-founders previously works for Valve hence the tight relationship
  • Sony's negligence of the Japanese market has left a gap that Steam Deck is trying to fill right now. With PS5 supply constraint continue to be a lock in the coming months in combination with price hike, not surprising to see them switching to PC to play upcoming and recent next gen games (such as Like a Dragon: Ishin) in the foreseeable future

Steam Deck reservation in Japan exceeds expectation
Mr. Uy:
I can't tell you the specific numbers, but it's going well so far. It's better than originally expected.
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This is in line with the various hints (including the Japanese asking SE to release FF16 on PC after PS5 price hike) that PC gaming is seeing fast pace growth in Japan in recent times.
Mr. Peterson:
There is no doubt that home game consoles are dominant in Japan, but the size of the PC game market is probably bigger than you think. It is in the top 10 in the world in terms of market size, and in terms of growth rate, it is even the best potential in the world. That's how fast the Japanese PC gaming scene is growing now. This is the first reason.
The second reason is that Japan is the hometown of portable game consoles. Portable gaming was born in Japan and has been a concept that has flown to the world. It is a natural idea for us to deliver the Steam Deck, which is the forerunner of portable PC gaming devices, to everyone in Japan, which is the origin of portable gaming.
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I guess the next Steam Deck will be many years away (personally guessing it'll launch when PS6 is out if we are lucky), the team is focusing on improving the Steam OS right now.
Mr. Yang:
I'll still be on the Steam Deck for a while. There are a lot of challenges, especially on the software side and SteamOS, so we will need to improve them. There are also minor improvements on the hardware side as well. I'm thinking little by little about the next project of Steam Deck, but it will be a long way off.
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Can't imagine the high end PC gaming scene in Japan is very big to begin with. 10th biggest in the world is not a very big market.

Biggest growth could mean selling 1500 a month instead of 200.
 
There are quite a few places in Tokyo to buy high end gaming PCs.

I have been to Akihabara many times, but I have yet to see a Steam deck.

All the kids here are playing Apex and Minecraft.
 
NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt said:
Happy about this.
PC is a fantastic gaming platform and I'm happy more and more people are starting to game on their PCs more
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As long as Steam keeps making new versions of steam deck it creates a situation where everyone can be pleased. I can guarantee you that some of these steam deck buyers are console players who have had zero interest in the regular way of PC gaming and it's costs.
 
That's nice to hear. If pc ging can break out of windows, that opens up all kinds of opportunities for vendors to make devices with different demographics in mind.
 
I'm interested but personally I want something with a bit more juice, ie something that could, say, run games at 1080p medium at a solid 60fps. Based on the videos I've seen so far it doesn't seem quite up to that task (but still impressive for what it is).
 
Scotty W said:
There are quite a few places in Tokyo to buy high end gaming PCs.

I have been to Akihabara many times, but I have yet to see a Steam deck.

All the kids here are playing Apex and Minecraft.
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Fuck man. One of my dreams is to visit Japan and check out the tuning scene. You lucky fish you
 
March Climber said:
As long as Steam keeps making new versions of steam deck it creates a situation where everyone can be pleased. I can guarantee you that some of these steam deck buyers are console players who have had zero interest in the regular way of PC gaming and it's costs.
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True

I'm waiting for Steamdeck 2
 
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supernova8 said:
I'm interested but personally I want something with a bit more juice, ie something that could, say, run games at 1080p medium at a solid 60fps. Based on the videos I've seen so far it doesn't seem quite up to that task (but still impressive for what it is).
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You do realize you would a be spending over 1k for that, and battery life would be weak.

1280 x 800 I s perfectly fine for portable screen.
 
Shadowstar39 said:
You do realize you would a be spending over 1k for that, and battery life would be weak.

1280 x 800 I s perfectly fine for portable screen.
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Over 1k today sure. That's why I'm not getting one now. We'd probably be spending over 1k for the current Steam Deck if it came out like 3 or 4 years ago.
It's all relative eh
Einstein Relativity GIF by MOODMAN
 
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March Climber said:
As long as Steam keeps making new versions of steam deck it creates a situation where everyone can be pleased. I can guarantee you that some of these steam deck buyers are console players who have had zero interest in the regular way of PC gaming and it's costs.
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I did notice Steam has grown in popularity during the 2010 - 2022

I think it's easier to get a gaming PC/laptop

Pre-built can be good too and it doesn't have to be expensive, it can be low range to mid range
 
Japanese people really were vying to build their own PCs, especially after Sonys PS5 increase. They just want something to play FF16 on, but then Nvidia announced their own price increase.
 
PC is definitely increasing. My bro and his friends all recently went with PC builds...that doesn't mean shit really but hey, team up your steam library with a steamdeck then buy that bad boy series s for the front room....game pass.

Japan going all in. Lol ...I'm kidding, but there is some ground being made I guess.
 
If Valve keeps supporting, evolving (SW and store wise), and stocking Steam Deck well they are setting themselves up for a massive success with Steam Deck 2.

Nintendo better acknowledge this or they risk Switch 2 to be relatively underwhelming as an update: one of the many issues with Wii U is that they milked the Wii generation and its success for too long.
 
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fermcr said:
Not surprising, Japan love handheld and Steamdeck is a much better hardware device then the Switch.
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Only if you exclude its size and battery life. And local multiplayer if that's your thing.

I'm not saying that the Steam Deck isn't doing well in Japan, but it's still a very niche/otaku thing. It hasn't entered the general public discourse at all, whereas the Switch is everywhere.
 
Did Japan realize the Steam Deck can run Switch games?

This is like GBA and PSP coexisting, in a sense.
 
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lostinblue said:
Did Japan realize the Steam Deck can run Switch games?

This is like GBA and PSP coexisting, in a sense.
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Some will, but even if they do, many Japanese people won't think of doing so. Of course some will (and do), and it'll be more likely among the young, but there's a lot of 'respect' for how entities who create things want them to be used.
 
A tricky situation for Sony, a next gen PSP won't work because people demand a uniform platform and at the same time they commited themselves with the PS5 to a high-performance platform. Sony is missing out on good money.
 
nocsi said:
Japanese people really were vying to build their own PCs, especially after Sonys PS5 increase. They just want something to play FF16 on, but then Nvidia announced their own price increase.
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Better spend 50$ more on ps5 or 1200euro on new gpu? hmmmmm.
ps5 + deck seems like a pretty nice combo
 
Careful now Japan If the growth rate triples valve will bail out.
Maybe someone bullied Gabe with this song?

 
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Don't know why you guys are all talking about the Steam Deck as though it is responsible for the growth of PC gaming in Japan.
The Steam Deck hasn't released in Japan yet.
The current growth in Japan for PC gaming has nothing to do with the Steam Deck.

I've been saying for a while now that PC gaming in Japan seems to be growing significantly (from my personal experiences) which I think is great because it means more Japanese games coming to PC, which has traditionally been sorely lacking.
 
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Sakura said:
Don't know why you guys are all talking about the Steam Deck as though it is responsible for the growth of PC gaming in Japan.
The Steam Deck hasn't released in Japan yet.
The current growth in Japan for PC gaming has nothing to do with the Steam Deck.

I've been saying for a while now that PC gaming in Japan seems to be growing significantly (from my personal experiences) which I think it is great because it means more Japanese games coming to PC, which has traditionally been sorely lacking.
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Yeah, the growth is before the release of the SD.

Separately I wouldn't worry too much about Nintendo, think their IP's will protect them.
 
Steam allows hentia games, and then sells a bunch of mobile pcs to Japan. What could go awkward.
 
twilo99 said:
How is the steam deck any measure of "pc gaming" ?
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Because they are not using Steam Deck to gauge the growth rate of PC gaming. They use Steam.

Honest question, what's with people asking such basic and weird question?
 
twilo99 said:
How is the steam deck any measure of "pc gaming" ?
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Because it is a PC in portable form running Linux and number of libraries (Proton) do run Windows-based executables? The way you can tweak your gaming experience is what PC gamers have been doing for 30 years, way before consoles had Quality/Performance mode.
 
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Steam Deck is as ease of use as console if you don't wish to bother with all the extra feature that console doesn't have, you could totally treat it as console if you wish

I could totally see the appeal to Japanese gamers
 
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