Thu, Nov 13, 2008 | 16:16 GMT
Japanese market drops by more than 20% simce 2007
Famitsu figures quoted by MCV show that the Japanese games market has fallen by 21.6 percent in October compared to the same month in 2007.
Hardware sales dropped by 29.1 percent, and software by 14.9 percent.
PSP was the strongest performer, thanks to the release of the redesigned PSP 3000 on October 16, selling 267,000 units throughout October.
DS Lite, meanwhile, saw hardware sales fall in anticipation of the upcoming DSi.
More through there.
1 comment
#1
Esha
13/11/08, 5:53 pm
Told you.
I’ve been following the state of the Japanese games market for a while, and it continues to consume itself. This isn’t a recent thing, after all. The decline began after we saw the 16-bit systems hit their periglee, and then dive from there. The Western market began to challenge the Eastern market when we moved into the 32-bit era, and since then the Asian games market has been battered into little more than a shadow of its former self.
This is why I’m absolutely amazed whenever anyone talks about successes or failures in Japan, because unless Japan pulls their collective head out of their rear and start translating and exporting again with due haste, they’re going to disappear off the map as far as the games market is concerned soon enough. These days, Japan simply doesn’t matter.
And I’ve been saying that for a while now, and I likely will until I’m blue in the face. These days it’s almost like bragging or whining about how well a game did in Antarctica. Almost. It hasn’t gotten that bad yet, but give it a few years…