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Games Entertainment

Concern Over Dropping Japanese Console Sales 39

Posted by simoniker from the more-games-more-competition dept.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Yahoo/Reuters Japan article discussing worrying issues for Japanese console and software makers. The article states that "..sales of family game machines in fiscal 2002 were 8.76 million units, down about 20% from fiscal 2001, when sales jumped 30% ahead of the year before." It also notes that "per-title sales [for Playstation 2 software in 2002] dropped 25% to around 63,000", even as the total volume increased to almost 30 million units. The article postulated this is because "..the market is turning from one of growth, to one.. where manufacturers compete with each other to get a bigger share." Possible solutions suggested include "producing items that can link to audiovisual equipment, or.. cultivating markets overseas."
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Concern Over Dropping Japanese Console Sales More

Concern Over Dropping Japanese Console Sales

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  • Piracy (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:35AM (#6179706) Homepage Journal
    The problem is obviously piracy. The games market was doing fine, but now there's this Interweb thing that people use to steal stuff. Ban fibre-optics!
    • >>> The problem is obviously piracy

      I know it was a joke, but still.....

      Software privacy should actually stimulate hardware sales.

      Not saying it's the solution to bearish console hardware sales, but, well, it's an option. :)

  • If they only would.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Hougaard ( 163563 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:36AM (#6179713) Homepage Journal
    Release some of all the cool stuff in Europe and USA - Why is it, that we get stuff ½ - 1½ year after its released in Japan ??
    • " Release some of all the cool stuff in (...) USA - Why is it, that we get stuff ½ - 1½ year after its released in Japan ??"

      You mean like Metroid Prime? Oh, wait...
      • Try Final Fantasy XI .... :-)
        • Final Fantasy has a huge amount of dialog to be translated. Why not release it in Japan when its ready? It doesn't make sense to have the Japanese version sit and collect dust while waiting for the English translation.

          Also, by getting the English version later, you usually end up with fixes to bugs in the Japanese release. Or tweaks to fix things people complained about (i.e. in Zelda: Wind Waker, a section of the game towards the end was made much less tedious for the US release, because Japanese gamers c

  • duh (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cyrax777 ( 633996 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:36AM (#6179714) Homepage
    japans economy is in in the toilet no wonder the sales of consoles is down. That and there market has been pretty much flooded with the dang things.

  • What do they expect? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @04:04AM (#6179823) Journal
    There is a finite amount of consumer cash out there, and the PS2 is nearing the end of its life cycle. It should not surprise anyone that a high rate of PS2 game sales growth isn't being sustained.

    Consoles continue to sell units up until the end of their product cycles, but the large majority of existing installed base is not buying games at the same rate that they were in the past. For the current PS2 owner, the number of worthwhile NEW titles is waning.

    • Did you read the article? It says exactly the opposite of what you said. Console sales are slowing, and software sales are up.
      • Did you read the article? It says exactly the opposite of what you said. Console sales are slowing, and software sales are up.

        Yes, I did. Apparently you didn't. PER TITLE sales are way down. Overall software sales are up sheerly on the basis of a larger installed base, but the average sales per game has dropped.

        You get a cookie if you can understand how that works.

        • PER TITLE sales are way down. Overall software sales are up sheerly on the basis of a larger installed base, but the average sales per game has dropped.

          Did you go to business school or something? Overall sales are up. That means when you say this:

          but the large majority of existing installed base is not buying games at the same rate that they were in the past.

          ...you're contradicting yourself. They're buying MORE games. There are more games out there too, so the reason per-game sales are down is that th

          • I have not read the full article, so i don't know if this math is true, but it's not hard to understand.

            Let's take a simplified version:

            Year 1:
            10 people own Console X
            All of those people buy 2 games each
            20 games are sold

            Year 3:
            100 people own Console X
            All of those people buy 1 game each
            100 games are sold

            So five times as many games are being sold, but individualy consumers are buying half as many games.

            Another example, based off the first:

            Year 1:
            10 people own Console X
            2 games are developed
            Each

    • >> There is a finite amount of consumer cash out there, and the PS2 is nearing the end of its life cycle.

      Dude, it's not even 3-yrs old!!!

      A typical console's lifecycle is about 5 years.

      But then, I won't be the first to suggest that the length of console lifcycle is generally decreasing.

      >>> For the current PS2 owner, the number of worthwhile NEW titles is waning.

      Maybe you should read some reports from E3 this year. There are plenty of great titles in the works.

      I think you're speaking of
  • First, I'd like to say that the Atari 2600 is by far the best console every released.

    Other than that, I think a monopoly in the console market could be beneficial. Or at least standards on how to execute software. With this, no matter what console you buy, you'd be able to play the same games. Why? Because then you don't buy an X-Box (@@%#@#) and then find out that they're going to make loserific games for it.

    We have standards for everything else, why not this? The difference would be where the consoles e
    • The reason consoles are good is because the hardware is always going to be 100% identical. The games are only as good as they are because developers are able to optimize the code for the exact system its running on. If you've ever played a console game ported to another console, you'll notice its crap. The GameCube and Xbox both blow away the PS2 power wise. Yet a PS2 game straight ported to one of the other consoles will run terribly. Unfortunately, many companies do that and wonder why the game doesn't se
  • does this mean we'll be left with only the good games designers?
  • the gaming world took a great leap in size after sony released its PlayStation , which attracted , what we now name , light users , well , a hell number of them. Yes , they are the potential cosumers , but they are more readily to lose , or change , their interests in game than heavy users do.
    And so what ? One time , they contribute to a great part of the cake and then another time , they leave without a sign.

  • Burden of Proof (Score:3, Insightful)

    by robbway ( 200983 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @06:54AM (#6180403) Journal
    The article fails the burden of proof to its thesis. In order to show decline, you must show a simultaneous drop in: console sales, console titles. With the dropping price of PCs, you must also include PC's as a console and count game software as console titles.

    If you can show a consistent drop in all those areas, then yes, the thesis is upheld. Even better, if you multiply console sales drops by their previous market share, you can take a weighted average and pretty closely estimate that drop.

    The article fails to do this. I'm not saying the article is wrong, but what happened to responsible journalism? Oh, yeah. FOX! [fox.com]

  • Do the math (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DrWho520 ( 655973 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @07:40AM (#6180658) Journal
    Let x = sales in 2000
    if sales went up 30% in 2001, then...
    x + 0.3x = 1.3x = sales in 2001
    and if sales went down 20% this year, then...
    1.3x - 0.2*(1.3x) = 1.04x = sales in 2002

    therefore, that means sales over all went up, since 1.04x > x, 4% since 2000. Or I could be crazy.

  • If they drop any farther, they'll become zero-state!
  • Listen here everyone brought one already until PS3 comes out there is nothing wrong with the market it just that so many people already owe either PS2 until they produce the new PS3 or make better games to go for the PS2. The market in Japan will be down. thanks for hearing me

  • Huh? (Score:2)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) *
    How many major game consoles were released in 2001? Two. How many in 2002? NONE! Perhaps sales were up in 2001 because everybody rushed out the get the latest and greatest and now that they've all got it there's nothing new out there to buy.

    Similar reasoning for games. There are less titles out for new consoles, so when a console is new, per-title sales are high. That's why developers like to have their games be release titles along with a new console. As the number of games in the market goes up it only m
  • or.. cultivating markets overseas.

    One thing I still have never really understood about the video game industry is why Japan is number one. Isn't the North American market MUCH larger? Wouldn't it make much more sense to cultivate this market, since there would be much more money to be made? Meanwhile developers seem content to not bother bringing some games over for what seem like arbitrary reasons (Where my Bonk on Gamecube?). I know these companies probably consider Japan very important since that's whe

    • You're missing something. Video games have much greater exposure in Japan, and the market isn't nearly as narrow as it is in the US, where only a very specific portion of the population plays games. RPG's such as Final Fantasy, for instance, do greater volume in Japan than in America or Europe, regardless of the fact that the country's population is so much lower.

      Besides, do you want the titles that they don't market outside of Japan? You know, the 17,000 mahjongg titles and dating simulations? No than

    • We only see a small portion of games in the US and Europe - maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the stuff that comes out in Japan.

      There are entire *genres* that have never been released outside Japan, not to mention innumerable tie-in games for franchises that have never really caught on outside the US (mainly anime/manga titled games...)

      This isn't necessarily a bad thing... Do you really think the JAL (Japan's train system) simulator would sell well outside of Japan? Yes the whole game simulates you driving a train be

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