Another Day in Game Paradise?

8 April (Wednesday)
Think video games, and many people would conjure up the image of Japan. But the state of the game industry here is not what it used to be. The Japanese games industry has been on a decline for quite a while.

Around 1997, the Japanese game market began to weaken even though the PS1 was doing well abroad. The various reasons for this included the decrease in population of children aged 10-20, the major segment of the game-playing populace. The advent of the internet and cellphones also drew people's time away from console games, and so did an increase in the number of cable TV channels.

The mid-2000s saw a resurgence of handheld games, particularly the Nintendo DS which attracted new casual gamers such as women and the elderly. The PSP, with its ability to play music, video and games on the go, also came onto the scene around this time.

The current generation of game consoles all arrived by late 2006 - the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Sony PlayStation 3. Despite having the weakest hardware performance of the three, Nintendo has the largest world market share with its emphasis on unique gameplay and game interface. The 360, with it's Xbox Live, is successful in the US, but pitiful in Japan. The PS3 holds about a quarter of the world market share of console games. Many bought it for its Blu-ray disc playing function.

The fact is advanced system specs and awesome hardware performance no longer guarantee sales. As game consoles become more advanced, they also become more expensive in retail price as well as in the cost of developing game content.The PS3 has experienced unexpectedly slow growth since it was introduced due to various reasons, while many developers have adopted a "wait and see" attitude in view of the high costs of development and low market penetration.

As we learnt in our lesson "The Japanese Games Industry Today", the current gaming trend can be divided into the Wii camp of casual gamers on one side, and the Xbox 360/PS3 camp of hardcore gamers on the other. If all things remain equal, we can expect casual games to be more casual, and hardcore games to be more hardcore.