These Japanese Gaming Facts May Surprise You

This week, Weekly Famitsu asked its readers about their gaming habits and brought back some interesting results.

For consoles owned, the responses were pretty much par for the course. The Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii dominate the market with nearly 50 per cent of responders owning one or the other (2070 viable reader responses). A Question on the most commonly used console brought in somewhat similar results, although the total number of users for smart phones, PCs, and other consoles was the dominant winner (1854 viable reader responses).

When asked what console they were looking to purchase, most people answered with the Nintendo 3DS, showing that Nintendo still reigns strong in the gaming market (954 viable reader responses). However, when the question about what console people are looking to purchase is broken down into the three major reasons for purchase, (a specific game, because a friend owns one, or because the content is appealing) an interesting trend appears. Across the board, most people make their console choices for specific games. But with Sony and Microsoft, the percentage of content specific people is universally greater than those who are influenced by their friends, whereas with Nintendo, the outside influence of friends appears to be stronger. Depending on how one looks at the data, this means that either Nintendo consoles are weaker on content, or they incorporate more social interactions and influences (or both).

Another notable result involved network usage. When asked about network use of their consoles, surprisingly, less than 40 per cent of responders said they used the network capabilities of their consoles (1534 viable reader responses). Of these people, less than 10 per cent use any “pay content” like DLC. (This means, for every 100 users, only 4 spend any money for downloadable content.) Obviously downloadable content and add-ons are a relatively young market and these figures aren’t very useful as indicators for its future, but they do paint a startling picture of its present.

週刊ファミ通 [週刊ファミ通]