By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
PC gaming has been becoming bigger and bigger in Japan in recent years, and the most recent statistics from Steam seem to support the trend. According to Steam’s own “Hardware & Software Survey”, the percentage of Japanese-speaking users reached 2.82% in June 2023.I am...
I was recently interviewed by Joseph Kim (who runs GameMakers and is also the CEO of mobile game studio Lila Games), Brian Peganoff (founder at Timber Advisors) and Matthew Kanterman (Director Of Research at Roundhill Investments) on the Japanese gaming market – with an extra dash of Korean...
The Pokemon Company is running from one record financial year to another. Following 2022’s great numbers, the Japanese government’s official gazette shows the following numbers for the fiscal year ending on February 28 this year: Net sales: 235 billion yen (US$1.67B) + 15% on the...
Japanese game industry data provider KADOKAWA ASCII Research Laboratories just published the top 10 grossing mobile games for Japan in CY2022. Here is the overview (gross sales, Japan domestic only, iOS and Android combined) – based on the company’s estimates*: 1) Monster Strike...
Foreign-made video games have always had a very hard time in Japan. For example, a Famitsu statistic summarizing the top 100 best-selling games in Japan between January 2001 and September 2013 (accumulated across these almost 13 years) does not include even a single foreign-made title. Almost 10...
There is a long, long list of mobile game companies from the “West” (mainly North America and Europe) that tried but failed entering the Japanese market via a local subsidiary over the last 10-15 years. The list of companies that left include powerhouses such as King, Rovio, Zynga (the...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry