Analyze That: Japanese Games Market Shrinks, UK Market Expands

Enterbrain data translated by the AFP shows that the Japanese videogames market has shrunk in 2008 by as much as 15%. It is the first time in some four years this happens. The overall value of the market was of 6.26 billion dollars and software sales appear to have accounted for almost 8% of the drop, while hardware sales went down by a significantly bigger percent.

The Nintendo DS was the best sold console, with 4.03 million devices sold compared with the 3.54 million the PlayStation Portable from Sony managed to move to customers. It seems that the launches of the Nintendo DSi and PSP-3000, with their significant hardware improvements, failed to make the impact the launches of the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii had in 2007. The PS3 sold just over 910,000 units, while the Wii shipped 2.91 million consoles in 2008. The Xbox 360 only sold 318,000 units.

In sharp contrast, the United Kingdom’s videogames market has actually gone up in value in 2008, with its overall value reaching 6.071 billion dollars. Software sales went up by more than 23%. The market seems to have doubled over the recent five years, according to data from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association and GFK Chart-Track.

The biggest successes were the Nintendo Wii home console and the Nintendo DS handheld, which have become best sellers despite the fact that the United Kingdom was the least profitable market for Nintendo before their launch.

The Xbox 360, with its newly cut price point and its New Xbox Experience, also registered significant increases, while the PlayStation 3 performed well, despite a delay in its launch date.

The reduction of the Japanese market is surely to make an impact, with typical Japanese titles seeing a decrease in 2009, while the United Kingdom gaming companies could be in for another year of growth.