Japanese Gaming Market Shrinks again, despite Pokemon and Monster Hunter Success

Enterbrain, a company that offers research services linked to the Japanese video games market and also publishes the magazine Famitsu, has launched a new report which says that the market in the Land of the Rising Sun has again declined in 2010. Namely, it has come down to 493,66 billion Yen, the equivalent of about 5.94 billion United States dollars, from 542.64 billion Yen during 2009.

This is the third time when the Japanese gaming market has gone down year over year, with more and more publishers and with both Nintendo and Sony looking for more business outside of their home territory.

The decline in percentage terms has reached 9%, with the biggest decline being linked to hardware, which went down by 18.9 percent during the year, to the equivalent of 2.11 billion dollars.

The Nintendo DS family of handhelds managed to move about 3 million units during 2010, with the PlayStation Portable from Sony close behind on 2.9 million.

The Nintendo Wii has managed to top the home console space, followed by the PlayStation 3 and the struggling Xbox 360.

When it comes to video games the best performer has been, as many expected, Pokemon Black and White, which arrived in September for the Nintendo DS, which managed to move close to 5 million copies to gamers.

Second place went to Monster Hunter Freedom 3 from Capcom, which managed to sell 3.5 million units on the PlayStation Portable, despite the fact that it only launched on December 1.

The Enterbrain report says that retail is seeing a slowdown in sales just as consumers in Japan are becoming more interested and spending more money on game markets on mobile and social sites, with more smartphones and more PCs used for gaming.

The profile of the Japanese gamer is getting closer to that of the Western gamers and renouncing his defining console loyalties.