14 DAY TRIAL // The gaming industry has been focusing on certain territories over the years, like North America, Europe and, most importantly, Japan. Home to one of the most technologically-advanced markets and two of the current producers of the console generation, Sony and Nintendo, Japan does have unique traits and characteristics, which make it a very different target to approach, as compared with the other two big territories.
Nintendo also believes that, and through the voice of its president, Satoru Iwata, has named the Japanese market one of the least robust ones in terms of home console adoption. While handheld gaming devices like the DS and the PlayStation Portable are shifting a lot of units every month, not the same can be said about their bigger brothers, the Wii, PlayStation 3, or Xbox 360, which, although achieving decent sales, aren't comparable with the ones experienced by North America and Europe.
“Perhaps, the Japanese market is the least robust market in the world today with regard to home console systems,” Iwata says. “In the U.S., the home console market is very robust. If the U.S. sold two or three times as much as Japan, it would be tolerable. Yet, I feel that something is wrong when the U.S. is selling ten times as much as Japan on a weekly basis. So, I do not believe Nintendo should be content with the current situation in the Japanese market and believe that we have other methods to confront this.”
While Nintendo has been witnessing massive sales across the world, it has become fairly certain that its executives will want to single-handedly change their own country as well. Nevertheless, if the company allies with its rivals, Sony and Microsoft, then the Japanese market might begin to shift towards home consoles. All that's left for us to do is wait and see what strategies will the Japanese companies develop in the future.