世論 What Japan Thinks

At the start of December japan.internet.com published the results of an opinion poll conducted by goo Research into next generation DVD systems. 1,091 members of their monitor group successfully completed an internet-based questionnaire. 47.2% of the group was male, 21.2% in their twenties, 38.0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, and 12.6% in their fifties.

I too am confused by the upcoming standards war, and have no particular urge to purchase either system, as almost all of the contents I currently watch is self-recorded video tapes, so I’ll probably end up getting whatever high-density DVD is fitted in the hard-disk recorder that I plan to buy sometime, although I suspect that standard DVD-based recorders might start dropping into a very attractive price band soon.
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In another silly wee goo Ranking report, people chose their most entertaining Christmas-themed movie. As always, the ranking is the relative votes for each movie, and no demographic information is available. The survey was conducted towards the end of November.

For most Americans, as I understand it, Miracle on 34th Street is the Christmas movie, although I cannot say I know it at all. For me, I cannot honestly recall any particular Xmas-themed movie – a film version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (Scrooge below) is about the only thing that comes to mind, but even then, I can only really remember the Blackadder version. In the UK, the tradition is more Wizard of Oz in the morning, and a Bond movie after the Xmas pud and the Queen.

Some of the titles also seem to have very tenuous links to Christmas.
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goo Ranking recently published the results of a ranking opinion poll into what Disney (including Pixar) animation they can enjoy as an adult, for both male and female. As usual for goo Ranking, just the relative votes for each title is listed.

The two big surprises for me are that the Jungle Book is nowhere in the rankings and that Pixar’s films are rather low in the charts. Perhaps Pixar has too many Western references in its cartoons, or perhaps it loses a lot of the subtelties in translation?
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infoPLANT recently released the results of an opinion poll they conducted over three days at the start of September this year into the mobile music marketplace. This survey was conducted amongst members of their internet mointor group by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. The demographics targeted youth, with 1,000 people chosen to take part. They were split 500 male, 500 female. 250 of each sex were aged between 15 and 29, 250 between 30 and 39. 150 of each age group used only portable music players (not just digital players, but CD or MD, etc players too), 50 used only mobile phone music players, and 50 used both.

This is really a fascinating set of figures. Q1 indicating that people with both types of devices spend as much on pre-recorded media as the other two groups put together, and over double the combined totals on downloads.

Q2 shows the iPod’s image is unmatched in almost every respect, which puts a damper on people who talk about US companies being unable to compete against the local makers.

Q5 shows that in the digital audio world, unsurprisingly hard disk-based players are the most desired, but then devices with built-in memory are twice as popular as memory card-based devices! The reason for this is unclear, although I wonder if this is to do with people wanting iPod Shuffles and Nanos?
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[part 1] [part 2]

Over a week at the end of August and the start of September, DIMSDRIVE Research looked at movie theatre attendance. 5,180 member of their online monitor panel successfully completed a private internet survey. 43.1% were male, 1.2% in their teens, 17.2% in their twenties, 34.8% in their thirties, 26.9% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 5.7% aged sixty or over.

In this half of the survey we see that not surprisingly people find the movies in Japan just a bit too expensive. I can understand that, as even when buying the advance tickets, 1,300 yen is a bit much to risk on a movie you may not know too well, and all but the biggest blockbusters are worth the full 1,800 yen price.

I’m not sure about the attending the movies by yourself. Is this frowned upon in Japan? Some sort of black mark on your character?
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[part 1] [part 2]

Over a week at the end of August and the start of September, DIMSDRIVE Research looked at movie theatre attendance. 5,180 member of their online monitor panel successfully completed a private internet survey. 43.1% were male, 1.2% in their teens, 17.2% in their twenties, 34.8% in their thirties, 26.9% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 5.7% aged sixty or over.

I found the infrequency of cinema visits in Q1 rather surprising, with over two in five visiting once every sixth months or less and another one in five not having visited at all in recent years, but sadly there is no follow-up questions to find out why they don’t visit more often. Given that in Q4 46.0% use Ladies’ Day discounts (usually 1,000 yen instead of the standard 1,800 yen price), and since there were 56.9% female respondents, that means that just over four in five women use these discount. Since about half often buy popcorn and a drink, both of which have high markups, perhaps more Men’s Days or better still Couples Days would get more bums on seats and better profits. However, Q4SQ suggests that guaranteeing a seat ahead of time is a key requirement, but one usually cannot reserve seats at Ladies’ Day prices, so perhaps allowing reservations on these days is a way forward. However, if people turn up at the cinema and find no seats leftfor their favourite film, they may often choose another one since they’ve come all the way to the cinema, so if seat availability could be checked from home they’d actually have less custom.
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japan.internet.com published the results of an opinion poll conducted by goo Research into online gaming. At the start of October 1,079 members of their monitor panel successfully completed a private internet survey; 44.5% of the sample were male, 2.4% were in their teens, 21.0% in their twenties, 43.5% in their thirties, 23.4% in their forties, and 9.6% in their fifties.

One thing I’m not sure of for this survey is whether online games means just massive multiplayer ones or whether it covers smaller games like first-person shooters, or simple card games through Yahoo! and the like.

I never got into trading as I felt it was a waste of money and felt to me as cheating. I didn’t have too much of a problem with buying gold, but when it felt that there were more people interested in farming items for selling either in-game or outside of the game it lost much of its charm.
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With both Amazon and Apple recently opening film and video download services, towards the end of September japan.internet.com, in conjunction with goo Research, looked at what people thought about downloading movies. 1,043 people from their internet monitor group, 55.5% female, successfully completed a private internet survey. 21.8% were in their twenties, 40.1% in their thirties, 25.9% in their forties, 9.1% in their fifties, and 3.2% in their sixties.

The results here are interesting; although there is a slight majority not interested in downloading, those who download want to watch on the television. However, with the proliferation of wide-screen televisions, high-definition broadcasts and Blue Ray disks, a standard lower-than-DVD quality download might look rather poor on a 38 inch plasma display.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by Cross Marketing Inc into music habits. They interviewed 300 people from their internet monitor poll; exactly 50% were male, and 20.0% in each of their teens, twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.

I myself haven’t actually listened to music very actively lately, barring snippets on television or CDs that my wife plays. I’m sure if I were to add up the hours, I’ve probably actually listened to more live music than pre-recorded this year!

Looking at the pie chart, it’s interesting to note that people tend to stick with what they know: impulse purchases or trying new artists seems not too popular, perhaps related to physical sales being so popular when compared to digital downloaded even if the opportunity to listen to a preview is greater online.
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infoPLANT recently published the results of an opinion poll they conducted into watching movies. Over a week at the start of September they published an open survey through the DoCoMo iMode menu system, where they gathered the views of 5,963 self-selected people, 65.5% female.

I manage to get to the cinema about once a month on average, although I’ve got about four or five coming up this month that wifey is dragging me to I’m all too happy to attend with wifey. Yesterday I went to see Lady in the Water, which would have been a good Twilight Zone episode, but as a movie…

In Japan, the average ticket price outside the rare multiplexes is ¥1,800 (cheaper for the last show), but at least popcorn and drinks are reasonably priced. However, if you go, always try to buy the advance tickets, usually ¥1,300, and they often come with a free present, which I must try to flog off on e-Bay one day. Anyone want to make me an offer for five World Trade Center candles complete with brass-effect plastic stand?

Since I’m mentioning cinema prices, the other two main ways to save money are to go on the first of the month when prices are just ¥1,000, but of course everything sells out quickly, or if you’re of the female persuasion, most cities have a ¥1,000 Ladies’ Day once a week. Movix Rokko tries to balance things out with a Men’s Day at the same price.
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