世論 What Japan Thinks

I’ve not played anything online for years but perhaps I am missing out on something, judging by this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into online gaming.

Demographics

Over the 13th and 14th of March 2008 1,096 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 17.6% in their teens, 19.4% in their twenties, 16.1% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, 18.4% in their fifties, and 11.5% aged sixty or older.

Note that Q1 means computers only, not consoles or handheld machines.

In the comments for another article I got wind of a new (currently in closed beta) MMORPG, Hello Kitty Online, apparently a mix of RPG-type quests and guilds, puzzles, virtual property development, and an SNS.
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One online game I see heavily advertised in Japan is a free online RPG Maple Story, although I’ve never actually played it myself, and I take no responsibility from any addiction caused by clicking through that link! To see what the average Japanese person plays at online, MyVoice performed a survey on online games.

Demographics

Over the first five days of February 2008 15,447 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 28% in their forties, and 17% in their fifties.

I used to play online games, starting with the sadly departed Meridian 59, then beta testing Ultima Online, Everquest as both a beta and a paid-for player, then finally Asheron’s Call for quite a bit until I found out that being an anti-social git meant I didn’t get very far ahead. I still miss Meridian 59, as it was small enough to form real friendships, in fact even leading to a real-life meeting with a bunch of other people once. I don’t think I’d ever do that again as there seems to be far too many weirdos about these days, or maybe it’s just I’m a bit older and less naive.
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Well, it’s not really a competition of one against the other, but instead a cross-reference of awareness of Sudoku amongst console and computer gamers. japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into sudoku.

Demographics

On the 26th of October 2007 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in either the public or private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 81.0% of the sample was male, 14.2% in their twenties, 37.8% in their thirties, 34.4% in their forties, 12.1% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.

This survey doesn’t use sudoko, however, as the primary name for the puzzle; that seems to be ナンプレ, nanpure, an abbreviation of number place, or so my dictionary tells me.

If you want to get hold of some sudoku puzzles, one cheap way in Japan is to go to Daiso, the big 100 yen chain store, and pick up one or more of the eight volumes they have on sale, each with over 100 puzzles inside. The books also have below the puzzles small bits of trivia; one of my volumes has proverbs, the other four-character kanji phrases.

Oh, and today I received a prize after doing the Sudoku in my wife’s newspaper - it was just a boring old eco bag, however.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by goo Research into studying English conversation. The column they published, however, concentrates on the computer-related aspects of learning.

Demographics

1,079 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 24.1% were in their twenties, 22.7% in their thirties, 21.8% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, and 10.6% in their sixties. 51.8% of the sample was male.

Last month I presented another survey concerning Second Life (hey, that headline’s wrong - a majority don’t want to try!) that showed that almost half the sample wanted to try out Second Life; add the results here to the previous survey and we see that over three in five potential Second Lifers may be on the lookout for English lessons!

The article also mentions cafetalk.jp offering Second Life English lessons, so if you fancy getting involved as a tutor through Skype on your PC, feel free to have a look at what they offer, as there does seem to be a significant number of Japanese looking for on-line English.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by goo Research into
awareness and use of Second Life. Over three days in the middle of February 1,073 people from goo Research’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Demographically, 51.5% were male, 13.0% in their teens, 23.1% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 21.4% in their forties, and 20.8% in their fifties. Note that at the time of the survey there is no Japanese language version of Second Life, and I am unsure as to even how well it supports Japanese language, but the launch of a fully localised version is not far off at all, it seems.

I get most of my information regarding Second Life from first The Register (possibly NSFW material) and second Something Awful (definitely NSFW!), so my view of it is, shall we say, rather skewed. I have no intention of taking part myself, as I’ve never been much for socialising in my First Life, let alone the Second. Quite frankly it all sounds too scary!

Coincidentaly, I also got my very first Japanese Second Life spam last night advertising the chance to meet some bored housewives for virtual rumpy-pumpy in a virtual manshon. The advertisement featured photographs of real-life women and a real-life block of flats, which seemed rather much like it was designed to entice you into the real world via the virtual.
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[part 1] [part 2]

With the Christmas present season upon us and New Year sales soon to come, DIMSDRIVE Research took a timely look at ownership of portable games machine. Over a week in the middle of November 7,508 people from their monitor group successfully completed an internet-based questionnaire. 44.8% of the sample was male, 64.9% married, and 51.7% had children. By age, 1.1% were in their teens, 16.6% in their twenties, 37.1% in their thirties, 27.7% in their forties, 12.7% in their forties, and 4.8% aged sixty or older.

Talking of wireless, when I visited the Pokemon Centre in central Osaka recently there was an awful lot of people sitting around outside playing on their Nintendo DSes, presumably with whoever was around.

Note that the survey was conducted before the release of either the PS3 or the Wii, so for the last question, no-one already owns either of the machines.
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[part 1] [part 2]

With the Christmas present season upon us and New Year sales soon to come, DIMSDRIVE Research took a timely look at ownership of portable games machine. Over a week in the middle of November 7,508 people from their monitor group successfully completed an internet-based questionnaire. 44.8% of the sample was male, 64.9% married, and 51.7% had children. By age, 1.1% were in their teens, 16.6% in their twenties, 37.1% in their thirties, 27.7% in their forties, 12.7% in their forties, and 4.8% aged sixty or older.

The fad for brain training amongst the elderly is still apparent in this survey, although one must remember that since this poll is conducted amongst people who are internet users, and since internet use is presumably lower amongst the elderly, it would be foolish to draw too many conclusions about the whole over-fifty age group from the results presented here.

Looking at Q4A, there is perhaps the suggestion that people are using the PSP as not just a games machine, but also as a music or video player when they are out and about.
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With Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s Playstation 3 both now released in Japan, not forgetting Microsoft’s XBox 360, of course, japan.internet.com reported on an opinion poll conducted by Cross Marketing regarding next generation game consoles. They collected the opinions of 300 mobile phone users of their monitor group via a (mobile phone-targeted?) internet-based survey on the 6th and 7th of December. Their sample was split equally 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% aged 18 and 19, then 20.0% in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.

I wouldn’t put too much trust in the relative sales figures in Q1, as allowing for sampling error, the figures are almost indistinguishable, and since the Wii is barely out and the PS3 in short supply, just the very early adopters are being counted here.

For me, the most interesting result was those interested in the features of the console. Despite all the buzz before release about the PS3’s Cell chip, its advanced graphics, the Blu-ray disk drive and other advances, just 40% of those putting their money down were interested in doing so to get their hands on the new features. Conversely, the much more technically conservative Wii had 60% of the potential buyers after it, presumably mostly on the strength of the WiiMote.

This perhaps ties in with a talk I heard a couple of weeks ago given by Nintendo’s President Iwata on the philosophy behind the Wii. He wants to engage the casual gamer and the non-gamer much, much more than the vocal fan boy who scream for even more advanced bells and whistles. In addition, Sony sales may prove to be weak because of the relative lack of interest in parts that make it a rather expensive platform, and with the promise of future titles appearing to be the main stimulator of demand, if deadlines are missed or titles come out faster or better on the Wii, Sony may find their demand evaporating.
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japan.internet.com recently published a survey conducted JR Tokai Express Research on the use of home networking. They interviewed 330 people from all over the country to find out their views. 60.6% of the sample was male; age demographics were 20.3% in their twenties, 31.2% in their thirties, 27.9% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 5.2% in their sixties.

My personal experience with “wartraining” (like wardriving, only from the train!) is that on my ride home I can pick up about 60 or so open wireless access points according to NetStumbler, the bulk of them being Yahoo BB! wireless routers in their default configuration. Sadly this survey (or at least the free preview that I have translated) did not ask any security-related questions.
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japan.internet.com, in conjunction with Cross Marketing Inc performed a survey on next-generation game consoles. They interviewed 366 self-confessed gamers; 50.3% were male, 25.4% in their teens (18 or 19 to be exact), 24.9% in their twenties, 24.6% in their thirties, and 25.1% in their forties.

With the recent name change of the next Nintendo to Wii (I try to think of the name as referring to going “whee!”, not going wee…) the awareness of the name seems rather low; it would have been interesting to have used the previous Revolution codename instead in this survey. I will keep an eye open to see if the awareness of Wii increases in the coming months.
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