世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc in the middle of November into the use of web sites from mobile phones. 300 mobile phone owners, 50.0% male and 50.0% female, with 20.0% in their teens, and 20.0% in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties completed the private internet-based survey.
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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 reported on a survey conducted over three days from the 25th to 27th of October, just after MNP, mobile number portability, was introduced, by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile phone bills. They interviewed 300 mobile phone users from their monitor group by means of a private internet opinion poll. The ratio of male to female was exactly 50:50, and exactly a fifth in each of the age bands from teens to ages 50 to 59.

In Q2 I wonder how to interpret the figure for those on data plan discounts. For the talk plan discounts one example given was the Softbank Love Teigaku (fixed price), where for 300 yen per month you can have unlimited voice calls to one other user, so I don’t know if for data plans it was people on unlimited use data packets rather than, for example, DoCoMo’s packet back scheme, which gives you a number of free packets then all extra packets at fractions of the standard price, from one-third to one-twentieth of the normal cost, if I remember correctly.
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With number portability just starting out, and with Softbank’s computer system melting down from the overload of new customers thanks to their, in my opinion, suicidal new pricing scheme (although the small print needs to be carefully read) it may be interesting to look at a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research over four days from the 20th to 23rd of October, just before the new system was introduced, into what mobile phones from each of the three main providers people desire. They interviewed 330 people from their internet monitor group, 67.3% male, 15.5% in their twenties, 41.2% in their thirties, 32.1% in their forties, 9.7% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.

Even although Softbank offer to honour all transferring customers’ loyalty discounts (we get about 30% to 40% off for ours), I do have a dislike of Yahoo!, and I don’t think these special offers will last that long.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into New Year postcards. They got 300 valid responses to their private internet-based survey from their monitor pool; exactly half were male, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, and so on up to 20.0% in their fifties.

New Year postcards are even more required than Christmas cards were back home, so this good showing by PCs and mobiles is quite surprising for me. I will look out for another survey that might indicate to whom people plan to send the virtual and real greetings to see if there is any pigeon-holing of contacts.

It’s getting time to decide on our New Year postcards; although we usually do most communication by email, there’s something tangible about a real 年賀状はがき, nengajou hagaki, New Year postcard that electronics just can’t replace. We will order the front design from some internet site, most likely, and do the addressing by specialist New Year postcard software.

For your information, next year is the Year of the 亥, inoshishi, or wild boar.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of research by Cross Marketing Inc into car navigation systems. As usual for Cross Marketing, the demographics of the 320 car drivers that completed the internet-based survey were exactly 50.0% of each sex and 25.0% of each age group from twenties to fifties. One thing not made clear in the results is whether or not the people interviewed drove the car for work or leisure, and whether the car was privately owned or a company car.

Car navigation is a wonderful thing, especially in Japan with its rather quirky way of designating addresses and a bit of a dearth of road signs. One minus point is that given the rate that new roads are built, even just a one year old map data set can be out-of-date. For instance, just about every time I have rented a car and gone any significant distance I’ve ended up on a bit of road not on the car navi’s map. Conversely, last time I drove, thanks to the car navi we found a road through the hill at the back of our house, then another rather fun single-track one round the back of the next hill, saving us getting stuck in a 5 kilometre jam in the process.
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As a sort-of follow-up to one of my more popular recent translations, the emoticons of Japan, let’s have a look at the results of a recent opinion poll reported by japan.internet.com. In the middle of October Cross Marketing Inc interviewed 300 mobile phone mail-using members of its internet monitor pool regarding their use of features like デコメール, deco-mail, available on most of the newer mobile phones that allows the user to send an HTML message with a border or similar template, in-line graphics, selected font colours and sizes, and other decorative features. The demographics of the sample were the usual Cross Marketing equal divisions – half and half male and female, and 20.0% in each of the five age groups from teens to fifties.

Just for the record, KDDI (au and TU-KA) call it デコレーションメール, decoration mail, and SoftBank Mobile’s feature is named アレンジメール, arrange mail. Note that the HTML mail is viewable not just on the models that support its creation, but also on most phones with a built-in browser and even on PCs. Also note that since most people get charged by the packet, there is a considerable expense for both the sender and the receiver.

I’ve not used the feature, so I can’t comment on how good or otherwise it is, but my new phone that I pick up tomorrow does support it, so I’ll have to give it a go.
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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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Last week japan.internet.com published the results of research by Cross Marketing Inc into voice calls with mobile phones. 300 people from their monitor group successfully completed a private questionnaire; demographically there was the usual Cross Marketing equal split: 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

I prefer fixed lines, as sometimes mobiles are difficult to hear, and the full-size handset just feels better. And, of course, call costs are much cheaper!
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Whith the Autumn national road safety campaign coming upon us soon, it is quite timely to look at this survey published by japan.internet.com and carried out by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile phones and hands-free equipment. They interviewed 320 car drivers who also own mobile phone from their internet monitor group, exactly 50:50 male and female as usual, and 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties, and 25.0% in their fifties. How often they actually drove cars is not noted, however.

When reading the answers in Q3, remember first that the respondents are being asked to admit if they break the law and second that the response, “Often” (my translation of やや守る, yaya mamoru) is open to interpretation; would people who refrain from calling or mailing out but answer incoming calls select “often” as their reply? My completely unscientific observations would suggest that there’s a lot more scofflaws than just the 7% this survey suggests.
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