世論 What Japan Thinks

I’ve not been to an arcade myself for ages, nor have I really had the time (or quite frankly, the inclination) to play any games recently. To see what the Japanese are doing, MyVoice took their second look at game usage, although I’m not sure when the first look took place!

Demographics

Over the first five days of May 2008 14,373 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private on-line questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 17% in their fifties.

The last two times we were in arcades (or game centres, as they are known in Japan), we spent all our cash on the UFO Catchers with nothing to show. That falls under the category of “prize games” in Q6, and before I next go I’ll be sure to study this video on how to win at them!
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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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Round about the time of the release of the Nintendo DS there was a lot of buzz about the new demographics they were reaching, in particular how the range of brain training software was selling well in the older market segment. To see what the situation is these says, goo Research, in conjuction with AllAbout Japan, surveyed the “Mrs” demographic about their use of digital items and game machines.

Demographics

Over the 17th and 18th of December 2007 1,076 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The “Mrs” demographic was married women between the ages of 50 and 69, with 33.9% aged between 50 and 54, 33.9% between 55 and 59, and 32.2% in their sixties.

I remember once trying to tempt my mother into gaming with The Hobbit on the Sinclair Spectrum, but I can’t say it was much of a success at all. However, the brain training games would be fun for her, perhaps, or even if they weren’t I could play them instead…
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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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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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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted over three days at the end of August and the start of September by Cross Marketing into mobile phone applications. They interviewed 300 mobile phone users from their monitor group by means of a private internet poll; the group was 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.

Note that here “application” refers to, in the DoCoMo world, the iAppli, Java-based applications, some of which come preinstalled, and others can be downloaded that provide functionality (or fun) in addition to the basic set of tools. My phone, for instance, came with a shoot’em up game, a dog simulator, TV remote control, a graphical mail application (I think, I can’t work it!) and some sort of IM chat application (but I can’t figure that one out either, though!).
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