The true national video game series of Japan

goo Ranking recently took a look at what its users thought was the true national video game series of Japan.

Nintendo is especially strong here, but since their various machines are more family-oriented I’m not really surprised. However, I’ve never actually played anything on a Nintendo, so I can’t really say how much I agree or disagree with the ranking. The first series I’ve played anything of is Final Fantasy, and I don’t think there’s any game there I’ve played more than one of the series!

I’ve tried to use the official English translations of titles, but there’s a few I may have missed, so please let me know of any errors.

Number 7, Nobunaga’s Ambition, is a title I’ve never heard of, but it looks like a complex strategy game based on Japan’s civil war period. Here’s an English-language review of the recent English-language release in the series:


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Women and mobile games: part 3 of 3


This rather huge survey from Kurashi How Labs looked at women and smartphone games.

This final part found a small number of people buying in-game stuff, but even there most just used pocket money. I’ve never paid real money, but my wife borrows all the money I collect from Google Rewards and recently Google Pay cash back to spend on clothes for some dress-up game.

Talking about paying for dress-up games, here’s a screen shot from the grand-daddy of them all, Second Life, featuring two cats sitting in a Japanese style toilet:

Les japonais elegantes 14
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Women and mobile games: part 2 of 3

This rather huge survey from Kurashi How Labs looked at women and smartphone games.

My current game has a handy display of how many days you’ve logged in as you log in, so I can tell you that I’ve been playing for 199 days. The last game I was addicted to, Two Dots, I quit after about a year as I’d basically beaten the game; I’d got three stars on every single level, and there was no new content on the horizon, so I quit.

I’ve seen this game advertised on the monitors in the train, but you probably get put on a list if you download it:


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One in four young Japanese men know Steam, one in forty have bought


I’m not sure how well the downloadable game marketplace Steam
is known in the West, but at least thanks to this survey about Steam I know a little more about the Japanese market.

I’ve never used Steam, and in fact I’ve got almost no time for any PC gaming; free Android titles fill my gaming needs! This is more my kind of Steam:

Type C56_160_1
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Almost all Japanese heard of Pokemon GO, 2 in 5 smartphone owners played it

Do you know what Pokemon GO is? graph of japanese statistics

With Pokemon GO taking the world by storm, I suppose it is no surprise that this survey from Mobile Marketing Data Labo into Pokemon GO usage found that it was just as popular over here.

I am not in the least bit interested in it, and I don’t understand what all the fuss is about amongst adults who really should know better than to be faffing about chasing beasties that are normally found in McDonalds Happy Meals. Grow up the lot of you, bah humbug.

Here instead is an erotic Pikachu:

Japan As I See It
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Puzzles by far Japan’s most popular smartphone game genre

What smartphone game genre did you play the most in 2013? graph of japanese statisticsJust before the New Year Mobile Marketing Data Laboratory published a survey of the actual use of smartphone apps in 2013, with this report focusing on the questions regarding game app usage; other questions were regarding social network apps and what genres of apps people stopped using. I hope they later release that data also.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 21st of December 2013 560 members of the MMD Labo monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All the sample were 20 years old or more, and all had smartphones.

I reckon my most-used genre is games, and Candy Crush Saga in particular. SNS, Google+ specifically, comes a close second, however.

All the game links below lead to the Android version, if there is one. Only two titles appear to be iPhone only.
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Game app usage and in-game purchases in Japan

Have you ever bought in-game items for smartphone or tablet game apps? graph of japanese statisticsjapan.internet.com reported on an interesting survey from goo Research looking at smartphone and tablet game apps.

Demographics

Between the 28th and 30th of May 2013 1,098 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.0% of the sample were male, 13.4% in their teens, 15.4% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 17.3% in their forties, 14.8% in their fifties, and 17.9% aged sixty or older.

I have spent exactly zero yen on in-game purchases; the two games I play that have such features play perfectly well without any extra contributions.
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Just 15% interested in buying a Wii U

Might you buy the Nintendo Wii U? graph of japanese statisticsIt’s back to work for What Japan Thinks with this survey from December by goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into games machines and smartphone games, their second regular survey into this topic. I must have missed the first one, but this survey superceded a previous series that looked into just games machines.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 20th of December 2012 1,067 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.7% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, and 27.5% aged fifty or older.

My gaming is recently 100% smartphone based, and my solitary smartphone game is Andoku, a Sudoku clone with 800 standard boards (I’m just over halfway through), then another 3 sets of 800 boards of other game variants – I see the new version now has 10,000 boards, but also has adverts, so the paid-for and ad-free version will be worth it. The game’s surely going to outlast my smartphone, and I’m not sure if it will be possible to transfer my played state across to a new device.
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