Interesting report via Japan Times, filed from this years TGS, related to the evolution of gaming and players entering this space http://bit.ly/aCIlAk
According to Enterbrain, domestic online game sales jumped to ¥238.5 billion in 2009 from ¥128.2 billion in 2005.
Hamamura also said that although the proliferation of video-game platforms has intensified the competition among video-game makers, it has cultivated new gamers and thus increased the size of the market as a whole.
Asanuma said Namco Bandai has been producing games since the early stages of the trend. He agreed that there has been a rise in online-game distribution through cell phones, the iPad and social networking sites, but said that the effect on the package-game market has been subtle.
“In reality, we haven’t seen any big effects,” said Asanuma. ” ‘Taikono Tatsujin’ for the iPhone and iPad has been selling pretty well, but I don’t think it is taking away users from the packaged version.”
He added that the iPhone and iPad versions could also operate as a promotional tool for the package version. Users could play a free version on the iPhone or iPad first, pay ¥500 to play it a little more, and then buy a package at regular price if they want to play the game to its completion. Full Article Here
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