Games Industry Japan

Japan may be responsible for our love affair with video games, but the country is quickly going off the consoles that it helped to popularise. You may remember the dire Media Create figures that we posted earlier in the week – well, they are worse than you think. Much worse. According to the organisation, last week's software sales were the worst that the Japanese industry has seen since 2001.

Here are some stats to illustrate just how awful things were: cumulative game sales for the period spanning 11th May to 17th May hit just 235,000 units. That's 60 per cent less than the week prior, and, more concerningly, 62 per cent less than the same period last year. Now, it's worth pointing out that there's always a slump after Golden Week – a public holiday in the Land of the Rising Sun – but these figures are uncharacteristically brutal.

Media Create believes that the lack of new games was to blame – Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD Remaster for the PlayStation 4 was the best selling title of the week – but it's clear that the industry is changing overseas. While consoles appear to be booming in the West, smartphones are seemingly stealing the "traditional" market away in the East – and with the likes of Nintendo and Konami looking to the lucrative new market, we don't think that that's going to change anytime soon.

[source m-create.com, via kotaku.com]