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Japan’s video game market shrank 10.5% in April-September period

October 2, 2009
By Ken Worsley


According to gaming magazine Enterbrain, the domestic market for video game sales shrank by 10.5% in the April-September period, to 213.8 billion yen. According to the report, sales of Nintendo DS consoles increased by 29% to 1.69 million units, while sales of both the Sony PlayStation Portable and Nintendo Wii both fell. During the April-September period, the best selling game was Square Enix’s Dragon Quest IX, which moved 3.9 million copies.

Dragon Quest IX was released only on the Nintendo DS platform, which was an interesting move by Square Enix, though it probably led to much faster game development on a platform that is selling well. Square Enix also tied up with McDonald’s to allow Nintendo DS players to use their machines on McDonald’s wireless networks, and also allowed them to download other perks.

The battle between handheld consoles and full-sized consoles will be interesting to watch over the coming year or two, especially as the capabilities of PC gaming continue to eclipse that of full-sized consoles, in terms of affordability for manufacturers.

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Comments

One Response to “Japan’s video game market shrank 10.5% in April-September period”

  1. ECM on October 3rd, 2009 10:38 am

    Question: how is the iPhone performing in Japan? (I ask because Apple fancies itself a competitor w/ Nintendo and Sony now, so it might be relevant.)

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