Japanese Game Market Reaches Record 1.38 Trillion Yen in 2016

Kadokawa will publish Famitsu Game Hakusho 2017, its report on domestic and international game industry trends, on Thursday. According to the report, Japan's domestic game market reached an all-time high with 1.3801 trillion yen (about US$12.6 billion) in 2016. Meanwhile, the report estimates the value of the world game market at about 8.9977 trillion yen (about US$82.2 billion).



Online games for phones, tablets, and PC (represented in the top section of the graph above) were at the forefront of the domestic market's success, as the market for home consoles (represented at bottom in graph above) and the corresponding software (represented in the middle in graph above) has been on the decline for 10 years. From 2015 to 2016, the market value of home console software and hardware decreased from 360.2 billion yen (about US$3.29 billion) to 344 billion yen (about US$3.14 billion). However, the market for game apps and online PC games has risen from 998.9 billion yen (about US$9.12 billion) to 1.0361 trillion yen (about US$9.46 billion) year-on-year, exceeding one trillion yen for the first time.

The domestic app game market itself grew 4.4% from 928.3 billion yen (about US$8.48 billion) to 969 billion yen (about US$8.85 billion), but its growth rate has subsided: last year, the market saw a 30% growth. The report estimates, based on survey results, that there are about 44,460,000 total game users in Japan, and about 20,240,000 play exclusively app games for smartphones or tablets.

On a global scale, package games saw a reduction in their market value, while the digital market saw a 10% increase. Package games (for home consoles and PCs) made up 1.1531 trillion yen (about US$10.5 billion) of the total, and digital sales (for smartphones, PCs, or home consoles) made up the remaining 7.8445 trillion yen (about US$71.6 billion). Famitsu cited in-game purchases for mobile games and Western digital sales for consoles as notable contributing factors to the success of the digital market.