The percentage of Japanese users on steam has gone up to a record high of 2.82% in the month of June. From what I understand PC gaming isn't very popular in Japan and the dominant gaming platforms...
The percentage of Japanese users on steam has gone up to a record high of 2.82% in the month of June. From what I understand PC gaming isn't very popular in Japan and the dominant gaming platforms are the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 so it is interesting to see it on the rise. I wonder what has caused the increase in users, as PC hardware isn't very affordable at the minute so I'd expect the numbers to be dropping.
As of August 2022 the Steam Deck was available in Japan so I wonder if this has had any impact on the PC gaming market with a slow burn effect as portability is a big selling point, similar to the dominant Nintendo Switch. I wasn't able to find any sales numbers so have no idea if the Steam Deck has been responsible for any of the uptick in Japan or if it successful at all. I wouldn't say the Steam Deck is a competitor to the Switch but being portable could be a big selling point for the Japanese market. Steam also has a large collection of Japanese games including a lot of Visual Novels, so I wonder if there is an audience of people joining steam to purchase Visual Novels instead of from other companies/websites.
Because they are having a sale on until 7/14. https://steamdeck.komodo.jp/?lang=en About Steam Deck Summer Sale 【Period】 2023/06/30 (Fri.) – 2023/07/14 (Fri.) 02:00 JST *The sale will end when the...
2023/06/30 (Fri.) – 2023/07/14 (Fri.) 02:00 JST
*The sale will end when the current stock is depleted. Restocked inventory will not be available at this discounted price.
【Sale Details】
Steam deck is definitely my assumption why. My buddy just picked one up and is raving about it. He just went on vacation and was playing Diablo 4 on it during the 10h car ride.
Steam deck is definitely my assumption why.
My buddy just picked one up and is raving about it. He just went on vacation and was playing Diablo 4 on it during the 10h car ride.
I have my doubts about the visual novel hypothesis. VNs sold on Steam have a reputation for being heavily censored, particularly when it comes to anything that might be deemed offensive to Western...
I have my doubts about the visual novel hypothesis. VNs sold on Steam have a reputation for being heavily censored, particularly when it comes to anything that might be deemed offensive to Western sensibilities. I couldn't find any information indicating that this policy is different for VNs sold in Japan, so I'm going to assume it's the same over there. Whatever your feelings may be on this matter, I don't think it would make much sense for people who have access to well-established local marketplaces that sell unabridged content to turn to a new platform for lesser experience.
The original Steam survey only reports statistics for the language of the client and not the region it is running in. It could very well be that this uptick is in fact not from purely native Japanese people but also language learners from around the world. It could also be a result of other languages' distribution shifting around, artificially inflating the number. I suspect it's probably a bit of both + the Steam Deck launch, but the data is just too unreliable to draw any significant conclusions.
With all of that said, I personally greatly welcome Japanese developers and gamers embracing the PC platform. It's gotten better in recent years, but PC players have been either completely ignored or given mediocre ports of games for a long time. It's nice to simply expect modern titles to launch on PC at the same time as consoles and work decently well, as well as getting ports and remakes of older titles. Now if only Drakengard could come home...
As far as censorship goes, the Japanese will also censor games that release on Playstation, even if it's only releasing in Japanese. Hell, the Fate remake released on PC as well and that is...
As far as censorship goes, the Japanese will also censor games that release on Playstation, even if it's only releasing in Japanese. Hell, the Fate remake released on PC as well and that is censored there. And these all sell pretty well despite everyone knowing they are censored.
Plus many visual novels don't have any h scenes to begin with, so there's nothing to censor.
Are there any numbers on the games they're playing? I have a wild guess and assume that they jumped onto the 'only up' train that China started and was discovered by US streamers and also swept to...
Are there any numbers on the games they're playing?
I have a wild guess and assume that they jumped onto the 'only up' train that China started and was discovered by US streamers and also swept to European streamers and players.
Japan is pretty much into speed running, and it's possible that japanese streamers got a hold of it as well and people were playing it a lot.
The percentage of Japanese users on steam has gone up to a record high of 2.82% in the month of June. From what I understand PC gaming isn't very popular in Japan and the dominant gaming platforms are the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 so it is interesting to see it on the rise. I wonder what has caused the increase in users, as PC hardware isn't very affordable at the minute so I'd expect the numbers to be dropping.
As of August 2022 the Steam Deck was available in Japan so I wonder if this has had any impact on the PC gaming market with a slow burn effect as portability is a big selling point, similar to the dominant Nintendo Switch. I wasn't able to find any sales numbers so have no idea if the Steam Deck has been responsible for any of the uptick in Japan or if it successful at all. I wouldn't say the Steam Deck is a competitor to the Switch but being portable could be a big selling point for the Japanese market. Steam also has a large collection of Japanese games including a lot of Visual Novels, so I wonder if there is an audience of people joining steam to purchase Visual Novels instead of from other companies/websites.
Because they are having a sale on until 7/14.
https://steamdeck.komodo.jp/?lang=en
About Steam Deck Summer Sale
【Period】
2023/06/30 (Fri.) – 2023/07/14 (Fri.) 02:00 JST
*The sale will end when the current stock is depleted. Restocked inventory will not be available at this discounted price.
【Sale Details】
10% OFF: Steam Deck 64G
15% OFF: Steam Deck 256G
20% OFF: Steam Deck 512GB, Steam Deck Docking Station
Steam deck is definitely my assumption why.
My buddy just picked one up and is raving about it. He just went on vacation and was playing Diablo 4 on it during the 10h car ride.
I have my doubts about the visual novel hypothesis. VNs sold on Steam have a reputation for being heavily censored, particularly when it comes to anything that might be deemed offensive to Western sensibilities. I couldn't find any information indicating that this policy is different for VNs sold in Japan, so I'm going to assume it's the same over there. Whatever your feelings may be on this matter, I don't think it would make much sense for people who have access to well-established local marketplaces that sell unabridged content to turn to a new platform for lesser experience.
The original Steam survey only reports statistics for the language of the client and not the region it is running in. It could very well be that this uptick is in fact not from purely native Japanese people but also language learners from around the world. It could also be a result of other languages' distribution shifting around, artificially inflating the number. I suspect it's probably a bit of both + the Steam Deck launch, but the data is just too unreliable to draw any significant conclusions.
With all of that said, I personally greatly welcome Japanese developers and gamers embracing the PC platform. It's gotten better in recent years, but PC players have been either completely ignored or given mediocre ports of games for a long time. It's nice to simply expect modern titles to launch on PC at the same time as consoles and work decently well, as well as getting ports and remakes of older titles. Now if only Drakengard could come home...
As far as censorship goes, the Japanese will also censor games that release on Playstation, even if it's only releasing in Japanese. Hell, the Fate remake released on PC as well and that is censored there. And these all sell pretty well despite everyone knowing they are censored.
Plus many visual novels don't have any h scenes to begin with, so there's nothing to censor.
Are there any numbers on the games they're playing?
I have a wild guess and assume that they jumped onto the 'only up' train that China started and was discovered by US streamers and also swept to European streamers and players.
Japan is pretty much into speed running, and it's possible that japanese streamers got a hold of it as well and people were playing it a lot.