Author Topic: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)  (Read 28573 times)

Offline Nirmugen

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Have you ever been asking yourself about how or why the japanese gaming industry changed so much that now they are in a big inflexion point where the home gaming console and even the handheld market are in danger to disappear or be in a really weak position in the long term and how this
affect the whole industry?


Well, maybe with this info we can have a point of discussion and reasoning about that.


Last week, 4gamer, a gaming JP website, posted an article about some research of the last quater of the fiscal year maded to what they know as "The Big 6" (Bandai-Namco, Sega-Sammy, Square-Enix, Konami, Capcom and Koei-Tecmo) which years ago they were "the Big 5" but a new company was considerated this time.


In the 3Q, Square-Enix was the company which has the best improvement in sales/profits than last year 3Q results.





In order (up to down) : Koei-Tecmo, Sega-Sammy, Bandai-Namco, Square-Enix, Capcom and Konami


But this isn't the more important part of the article.


If we put things in perspective, 3Q-4Q (Holiday-Winter-first weeks of Spring) are the most important period for the home console market in Japan.


Sales and income are really big and the companies has their part of the market more lucrative that time. Look the comparisons between them in the 3Q period of last year:





Sales of 3Q for "the Big 6". In order (from left to right): Bandai-Namco, Sega-Sammy, Konami, Square-Enix, Capcom and Koei-Tecmo.




Income of 3Q for "the Big 6". In order: Bandai-Namco, Sega-Sammy, Square-Enix, Konami, Capcom and Koei-Temco.

The position of the companies in both graphics have notorious differences.


-Bamco is a monster in sales and income, almost the double of the sales and the triple of the income of SS in that period.
-SS stood in their own with a really good portion of the sales and income.
-SE lost in sales with Konami but they have a good income.
-Konami had strong sales but a weak performance in income.
-Capcom was the weakest and the lowest in comparison with the first four but they had the same income as Konami.
-Koei-Tecmo had they best quarter in years with an improvement in both areas but the lowest part of market for being less porwerful that the others.


Now, here is the thing, although the market move billions of yens/dollars, if we compare this results with the 3 most prominent developers of the mobile market (GungHo, Mixi and Colopl, each one of them with a  single strong app) in the same period of time, the results speak for themselves:





Sales of 3Q: In order (from left to right): Bandai-Namco, Sega-Sammy, Konami, GungHo, Square-Enix, Mixi, Colopl and Koei-Tecmo.




Income of 3Q. In order (from left to right): GungHo, Bandai-Namco, Mixi, Colopl, Sega-Sammy, Square-Enix, Capcom, Konami and Koei-Tecmo.

-GungHo maybe didn't have the same amount of sales like Bamco but they surpassed them in income and that was a lot of money in their pocket.
-Both Mixi and Colopl have the same amount of sales as Capcom but they surpassed SS in income.


And to put the icing on the cake, this 3 companies have the same amount of sales/profits almost every quarter.

So, we can see clearly why many companies choose the invest more and more in mobiles.


Is this the principal reason of the big change? No, not at all.


See, I wait to the 3Q results for a reason: Home console and handheld gaming market can to be profitable in this period but in the 3/4 of the rest of the year will not happen the same.

If a company has a strong part of the mobile market, they have the same privilege as the other mobile gaming companies , although not the same sales/profits but a good one.


Just see how Bamco and SS has their FY in terms of profits for packaged software (blue) and digital software (red).


Bandai-Namco:




Sega-Sammy:




Well, that is for this OP. Any questions?

Offline Deefy

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2015, 11:53:03 pm »
Great thread Nirmugen, I am aware of the situation you reported (that you have well-argued) regarding the Japanese gaming business, but I am convinced that many Western players are poorly informed on the subject or that in some cases they deluded still trying desperately not to look at what is already the present.

Having said that, the trend not only in Japan but throughout Asia and we can also say the West is that of the mobile gaming and this doesn't make me absolutely pleased but the worst and I reiterate for well concerns SEGA that in addition to behold relegated for years now to the secondary core business in the hierarchies holding, it seen to divert the bulk of its force development towards mobile gaming and worse still, a lot of resources in the direction of future mega casino centers, resort and other amenities like that.
SEGA STYLE

Offline Mariano

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2015, 06:42:56 pm »
Nice topic man  :)

Offline George

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2015, 07:40:35 pm »
OK. Why does Namco-bandai make so much cash. Explain someone.

Offline Nirmugen

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2015, 09:11:44 pm »
Animu, George. Toys (Bandai is the biggest toy manufacter in the world) and merchandising of popular animus....and they owned Gundam, the quintessential mecha series.

Offline George

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2015, 09:56:33 pm »
So not because of games? Figured that much out.

Offline Nirmugen

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #6 on: February 25, 2015, 12:03:35 am »
Well, we can put anime  games in the merchandising side of Bamco. In reality, is the same thing.

Namco-not Bandai related- games doesn't sell well this day btw.

Offline Trippled

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #7 on: February 25, 2015, 03:43:09 am »
Well it's not SS make so much because of games...

Offline George

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #8 on: February 25, 2015, 04:30:43 am »
They make games?

Offline Trippled

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #9 on: February 25, 2015, 06:02:49 am »
One thing is to note is that Sega build their own brands, where Namco Bandai just licensed stuff. Gundam is their biggest arcade seller, all of Sega's big arcade sellers are their own IP.

I mean the big brands in Japan for Sega such as Yakuza, Border Break, Sangoku Taisen, WCCF, PSO2 and Chain Chronicle are all Sega's home grown IP. Not to mention Sega kicked off the kids arcade game market with their own IP as well several years ago. They made their own characters to sell characters to children, instead of say, just licensing Yu-G-Oh.

Miku is the sole exception.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2015, 06:04:43 am by Trippled »

Offline George

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #10 on: February 25, 2015, 02:16:53 pm »
I think some of those brands could have been global brands if SEGA wasn't so stuck with that 'us (japanese) vs them' attitude. I really do believe that Border Break port would do great on Steam, they would eat up a Japanese mech shooting game, I think we all know that PHantasy Star Online 2 would have done well, and Chain Chronicles has its popularity already here.

Such a shame. Maybe one day SEGA will have a decent marketing firm and people that believe in their internal brands instead of licensing Alien games.

Offline Nirmugen

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #11 on: February 25, 2015, 04:20:34 pm »
I think now with the son of Hatomi and the President of TMS on charge in Sega, many ideas could be approved in the future.

I mean, this two guys made a bunch of good decisions the last couple years with Sega Networks and reiforcing the TMS brand with strong material.

Also, we know that Sega got their "contacts" in the 90's. Maybe know they could use it for a good reason.

Offline Trippled

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #12 on: February 26, 2015, 06:19:17 am »
I don't know, Naoya Tsurumi strategy was to throw anything at the wall and see what sticks when retail was viable, and arcades where carrying them.

Now, Hideki Okumura and Haruki Satomi are going for "market-savy" and "profitable".

Offline Nirmugen

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #13 on: March 04, 2015, 04:09:49 pm »
Well, now Konami (the company with the great sales but low profits) is gonna be "reorganized" a.k.a Full digital mobile and PC Online: http://www.konami-digital-entertainment.co.jp/en/news/release/2015/0303/?cm_sp=01-_-release-_-20150303-e


Kojima apparently expressed about this future change with the "no more MGS" response, although he maded this claim after the release of MGS4. Well maybe the ex-Castelvania producer could tell us about th-wait, he already did it.


Calling the media to report about that.....nobody...really? Even if it is relevant like the Sega deal?....no clickbait-a-like with this news I pressume.


Who's next? I choose Capcom....

Offline Aki-at

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Re: The reason of the change in the Japanese gaming business (information)
« Reply #14 on: March 04, 2015, 06:08:18 pm »
Well, now Konami (the company with the great sales but low profits) is gonna be "reorganized" a.k.a Full digital mobile and PC Online: http://www.konami-digital-entertainment.co.jp/en/news/release/2015/0303/?cm_sp=01-_-release-_-20150303-e

Interesting but it doesn't seem to be much in terms of job losses so far, we shall see in the coming days, they may just not have announced axing any personals just yet.