Video games are a living element of Japanese popular culture. The video game industry began to dominate Japan since the late 1970s and over time dominated the global market. In this article, we will talk a little about the influence of games in Japan.
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Nintendo and Sony
The 2 Japanese companies have dominated the global gaming market, with Nintendo staying on top for many years, but due to maintaining traditionalism and Japanese culture, it has been losing the war abroad. Sony did exactly the opposite, surrendering to Western culture, and began to release games with more realistic or war-themed content.
Nintendo specializes in creating and developing its own exclusive games and tends to create consoles with gameplay in mind. Meanwhile, Sony has the help of millions of Western companies that release games on its platform due to its more robust hardware focused on realistic graphics.
Microsoft has not been very successful in Japan, neither in games nor in computers. Some prefer to use Apple’s operating system, which is quite popular in Japan.
The real war between Sony and Microsoft can be seen in portable consoles. Nintendo wins this war with its 3DS, which is quite popular worldwide. Meanwhile, Sony’s PSVita has its highest popularity in Japan due to its numerous visual novel games and anime-based games.
Game Centers
The famous arcades are very popular in Japan. While in the West they are dying, in Japan there is one crazier machine than another. A well-known company that focuses on releasing arcade games for Game Centers is Bandai. To talk more about Game Centers, which is a very broad topic, I will leave a video from Velberan. By following his channel, you will learn a lot about Japanese games. Also, check out his other channel Japan through other eyes.
Pachinko
Another very popular pastime in Japan is pachinko, a form of Japanese casino. There are pachinko parlors all over the country. Pachinko is a big business in Japan – the best part is that people do not gamble for money, they play just for fun or to exchange for prizes. It is also worth mentioning another gambling machine that is quite popular in Game Centers, the one that grabs stuffed animals with claws.
Visual Novel
Visual novels are very popular games in Japan. Everyone should know that Japanese people really enjoy reading; there are countless books, mangas, and novels. This also happens in video games. Visual novels are text-based games where you interact within a story and make your own decisions. A large part of these games tends to be romantic, while others are even erotic games. There are thousands of visual novels, many of which end up becoming anime, and some are based on an anime.
Influence of Manga and Anime on Games
Thousands of manga and anime games are produced every year, a large part of which are visual novels, and it is still possible to find good adventure, fighting, and strategy games. Most of these games are released on portable consoles, especially on Sony’s.
There are also thousands of good games that have been adapted into some anime or manga and even Live Action Movies. We have the example of the famous Pokémon, and a very popular visual novel called Steins;Gate that had a great adaptation, and the most recent anime God Eater.
Talking about games in Japan is quite complicated; it was not possible to cover even 1% of what exists to discuss. This was just a brief summary. And you? What is your opinion about games in Japan? What is your favorite style? Do you have anything to say? Leave your comment!
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