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Valve recently improved the Steam client's Japanese support, and native Japanese PC game services like DMM have expanded.Īdditionally, some of Japan's most popular mobile games now have PC versions. More Japanese console games than ever now receive PC versions. Newcomers who took up playing during pandemic lockdowns drifted naturally toward computers.

Several other factors are also boosting Japan's PC gaming market. In September, Valve said Japan might have the world's fastest-growing PC game market. For some, a decent gaming PC (that can double as a work-from-home computer) might be more attainable. Japanese fans are begging Square Enix to release it on Steam because, ironically, PS5s are still very hard to get in Japan despite it being Sony's home country. Final Fantasy XVI will be exclusive to the PlayStation 5 for six months.

One likely reason some Japanese users recently turned toward PC is the lack of console availability. Japanese RPGs originated on those platforms before moving to consoles which became dominant in the late 80s and the 90s. The country had a diverse market of PC titles in the early 1980s on local home computers like the PC-8801, Sharp X1, or FM-7.

The number of users playing games exclusively on PC also doubled, going from 2.2 million to 4.5 million.ĭesktop gaming has long been a niche in Japan, but that wasn't always the case. Between 20, the number of PC gamers in Japan grew by 45 percent from 11 million to 16 million out of a total gaming user base of 22 million.

Mobile is easily the most dominant sector of the market, but PC has seen noticeable changes recently.įrom 2018 to 2021, Japan's PC gaming market doubled in size. While PC is still nowhere near dominant in Japan, recent numbers indicate multiple factors are helping it grow there.Ī recent analysis from Japan's Kadokawa ASCII Research Laboratories shows that PC gaming has grown significantly in Japan over the last few years. The big picture: For decades, many have considered the PC game market a niche in Japan - a country traditionally associated with arcade and console games.