Gamers’ Dilemma: Too Much Playtime, Not Enough PS5 or Xbox Series

Game news They love video games. But if they play a lot, they don't have a PS5 or Xbox Series!

The reign of mobile video games on the Japanese market

A Japanese study conducted in 2023 recently made headlines by highlighting the video gaming trends of the country's young gamers belonging to Generation Z and whose age is between 15 and 24 years old. The study compiles data collected after the testimony of a sample of 700 people interviewed. According to the report drawn up by SHIBUYA109 Lab, nearly 80% of young Japanese play video games, a vast majority. That being said, the most interesting thing remains the players' preferred platform. Thus, 94.7% of young gamers in the country would opt for mobile, to the detriment of the latest generation consoles.

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The current-gen ignored by the Japanese

According to this study, Japanese players in this age group mainly play on five platforms: mobile, Nintendo Switch, PC, tablets and Nintendo DS. The mention of this latest console may seem surprising given its age, but this trend has since been commented on on X/Twitter as noted by Automaton. Japanese players from Gen Z are mainly looking for portable experiences and have suffered from the transition from DS to 3DS.

Free-to-play games would be the most popular in the region, unlike traditional AAA which would no longer succeed in attracting these young players as much. But more interestingly, the PS5 and Xbox Series are not on this list. Considering the games most appreciated by these consumers, we quickly understand why. That being said, the absence of these consoles would also be justified by the declining purchasing power of these players, who, according to the same study, only spend 10,446 yen per year on average, or a little less than 70 dollars or the average cost of an AAA.