Gamers in Japan have trended towards free-to-play, bite-sized mobile gaming over console hardware and software to the tune of a billion dollar difference between the two markets.
Specifically, analyst Dr. Serkan Toto says that the Japanese Computer Entertainment Supplier's Associastion's annual report shows the market for console hardware and entertainment software has dropped from $4.8 billion in 2012 to $4 billion in 2013.
That's a 16% drop despite rapid growth in the mobile gaming space. While hardware fell from $1.9 to $1.5 billion in 2013, software sales also fell $400 million to $2.5 billion.
Sony's PlayStation 3 console proved most popular over the past year and accounted for 21.8% of hardware and software sales, though the Nintendo DS portable platform continued to do well with over 45% representation in the entire gaming market while Sony's PlayStation Vita managed to take an 11.7% slice of the pie.
Mobile gaming in its entirety proved itself a viable alternative for gamers in the country who don't want to spend a lot of money investing in one platform just to ignore it when there isn't a new high-profile game to play. In total, Toto reports that mobile gaming is worth $5.1 billion in Japan.
