Single Player Games Beat Multiplayer, at Least in Japan
Playing for the story, preferring single player games, loving RPGs, owning a Switch - do you know what these traits have in common? They describe the average Japanese gamer.
- Japanese gamers play single player titles more often than people from other regions of the world;
- 45% of those surveyed in the Land of the Rising Sun said that their favourite game genre is RPG;
- The Japanese play games less often to relax (50% vs. 63%), but more often to immerse themselves in a story (45% vs. 38%);
- As of November 22 this year, Switch has shipped over 22 million copies in Japan.
It's not uncommon to joke that Japan is a state of mind. This statement is partly reflected in stats. According to Newzoo.com (via VentureBeat.com), Japanese gamers play single player titles more often than people from other regions of the world - on PC, consoles and mobile devices. The data is shown on the screen below (green bars - Japan, gray - global results).
The survey involved 1141 gamers aged 10-65 from Japan and 52,000 gamers from 33 other countries.
What is the reason? Perhaps the great popularity enjoyed by mobile games in Japan. It is on these devices dedicated that the Japanese most often play solo (74%), while online games are usually played through PCs and consoles (45% in both cases). At the same time, regardless of the platform, online modes are less popular than single-player modes - a trend that is maintained globally for mobile devices, but reverses when consoles and PCs are taken into account.
What do the Japanese play? 45% of those surveyed said that RPGs were their favourite game genre. The second choice was adventure games. Only in sixth place came shooters, which were the most popular genre in the other 33 countries surveyed - which also explains the bigger popularity of multiplayer gaming.
Nevertheless, the residents of Japan also like Apex Legends, for example. However, Respawn Entertainment's battle royale is no match for such titles as Pokémon, Genshin Impact, Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. Therefore, the exceptionally good sales of the Switch in Japan should not come as a surprise - by November 22 this year Nintendo's console had sold over 22 million copies, which is about one-fifth of global sales.
An interesting distribution of answers can also be observed in case of questions on the reasons for interacting with digital entertainment. It turns out that the Japanese play games less often than other nations to relax (50% vs. 63%), but they do it more often to immerse themselves in the story (45% vs. 38%). This is yet another element that explains the standout popularity of single-player titles in this country.
