![]() ![]() What separates a China, Korea or India from becoming a Japan, America or Europe in many cases is systems of trade and systems of localization which are much narrower. Despite the natural complications, games are often no less prominent and successful in such countries, even though software distribution is rather limited, particularly of the home consoles. Often the means to acquire games in such regions are more complex (although not necessarily illegal, as one might assume), shifting the market in multiple, intertwining ways. The other collective 70-80% of global population have their own individual market situations. As an American player, perhaps you don’t know very much about the classic Enix RPG Terrinigma? Nay we dare discuss Japan. As an Australian player I cannot legitimately purchase PSone classics such as Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil or Spyro the Dragon through the Playstation Network. Even between these divisions there remains a large disparity in available software. Japan, America and “Europe” (includes Australia and New Zealand) the three regions where video games are most prominent in terms of shared distribution, only account for roughly 20% of the global population. ![]() While casual gaming will no doubt continue to embed itself as a norm of this industry, enjoying the many fruits of its labours, we can already see the swell forming for the next phenomena to succeed casual gaming and that is expansion to global audiences. ![]() Over the past several years we’ve seen an unprecedented turning point for the industry in the form of audience expansion through the advent of casual gaming. If 10 year product life cycles are anything to go by, then we’re perhaps a third of the way through this most recent generation of consoles. (This is another canned GameSetWatch column, I hope you enjoy.) Global Markets as The Next Casual Gaming-sized Phenomena September 7th, 2009 ![]()
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