To many people across the world, Japan is almost synonymous with gaming culture: Japanese companies have played an important role in shaping the global video game industry at least since the 1980s, when the success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) helped to revive an ailing U.S. gaming market. In 1989, the introduction of the Game Boy revolutionized the handheld sector. Since then, many franchises and characters, such as Super Mario, Sonic, and Pokémon, have attained worldwide recognition and popularity. Within Japan, the
, which in this case consists of hardware and packaged software sales, was estimated at 377.4 billion Japanese yen in 2022. The total value of the domestic gaming market is much higher, however, as
The rivalry between console makers
The console market was driven by changing rivalries throughout the decades. While the early 1990s were marked by the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo, the entry of Sony in the mid-1990s and Microsoft in the early 2000s established today's competition between the big three console manufacturers. In the past decade, the Japanese home console market was split between Sony's PlayStation 4 (2014), Microsoft's Xbox One (2014), and Nintendo's Switch (2017), while the handheld market was split between the PlayStation Vita (2011), the Nintendo 3DS (2011), the Nintendo 2DS (2016), the Nintendo Switch, and the Nintendo Switch Lite (2019). In November 2020, Sony and Microsoft ushered in the current generation of home consoles with the release of the
PlayStation 5 and
Xbox Series X. With the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition and the Xbox Series S, downgraded but more affordable versions were released as well. While the competition is more evenly distributed in other countries,
Nintendo and Sony clearly dominate their home market.
Switch games top annual sales rankings
Despite the
spread of smartphones and fears that mobile gaming would cannibalize the console market, both handheld and home console gaming continue to be popular pastimes in Japan. Nintendo remains active in both areas with the Switch, which can be regarded as a hybrid between a home and a handheld console, as well as the Switch Lite, which can only be used as a handheld console. These two consoles were joined by the Nintendo Switch OLED Model, an upgraded version of the basic model, in October 2021. In addition, Valve released the Steam Deck in Japan in August 2022, which increased the competition in the handheld market, and Sony released the PlayStation 5 Pro in November 2024, a more powerful version of the PlayStation 5. As the Nintendo Switch has the largest hardware base among the current consoles, games for the Switch repeatedly dominate the annual ranking of
best-selling video games for consoles.
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