How could PC gaming become/stay relevant in Japan?

[Neoteros]

Once upon a time, console gaming was dominated by Japanese companies, and even today Japan is one of the superpowers of console gaming, on par with the United States; PC gaming, however, seems to be almost nonexistent in Japan, visual novels being the only exception to this rule - some of them having become popular enough to be adapted for television as anime series, like for example Fate/stay night.

Compare and contrast South Korea, a neighbouring and culturally similar country in which PC gaming has become a professional sport, and China (both the mainland and Taiwan), in which PC gaming is quite widespread as well. Why did PC gaming in Japan become so uncommon, and how could it become at least as popular in Japan as in the countries neighbouring the archipelago? Fate/stay night could work quite well as a J-RPG, after all.

 

[Nivek]

Once upon a time, console gaming was dominated by Japanese companies, and even today Japan is one of the superpowers of console gaming, on par with the United States; PC gaming, however, seems to be almost nonexistent in Japan, visual novels being the only exception to this rule - some of them having become popular enough to be adapted for television as anime series, like for example Fate/stay night.

Make a Computer with a OS can read kanji since day zero, i invited you to read/buy both the untold story of japanese developers...Japan was a PC gaming paradise too, the issue were early PC were pretty entusiast only and mostly that market was smalller per capita(japan got early to 1 millon micro and later computer, but US broke 10 and 100 millions of pc quickier) mostly because PC in japan were unable to read kanji properlly till mid 90's and console being far cheaper PC who needed use complex hexadecimal code for basic kanji till windows 98 revolution IIRC.

 

[Electric Monk]

What Nivek said plus the PC situation in Japan was a mess just like the USA pre-Commodore price war.

Consumer operating systems that could and did display Kanji: Amiga Workbench & Macintosh System. Workbench was not officially ported to Japanese & Macs were expensive. The easy answer is figure out a way for Atari to be a major player in Japan (and to be better run so Jay Miner stays there with his Amiga project) perhaps alongside Namco if Atari Japan is still sold to them.

Or a different player buys Amiga instead of Commodore for a mid 1980s POD—maybe Fujitsu (replacing the FM Towns of OTL). Or I dunno IBM buys Atari as they thought about and Don Estridge takes the company to killer heights including Japan.

 

[Pipcard]

Make a Computer with a OS can read kanji since day zero, i invited you to read/buy both the untold story of japanese developers...Japan was a PC gaming paradise too, the issue were early PC were pretty entusiast only and mostly that market was smalller per capita(japan got early to 1 millon micro and later computer, but US broke 10 and 100 millions of pc quickier) mostly because PC in japan were unable to read kanji properlly till mid 90's and console being far cheaper PC who needed use complex hexadecimal code for basic kanji till windows 98 revolution IIRC.

While I also believe that is a reason for why the Japanese electronics industry declined, that still doesn't explain why "PC gaming is quite widespread" in China, when they have Hanzi (which Kanji was derived from).

 

[Nivek]

While I also believe that is a reason for why the Japanese electronics industry declined, that still doesn't explain why "PC gaming is quite widespread" in China, when they have Hanzi (which Kanji was derived from).

I don't want to say Galapagos syndrome but seems Japan missed part of the microchip revolutions of 90's what allow the rise of specialize CPU, GPU and others parts, japan got but for more industrial/component that consumers and that was a lost market. Other would be as say before console were specialize for videogame and japanese prefered not using PC until those were better at Kanji(plus China leapfrogged the japanese using direct english and windows) but that still not explain Korea.... computer market is more complex what we thought.

 

[trurle]

Once upon a time, console gaming was dominated by Japanese companies, and even today Japan is one of the superpowers of console gaming, on par with the United States; PC gaming, however, seems to be almost nonexistent in Japan, visual novels being the only exception to this rule - some of them having become popular enough to be adapted for television as anime series, like for example Fate/stay night.

Compare and contrast South Korea, a neighbouring and culturally similar country in which PC gaming has become a professional sport, and China (both the mainland and Taiwan), in which PC gaming is quite widespread as well. Why did PC gaming in Japan become so uncommon, and how could it become at least as popular in Japan as in the countries neighbouring the archipelago? Fate/stay night could work quite well as a J-RPG, after all.

The console dominance in Japan is mostly linked to the stricter adherence to the copyright laws by Japanese society. Even today many Japanese are not properly understand the differences between common trade goods and software. Therefore, while other countries enjoyed free or hacked PC games (and later bought a lot of non-free ones), Japanese were looking on PC games with deep suspicion ("What is this? Is it lawful? Why it is free? Where is the trap?"). Also, (mobile) consoles, especially Nintendo varieties, have developed a socialization role among younger Japanese schoolchildren - a feat not really possible with PC tied to home.

Make a Computer with a OS can read kanji since day zero, i invited you to read/buy both the untold story of japanese developers...Japan was a PC gaming paradise too, the issue were early PC were pretty entusiast only and mostly that market was smalller per capita(japan got early to 1 millon micro and later computer, but US broke 10 and 100 millions of pc quickier) mostly because PC in japan were unable to read kanji properlly till mid 90's and console being far cheaper PC who needed use complex hexadecimal code for basic kanji till windows 98 revolution IIRC.

Irrelevant. It is actually more difficult to implement kanji display on console (due more limiting hardware capabilities), but kanji were implemented on consoles from the very beginning nonetheless. Neoteros make a good point - similarly non-alhabetic Chinese have not developed console dominance.


Overall, console dominance era in Japan is already ending. My children use both console and PC games, but..many games they like are simply do not have a console versions.