Japanese game industry’s revenue falls 8 percent

Japanese game industry revenue fell 8 percent in 2011, due primarily to a lack of software hits and a steady decline in a major console game sales.

Famitsu, a well-respected Japanese video game magazine, is reporting the decline in revenue. Hardware sales were actually up 2.4 percent thanks to the Sony PlayStation Vita and the Nintendo 3DS which were released last year. However, software sales fell fell 13.7 percent to way below the average from a year before. This marks a string of years in which the Japanese video game market has seen a decline, according to andriasang.com.

While Japan relies on Sony and Nintendo for its gaming needs, the Xbox 360 is still the odd man out overseas, which continues to hurt the Japanese game industry as a whole. The remodeled Xbox 360 and its newest peripheral, the Kinect, are both hits and have had a huge effect on the American market. However, in Japan, the Microsoft machines seem to be an oddity. That makes the market dynamics look a lot different from the western world.

While the western market continues to grow and have a stronger, more stable market in place, Japan may continue to see stats like this in the future.

Here’s are the top hardware sellers:

Nintendo 3DS: 4,135,739

PSP: 1,960,177

PlayStation 3: 1,467,261

Nintendo Wii: 937,451

Nintendo DS: 711,204

PlayStation Vita: 402,794

Xbox 360: 114,075