Japanese game company HIKE recently shared the results of an independent survey on Japan’s game market via a free online seminar. The survey, conducted in 2024, researched the spending habits and preferences of Japanese gamers, including statistics on people’ preferred gaming hardware (excluding data on mobile games, as this was covered in a separate survey).
Although the Nintendo Switch has dominated Japan’s gaming scene for years, the results of the survey showed a steady growth in the popularity of PC gaming, which has generally been slower to enter the Japanese market than in other regions.
Data was collected from 1,000 male and female gamers, aging from their teens to their 60s. Based on their annual spending habits, the respondents were divided into “light users” (54%), who spend $70 or less on games per year, “medium users” (36%), who spend between $70 and $330, and “core users” (10%), who spend over $330. The three categories are represented in dark green, grey and black respectively in the graphs below.
The number one most preferred gaming hardware across all three groups in 2024 was the Nintendo Switch, which was the first choice of 41.2% of light users and 23.6% of core users. These results are close to those from 2023, but slightly lower compared to 2022.
On the other hand, PC was the first choice of 19.6% of light users, 16.4% of medium users and 19.0% of core gamers, rising among all three categories compared to the previous year (respective figures for 2023 were 17.6%, 16.0% and 16.9%)
Although its popularity decreased slightly compared to 2023, the PS4 was still very popular in 2024, chosen as the preferred gaming hardware of 19.8% of light users and 19.6% of medium users. The console was less popular among core users (the least represented group in the survey), 20.1% of whom elected the PS5 as their console of choice. On the other hand, despite its popularity among the highest-spending demographic, the PS5 was the first choice of 13.0% percent of light gamers, making it significantly less represented than the PC and PS4 in the largest category.
