Long-running Japanese IPs leave almost zero room for non-Japanese games in 2024 top game ranking among Japanese gamers 

Japanese game company HIKE recently shared the results of an independent survey on Japanese gamers conducted in 2024. The results revealed that over 90% of players’ most enjoyed games of 2024 were from well-established Japanese game IPs, showing that love for domestic franchises remains strong. 

The survey asked 1000 male and female players, aged from their teens to their 60s, about their game spending habits, favorite hardware and games. Among these varied questions, participants were asked about what games they enjoyed playing the most in 2024. Their answers were then ranked based on game series. In first place with 56 votes was the Final Fantasy series. Although there was no specific information about which titles in Square Enix’s long-running RPG series made up this count, it is likely that Final Fantasy XVI (the latest numbered entry, launched in June 2023) and Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (which came out in February 2024) accounted for a big proportion of the vote. 

In second and third place with the same number of votes were The Legend of Zelda series and the Super Mario series. 2024 was a big year for both of these flagship Nintendo IPs, with The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom releasing, and Mario getting various titles in a year that included the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake, and the chart-topping Super Mario Party Jamboree.  

All of the top 5 series are well-established Japanese franchises which have been running for at least 28 years- Final Fantasy (started in 1987), The Legend of Zelda (1986), Super Mario (1985), Dragon Quest (1986) and Pokémon (1996). The only non-Japanese games on the chart were Genshin Impact (ranked 20) and Fortnite (ranked 21). 

Participants in the survey were divided into “light users,” “medium users” and “core users” based on how much they spent on games and related subscription services during the year. Interestingly, around 50% of the light users said they would focus on playing one game at a time, whereas medium and core users were more likely to switch between playing through multiple titles. Most of the gamers surveyed said they were satisfied with between 70% to 90% of the games they played last year, commonly citing “world/story” and “game system/difficulty level” as reasons for their satisfaction. 

Here is the ranking of game series that Japanese players found most fun to play in 2024: 

The survey also showed how PC gaming is gradually becoming more popular in console-dominated Japan in recent years.