Japan sees big annual increase in multiplatform gamers 

According to the recent annual report by Japan’s Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association (CESA), gamers in Japan are increasingly playing games across multiple platforms, including consoles, mobile and PC.  

Published on December 20, the CESA Game Industry Report 2024 found that the number of gamers in Japan totaled around 55.5 million users in 2023. This was the highest number of players in the last 5 years. What’s more, people playing on more than one platform jumped from 5.9 million in the previous year to 7.3 million in 2023, an increase of around 18%. 

Japan gamer statistics

The survey looked at a sample of 76.2 million people aged 5 to 59. Of these, 55.5 million played games. Mobile was the most popular platform with 43.5 million users, followed by consoles (29.7 million) and PC (14.4 million). There was a significant number of users who play games on both mobile and console (13 million). Over 7 million people reported gaming across mobile, PC and consoles. 

This study only looked at a particular sample, so the real number of gamers in Japan is likely far larger. What is clear is that the number of people gaming across multiple platforms, including consoles, PC and smartphone, is increasing. In recent years, mobile gaming has continued to expand due to the widespread use of smartphones and increased availability of game apps.  

The number of PC gamers has grown, with the PC game market expanding by 25% in 2023. This is also evident from the rising popularity of Steam in Japan. In 2023, Japanese language users of Steam surpassed German and French language users. Recent data from November 2024 shows that Japanese is still the 6^th most used language on Steam at 2.91% of users.