I knew that PC gaming wasn't big in Japan, and some members of the forum have commented about the restrictions they face in the country. So I was expecting something, just not this much.

First, there's the steam sales. The holes on the gaming deals are glaringly obvious, with sometimes as much as a third of the games missing. I was ready to not see the total war games here, as I was warned about Sega. I noticed the Naruto game missing, too, but that must be by a Japanese developer as well. You'd think that an anime game would be expected to sell well in Japan, but whatever. So I don't get it, but I know the Japanese are strange and I just live with it. Dark souls or MGS: Revengeance fall on the same category.

However, as the deals went on, I noticed stranger things. Why is Nether, which is apparently an indie, restricted in Japan? Why is EA not selling Kingdoms of Amalur (not even in Origin, I just checked) or Dragon age: origins? What is the 4th "platformer with a female protagonist", together with Tomb Raider, They bleed pixels and Giana sisters, that is available for voting as a community's choice yet I cannot see as it is region locked?

Oh, but this is steam, right. There's still the brick&mortar stores, and there are some big ones. In theory. I went with my friend to visit some stores in Osaka, and while we ended up spending way too much time on card stores (collectible cards appear to be big over here, which makes more puzzling why they don't use steam) but I still managed to check out a 7 floor computing store. There was a floor for videogames, with tons of games all around... for console. I did manage to find a corner for PC games, but it was not only really well hidden among video DVDs but the selection was very weird. Well, more like random, and freaking expensive. I saw AvP2 for 5700 yens, or BGII: Shadows of amn for 7100!! Saints row 3 too, can't remember the price. For comparison, when checking on Origin earlier I saw Watchdogs is 6000 yen, titanfall 6600 and the sims 4 for 7600. WTF!!!

Now, at that point I thought maybe it was a collector's place. There was a lot of merchandising on the shop, so I thought maybe it was that. As I said, Japan is strange (they have wasabi flavored popcorn, for fuck's sake) and I'm OK with that. But then I found even more PC games on the next door, and this time more "modern" stuff live civ 5 or the witcher 2. Still nothing new.

Oh, but do not fear, the last 2 floors seemed dedicated to PC gaming! Pity it was all porn, but hey, it's PC! Well, it didn't put it clearly on the box (that, or I didn't look where I should have been looking), but I checked the backside of a couple of them and they did have a min specs box, so they probably were PC games. Gotta admit I didn't stick around to confirm that both floors were only for PC, but that's what it looked like to me on a quick inspection.

So, in summary: Japan is weird and seems to only like PC for selling overpriced classics and porn games. Gross simplification of this one experience, yes, but it should mean something right? Can somebody explain it to me?

PS: I'm also pretty sure I saw a steamworks game on the second hand bargain bin. I couldn't find steam's logo on the box, and now I don't remember the title to go and check online if it really was steamworks, so I've left it out of my rant. I'm still bothered about it though.

Mirror's Edge


I have no answers for you otherwise, but I recall seeing Bansama mention this odd bias against PC games many times. It is, indeed, pretty damned weird.

Now, I haven't been to Japan, so I cannot speak from personal experience, but media prices seem quite insane. I doubt those were collector's editions you were seeing. I remember reading about how a DVD with, say, two episodes from an anime series costs equal to what I'd have to pay for a whole season or two here.

The freedom of the PC platform is why those porn games are there (console makers won't accept such games for their platforms, and there's no ruler over the PC), and those games are likely why most publishers stay clear of the PC (they don't want to get associated with the "porn" platform).

Yes, I've read some of his posts as well. Which is why I was expecting *some* bias against it. I'm seeing a lot more than I expected, though. Funny, things like manga seem to be half the price I would have to pay on a Spanish shop. And when I bought the original Dragon Ball in Basque dubs, it costed about 5€ per episode. So yeah, compared to that, I don't see such crazy prices. And I'm saying that BGII on a shop was more expensive than a brand new game like Watchdogs. That is too weird no matter how I look at it.

Piña kid in Mango land. Thanks for sharing your adventures.

I would have expected Japan to be console focused for obvious reasons, and Bansama always told us how the pricing were insane over there, but this is still surprising to see PC titles having so little presence in the videogaming .... fauna (?).

Why are you in Japan ?

I just couldn´t read past the first sentence, when this started to play in my head. :P

He's looking for a sealed original copy of Sacrifice.

There's a Basque dub of Dragon Ball? That's fucking cool.

As for why console gaming is bigger, I think it might have something to do with having large console companies based in Japan. They seem to prefer buying Nintendo and Sony to Microsoft, as the Xbox does really poorly over there.

This one for me :)

[url=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWIR9mvf-IU[/url]

"What the hell, Japan?" is a question I often ask regarding various subjects.

Ok, not going to lie, wasabi flavored pop corn sounds delicious :3

So yeah, I noticed that there's not that many big Japanese PC games as well.
There's visual novels, but those don't really count imo.

I suspect it has something to do with their heritage of arcade consoles and Nintendo and all that jazz.
The Japanese more or less started the whole console thing, right?

Sure the Atari was an American creation, but the NES was a bigger deal, wasn't it?

The NES brought things back after Atari crashed the market, but I'm not certain how much Japan adopted the 2600. Arcades were absolutely massive in Japan though. As I sorta suggested, I think part of is has to do with a cultural thing, like how America has "Buy American" and "Made in the USA," Japan similarly has sorta brand loyalty to their products, which given that two of the big three console manufactures (and previously all three!) are Japanese, I think that drives a good amount of the adoption of consoles over PCs as gaming machines.

Yeah, that's what I suspected.
That appears to be the most logical reason.

Reading this all I can see is me never getting to own Resident Evil 1-3 on PC via GOG.

Sorry, I just feel the way that Japanese companies react to the PC market is being more ass-backwards then their strange attraction to porn. On porn I am sure that I saw once that there is a porn game available for the Nintendo DS.
I believe in the video I saw years ago that you go around "poking" young girls with the stylus until they remove their clothes.

You sure that was legit? I thought Nintendo were the poster child for prudish "family friendly" games. I'm sure there were loads of stories about them rejecting games just for hinting that adults may actually exist.