Niko Partners: Youth gamers in Japan
Gaming trends among Japanese youth: preferences, behaviors, and parental views.
The company studied the behavior of Japanese individuals aged 6 to 18 who spend at least one hour per week playing games.
The majority of Japanese youth play on consoles (72.3%). Following that are mobile devices (63.8%) and PCs (14.7%). Parents prefer consoles due to greater content control.
Young gamers play an average of 8 hours per week on mobile devices and around 6.5 hours each on PCs and consoles.
Japanese youth are more receptive to Western games, eSports, streaming, and VTubers. For example, 46% of Japanese youth watch esports competitions, compared to only 12% of all Japanese gamers.
Buy-to-play games remain very popular in Japan, including among young players.
Japanese youth's parents generally have a positive attitude towards games and are even open to playing themselves.
The majority (66.9%) of Japanese parents believe that setting limits on game time is the responsibility of each individual family, rather than the government.