In Japan, entertainment moves beyond games

Courtesty of Gamasutra, I recenty ran across a survey conducted in Japan showing that people are spending more time on the Internet,  less time playing games, and have an increased interest in mobile phones. Given that many people in Japan access the Internet primarily through their mobile phones (more so than in the US, certainly) this cluster of findings is not surprising.

What's striking to me is how the Internet has broadened our notion of what's considered "entertainment." More and more people are spending time on MySpace, Facebook, podcasts, youtube, videochats, picture messaging etc. All these services leverage user-generated content to entertain people -- without the support of "authored" games. Note that many of these services have game-like elements such as groups, leaderboards, and social rating systems. So are these social-networking, user-driven systems a new type of game? Hmmm...

Japanese Internet Users Gaming Less.

new cross-media survey of 1,176 Japanese internet users from the ages of 10 to 65 has been conducted by Japanese marketing research firm service Nikkei Research, and questioned participants regarding their usage of various media formats such as television, newspapers, magazines, free papers, radio, internet, mobile phones (excluding phone calls and e-mail) and gaming platforms.

The survey results, which were translated by consumer website GameSpot, found that of those surveyed, 42.4 percent indicated that they are spending more time using the internet, mostly at the expense of other media use. By comparison, a nearly equal amount – 42.6 percent – noted less time playing games. This is particularly interesting given recent news that found that the Nintendo DS has become the fastest console or handheld ever to sell 10 million units in Japan, taking just 20 months to reach the milestone.

In addition, those who reported a declining interest in gaming also indicated an increased interest in mobile phones, a move which the research firm noted was due mainly to the wide array of functionality that is built into modern mobile phones.

The report also found that other forms of media, including television, radio, and magazines saw a decline in usage of 20 percent or more, especially among those who reported increased use of the internet. Finally, survey participants were questioned what media they expect to use more of in the future, to which the top four answers were podcasts, the internet, portable digital audio devices, and digital TV broadcasts made available for portable devices.