Gaming Culture "Hand Held Devices & Console Features"

I have been researching into some of the cultural aspects that surround hand held & console features  in gaming to gain a better understanding of why they are more popular in one or the others culture.

First up among these aspects are the hand held devices that have become more and more popular in Japan but seem to be less popular among the western audiences, so why is this? Well one of the main things is that many of the features that have been built into these handhelds have been designed with Japan in mind. Take the street pass wifi feature, where your 3Ds connects with other gamers when you are on the go. This fits well within the heavy populated Japanese cities where public transport is more popular than the car. Another aspect is the fact of space, with a huge population Japan doesn't have as much space as say the USA, so what this means is smaller hosing which leads to less, if only one TV set within the home, so as a result the hand held is a more convenient choice to fit the family life.

The Sony PS Vita

The Nintendo 3Ds

Further proof for this idea of space and population having an impact on the popularity of gaming devices can be found within theses two consoles below. The Wii U's show case feature was being able to switch from TV to gaming via the control pad, which might not appeal to western houses where families have a TV in each room, as a result this could be why it hasn't been successful among our western culture. Another example of this comes with the Xbox one, with comes a camera which tracks your movement to an able the player become the controller, but with this requires space for it to work well which yet again could be why Xbox hasn't really took off in Japan.

The Nintendo Wii U 

The Xbox One

I think this has been an import an piece of research because it has given me a important insight as to what type of cultural aspects you need to consider when designing a concept for a game. It's like understanding your target audience and tailoring it to their cultural ways, which will then lead to maximum sales.

All information sourced from:
http://www.examiner.com/article/culture-clash-japanese-and-western-gaming