Market analysis firm CyberZ reports that smartphones game revenues in Japan rose 56 per cent in 2013 to US$5.4 billion.
Game sales in Japan totalled US$10.8 billion last year, up from $9.8 billion in the previous year. CyberZ also notes that Android, iOS and other smartphone games accounted for 50 per cent of total Japanese game revenues in 2013, up from 30 per cent in 2012.
While US$5.4 billion was generated by traditional console, handheld and PC platforms in Japan last year, CyberZ also predicts that smartphones game revenues will rise to US$6.5 billion in 2014.
As reported earlier, the Asian region is becoming the biggest growth driver of economic value in mobile/online games, with OTT messaging platforms also disrupting mobile game markets as Kakao Talk (KR), WeChat (CN) and Line (JP) take significant shares of top app store rankings in Asia, according to UK-based investment firm Digi-Capital.
Digi-Capital also predicts that mobile games could drive total games software industry revenue to circa US$100 billion by 2017, with the mobile and online games sectors combined to take 60 per cent of games software market share.
