Japan didn’t invent the first computer game. That accolade goes to “Space War!”, a game created in 1962 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.
But ever since then, Japan has embraced gaming culture with an almost unrivaled passion. From the Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog games that became cultural giants, to the Sega Mega Drive and Game Boy consoles which were symbols of their time, gaming was led by Tokyo for decades.
“Without the contributions of Japan, we wouldn’t have a video game industry,” Blake J. Harris, a video game expert and author of “Console Wars,” says. “Or, at least, not one that resembles what we have today in any way.
“From hardware to software, controllers to culture, no country has had a bigger influence on console gaming.”
After decades of dominance, however, Japan’s cultural clout waned during the early 2000s.
Sony PlayStation (home console by Sony) 1994
In 1988, Nintendo and Sony started collaborating on a supercharged version of the Super NES, capable of playing both regular cartridges and a new disc format. Nintendo was interested in the rising CD-ROM technology, which Sony was standardizing at the time with Philips. Sony, it was decided, would brand and produce the console, taking the Japanese electronics giant into the lucrative video game market.
But after it was announced at the 1991 Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, the deal fell apart over a revenue sharing dispute. The “Nintendo Play Station” never materialized, but Sony reworked that idea into its own console, which used regular CD-ROMs.
CDs were far cheaper than cartridges and offered greater storage space. “This format not only made games cheaper to produce,” says Harris, “but also allowed developers to create cutting-edge games like ‘Tomb Raider,’ ‘Tekken 2’ and ‘Grand Turismo.’
“With an impressive library and affordable pricing, Sony’s PlayStation became the first console to sell 100 million units.”
Pokémon Go (game for iOS and Android) 2016
Developed by American company Niantic, “Pokémon Go” is based on a game franchise originally called “Pocket Monsters,” which Nintendo launched on the Game Boy in 1996. In those games, players would explore a fictional version of the Kanto region of Japan, looking for rare monsters to catch, train and fight.
That classic formula, based on the mantra “you gotta catch ‘em all,” is enhanced in “Pokémon Go” through “augmented reality,” which uses the smartphone’s camera to superimpose the Pokémon on the real world.
“By leveraging the GPS and camera capabilities of mobile devices. Niantic was able to create a compelling augmented reality experience that had people around the world running through the streets in search of characters near and far,” says Harris.
When released in July 2016, “Pokemon Go” was a worldwide phenomenon, with hundreds of people caught on camera flocking to New York’s Central Park at 11pm one night to catch a rare Vaporeon that had appeared there.
Although the fad has since subsided, the game was downloaded over 500 million times and was the third most popular topic of 2016 on Twitter.
