Wii Top Of The Polls in Japan

It’s easy to forget about non-English speaking gaming territories when it comes to surveys. Although Japan is arguably the most important gaming battleground on Earth, we don’t seem to hear much about what Japanese gamers actually think about next-gen consoles – until now.

Japanese game site Famitsu.com polled its readers on what they think of both next and current generation consoles (Including handheld) from 5/15 to 5/18 on four key questions all related to all the big E3 announcements. In total, 294 responses made up the statistics you will read below. Before I start with the statistics, considering the popularity of Nintendo in Japan, I could make a pretty confident guess as to which console will come out tops on this poll with this being Japan, and I’m sure you could too – Wii all the way.

See the results of the survey after the jump!

It’s easy to forget about non-English speaking gaming territories when it comes to surveys. Although Japan is arguably the most important gaming battleground on Earth, we don’t seem to hear a lot about what Japanese gamers actually think about next-gen consoles – until now.

Japanese game site Famitsu polled its readers on what they think of both next and current generation consoles (Including handheld) from 5/15 to 5/18 on four key questions all related to all the big E3 announcements. In total, 294 responses made up the statistics you will read below. Before I start with the statistics, considering the popularity of Nintendo in Japan, I could make a pretty confident guess as to which console will come out tops on this poll with this being Japan, and I’m sure you could too – Wii all the way.

Predictably, responding to the question of which hardware has their greatest interest, 68.8% of the Famitsu readers said Wii. PS3 grabbed 21.0%, ahead of Xbox 360’s 7.2% and the DS’s 3.0%. The Xbox360 has had a considerable lack of interest lately, dramatised by the fact that at the moment you can trade in a DS Lite for more than an Xbox 360 in Japan!

Famitsu also asked survey takers which hardware they expect to win the next generation race. Again, the Wii won this vote at 73.0%, with PS3 coming in second at 22.6% and Xbox 360 getting 4.4%. Thirdly, survey takers were also questioned on the PS3’s price. In Japan, the base model costs 62,790 yen, a ways up from the PS2‘s original launch price of 37,800 yen, and sure enough, 88.4% of responders felt that this was too high. Only 10.9% felt that it was a reasonable price, while for some reason 0.7% of those polled said that it was too low.

Although Nintendo didn’t reveal the Wii’s price at E3, Famitsu asked readers what they expect the system to cost. Survey takers selected the 25,000 yen price point to the tune of 53.6% of the vote. This isn’t much of a surprise, as all Nintendo consoles have been launched at that very price point. The next popular choice was 30,000 yen, with 35,000 and 20,000 yen coming in at third. And guess what – they were right. Today, Nintendo officially announced that the Wii would cost no more than 25,000 yen.

It seems that my original assumptions were correct, the Wii is hot in Japan. I’ll apologise in advance, but the real question is, with the superior hardware such as the PS3 and Xbox 360 kicking around, why the Wii?

Via IGN