I just came back from the Game Developer Conference in 2025, where many conversations revolved around the gloom and doom in AAA gaming in particular.
While things do not look great for many studios in the West, things are very different in Japan – and I was shocked how little people in the industry still know and understand about the third biggest gaming market in the world (which is a probably a positive for a Japan game industry consultant like myself).
The mass layoffs and studio closures in North America and Europe really have not spilled over to Japan, apart from isolated exceptions that are a drop in the ocean compared to the storm the industry is seeing in the West currently.
The “magnificent 8 Japanese AAA studios” are (generally) still hiring and are even raising salaries (the salaries in gaming in Japan are still terrible, but that’s a topic for another day).
What I would like to highlight here though is that despite what has been happening in the West, the shares of the majority of publicly traded AAA game companies in Japan have reached all-time highs over the last weeks:
- Sony: hit all-time high of 3,904 JPY on February 18, 2025
- Nintendo: 11,800 JPY on February 19, 2025
- Konami: 19,645 JPY on February 19, 2025
- Capcom: 4,100 JPY on February 21, 2025
- Bandai Namco: 5,297 JPY on March 21, 2025
To make the list complete, here are the Japanese gaming stocks whose all-time highs hit more than a while ago:
- Sega Sammy: 4,980 JPY on March 7, 2006 (price today on March 25, 2025: 2,995 JPY)
- Koei Tecmo: 2,995 JPY on September 17, 2021 (today: 2,072 JPY)
- Square Enix: 7,566 JPY on June 21, 2023 (today: 6,872 JPY)
There are certain macro trends playing a major role here (political initiatives like corporate governance reforms in Japan, weakness of other Asian stock markets like China, currency effects, etc.), but the five aforementioned AAA game companies have been doing their homework and performing very well financially over the last few years.
Generally speaking, Japan’s two console platform and hardware providers are winning big time: Sony pulverized Microsoft with the PlayStation 5 this generation, while Nintendo built up its own part of the market with the Switch that is on its way to become the best-selling console of all time.
On the software side, Capcom is in its golden era and seems to land blockbuster after blockbuster, Konami sees early success revitalizing its console IPs after a streak of mobile game hits in Japan and also abroad (with a range of Yu-Gi-Oh apps and more importantly eFootball’s 800 million downloads), and Bandai Namco just boasted record-high sales and profits across all their businesses such as video games and toys.
PS: I am not counting Kadokawa, as subsidiary From Software typically contributes just around 10% to the company’s total sales.
