‘Danganronpa’ Studio Spike Chunsoft Declares “The Japanese Market Is Still The Most Important To Us”
As many of their Japanese entertainment peers have responded to the country’s shrinking pool of available customers by turning their development attentions overseas, Spike Chunsoft English Branch CEO Yasuhiro Iizuka promises that the famed Danganronpa and AI: The Somnium Files studio is keeping local markets at the center of their creative plans.
Iizuka, who also serves as an Executive Officer of Spike Chunsoft main Japanese operation, spoke to the studio’s Japan-centric focus during a recent interview given to the aptly named Automaton West arm of the eponymous video game news outlet.
Following a larger discussion regarding the Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero studio’s prioritization of quality games and intra-industry relationships over profit, the CEO offered the conclusive note that “While we are actively working on our overseas expansion, the Japanese market is still the most important to us. Japanese games can only be made in Japan.”
“Also, if the Japanese game industry wasn’t this strong, we wouldn’t have been able to enter the Steam market as steadily as we did, and our overseas businesses wouldn’t be going so smoothly,” he added. “I believe the strength of the Japanese market will also be of benefit to Western games. The costs that go into developing those games are huge, so we want to maintain a strong market in Japan in which such titles will also be able to succeed.”
As noted above, Iizuka’s reassurance comes amidst an ongoing wave of Japanese entertainment companies upping their efforts to invest in and growing their international, particularly Western audiences.
And far from just smaller, fan-favorite production houses, those who have taken such steps in recent years are quite prominent, ranging from manga publisher Kadokawa, to Kamen Rider and Super Sentai studio Toei, to even PlayStation parent company Sony.
While said efforts have in part been motivated by the ever-global nature of the video game industry, they have perhaps more notably been influenced by Japan’s ongoing population crisis, as the country’s shrinking number of inhabitants has had a likewise effect on its potential markets.
Per data collected by the United Nations, Japan’s ‘births per women’ have fallen from roughly 3.43 in 1950 (the first year the organization began to record such data) to an abysmal 1.37 in 2024, with major factors including poor job market prospects, the rising costs of living against stagnant wages based on a declining currency, and a disconnect between Japan’s highly-rigid workplace culture and a rise in parents wanting to spend more time with their families.
Explaining the on-the-ground situation during an April interview with Deadline, Toei President and CEO Fumio Yoshimura told his host of his own company’s Western shift, “In the past, Japan had a large population and therefore market for entertainment content, so we didn’t see the necessity of going overseas. But now our population is declining, a trend that is not likely to be reversed, so now is the time for us to create new strategies.”
“Asia accounts for more than half the world’s population, local contents are growing in nearly every Asian market, and the region is closer to us culturally, so it’s an obvious place to start.
“But North America is also a huge market, so of course we would want to roll out there as well. We’d like to work on partnerships and affiliations, trying to bridge the gap we have currently. We’re starting with production so we’re looking for partners that we can co-produce and create with – the idea is to produce content that can work in the North American market.”
NEXT: ‘Gundam’ Manga Publisher Kadokawa Now Recruiting Overseas Talent Due To Japan’s Population Crisis
