Month: February 2011

Nintendo and Sony lead and represent the entire Japanese game industry. Even though they do overlap in certain areas and target customers, each console has its very own typical characteristics, which enable them to distinguish themselves from other competitors and remain competitive long term.

Nintendo – Wii

Since the introduction of this new game console in 2006, Wii has become one of the most popular family game systems around the world. With its superior and revolutionary features such as wireless motion-sensitive remote controller and built-in Wi-Fi capability, Wii has attracted millions of gamer and has created a new trend of motion control game consoles.

Price: 250-280 CAD

Game types: sports, battle, and VS games

Player age range: all ages

Best target market: families with small children

Wii has lots of related accessories such as classic controller, Wii wheel accessory, Wii speaker microphone, and Wii Zapper etc. These accessories enable players to play more types of motion-sensitive games. Wii is a console which can be altered, upgraded, and improved with the purchase of additional accessories according to player’s needs.

Sony- PlayStation 3

Compared to Wii, PlayStation3 from Sony is more like an exciting and powerful game box. It aims at creating the best picture images and bringing players the finest visual quality. PlayStation 3 has great functions and a huge amount of storage for games, add-ons, music, videos and photos. It also supports multi-media and online services, an extra value to consumers.

Price: 300-400 CAD

Game types: games with a deep storyline, action, and battle games etc.

Player age range: 79% players are between 13-25 in age

PlayStation 3 is the only console that is fully 3D capable. Following the trend of motion-sensitive games started by Nintendo, PlayStation 3 has developed its own motion control system in order to compete Wii.

(Posted on Feb 21st)

(“BOOKOFF”‘s cute logo)

In Japan, when you want to buy discount books or audio products, you would often hear young people mention a store called “BOOKOFF”. “BOOKOFF” is a chain store devoted to selling secondhand books including fiction, comic books, and magazines, as well as used CDs, DVDs, and video/computer games. Within only 11 years, “BOOKOFF” has developed quickly and continuously expanded its market around the world. Now, “BOOKOFF” has opened a new store in a convenient location in downtown Vancouver. This small but special store offers customers thousands of used books at low prices, and thus contributes to environmentally friendly recycling efforts.

(“BOOKOFF” in downtown Vancouver)

Products: Although “BOOKOFF” sells used products, you would never think they are secondhand. “BOOKOFF” carefully checks every product they acquire; you will not find any dirty, torn, or worn-out copies here. Customers quickly realize that “BOOKOFF” offers exceptional value.

(Customers are shopping in the store.)

Price: “BOOKOFF”’s prices are at least twice lower than the regular price. I was so surprised when I first found out that 70% of the comic books, which are sold at $6 – $8 in regular bookstores, are sold for $2 in “BOOKOFF”.

Place: Except for its 1112 domestic stores covering most provinces and cities in Japan, “BOOKOFF” opened overseas stores in Korea, France, Canada, and the United States.

Promotion: “BOOKOFF” follows the “green” trend and encourages people to sell and buy used books in order to save natural resources and to protect our environment. Its eco-friendly idea has been embraced by many booklovers who will not have any trouble spotting the store’s easy to recognize yellow/red signs with the Japanese word for “books” on it. Furthermore, “BOOKOFF” keeps its official websites up-dated, posts book ranking lists in their stores, and announces discounts on its store windows in order to attract more customers.

(large and clear sign)

(Special thanks promotion: drawing lottery once for every 500 japanese dollar purchase.)

(Posted on Feb 5th)

Japanese comics and animation are in great demand around the world. Today, you can watch the latest episodes on Youtube with different language subtitles, or you can find an English version manga magazine at a bookstore. Japanese manga would not be so popular to world-wide readers without its large production and marketing groups behind it. Due to clever marketing strategies, the Japanese comics and animation industry has taken off and has quickly become one of the three major industries in Japan.

Weekly and periodically manga magazines:

–       Customer-specific publications.

For young boys or guys:

So-called “shuonen manga”; “shuonen” means teenage boys so it is easy to tell the target market just by looking at the name.

Story type: adventure, fighting, war, save the earth, science, and sports, etc.

Theme: friendship, teamwork, courage.

Character types: high school boys, muscular men, people with special skills or power, etc.

Well-know publications: “Shuonen Jump” (no.1 best seller), “Shuonen Sunday”, etc.

For school girls:

So-called “shuojo manga”,”shuojo” means teenage girls who also represent the target readers.

Story type: school life, friendship between girls, boyfriends, families, love, dating, etc.

Character types: cute girls with big eyes and long eyelashes, Cinderella type girls.

Well-know publications: “Flower and Dream”, “Margaret”, etc.

–       Readers’ survey in every volume.

Example questionnaires: Choose three of your favorite stories in this volume.

Choose three characters that you like the most.

–       Involvement of the readers.

Readers’ feelings and suggestions to the story often appear along the margin of each page of comic book.

Several pages are edited to the book to showcase readers’ drawings of the characters.

–       Inclusion of small gifts in each volume.

ex: pencil box with picture of a particular manga character on the cover

a pink purse which is the same as the one in the story

( Posted on Feb 1st)