Valve has released Steam's hardware and software surveys in August 2022. It seems that interesting statistical data is emerging among them. The number of Japanese users is showing a significant increase in again.
This report is a survey that analyzes Steam users, which Valve has released every month. In addition to the various specifications of Steam users who agree to the survey, information on the play environment is also widely gathered.
One of these statistical data has a language item. It is an indicator of what language setting the user uses Steam. Of course, language settings are not always the same as the user's nationality or region. However, it is thought that it reflects the trends of each regional user. And Japanese is one of the languages that has shown a slightly noticeable movement this year.
First, in the first half of this year's survey data, the number of Steam Japanese users was significantly increasing (related article). The number of Japanese users, which had long been only around 1 % in the entire Steam, has been increasing slightly since around 2020. It was 2.34 % in March 2022, reaching 2.73 % in May of the same year. It was a great breakthrough that made it feel even the penetration of Steam in Japan. At this time, Japanese was in the sixth place in all languages.
However, Steam Japanese user ratio was decreasing to 1.93 % in the data in June and July of the same year. However, in August data, it returned again and recorded 2.45 %, 8th in all languages. Although it seems to be a trivial change in numbers, Steam's peak simultaneous number of simultaneous connections are approaching 30 million in April this year (Steamdb). In August, about 26 million people are connected every day at the peak, of which 2.45 % are about 520,000. As the total number of users is large, the trivial increase can be considered a significant change. It should be noted that all users are not necessarily providing data to Steam, so the above is an estimate.
But why did the Steam Japanese user ratio increase again in August? The first reason to be guessed is that the number of Japanese-compatible titles has continued to increase, and that there have been releases of works that have a high degree of attention for Japanese users. For example, the release of the new Touhou Project Barrett Philia's Dark Market-100th BLACK MARKET. And the SD Gundam Battle Alliance release, which recorded the strong number of simultaneous simultaneous simultaneous players, is in August.
Another possible reason is that the PS5 game play may be an alternative option due to the difficulty of obtaining it. For example, on August 25, there was an announcement of the PS5 list price increase (related article). In that case, words such as Steam are trended on domestic Twitter. There were also users who play PC games as an alternative platform for the PS5, and it was one act indicating that Steam was conscious of domestic users. In addition, SIE has also been actively developing PS platform works for PCs. On August 12, Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered was released for PCs including Steam and gained popularity.
In early August, a Valve official portable PC game console, Steam Deck, has been reserved in Japan in Japan (related article). On SNS, there are also voices of domestic users who entrust their expectations as the third option, which are different from the console machine and PC about the aircraft. Such users may have touched Steam in advance. Alternatively, the knowledge of Steam Deck may also lead to the marketing of Steam itself for domestic.
Interestingly, in the August data statistics, there is a tendency to increase so-called low spec. For example, even for Windows PCs, users with 4GB/8GB of system memory have increased by about 1.2 %, respectively. As for specifications such as VRAM and storage capacity, the use of Steam with slightly modest terminals is increasing. Recently, a hit work with relatively lightweight operations such as Vampire Survivors is come to mind. It may be easier for users of a wide range of species to enter. Looking at the data of Linux users, the hardware utilization rate of Steam Deck and the Outshi specifications increased throughout the board. Overseas, the Steam Deck user population is steadily increasing.
In any case, there is no doubt that the culture of playing PC games, not just the use of Steam, has continued to spread to Japanese gamers. The Japanese language of overseas games, including indie works, and the STEAM release of domestic manufacturers' works is increasing. As such Japanese-directional demand and supply are expanding, it will be easier for domestic users to play global games. The launch of the STEAM DECK in Japan in the future is likely to be supported.
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