It’s a well-known fact that the Japanese and the West generally have different sensibilities when it comes to gaming. Few things illustrate that fact more than knowing that Yakuza has been popular in Japan since 2005, but has only caught in the West this year; while the Xbox One is fairly popular here in the West, but is essentially non-existent in Japan. Now, a recent series of surveys conducted by Famitsu have drove that fact home even further when participants were prompted to reveal what they thought were among the best games of all-time, consoles of all-time and other gaming related questions.
In total, 5287 people — including the magazine’s own editorial staff, a panel of celebrities and even game developers joined in on the action. Among those who participated, 55 percent were male, 44 percent were female and 1 percent declined to reveal their gender. Meanwhile, 18 percent of participants were in their teens, 40 percent in their twenties, 29 percent in their thirties, 10 percent in their forties, 2 percent in their fifties, and 1 percent were under ten or over sixty years old.
Here are the results of the survey (no restrictions on release date, genre, or platform):
Best Video Game Of All Time*
*only the top ten had their number of votes disclosed
- Persona 5 – 835
- Dragon Quest III – 612
- Splatoon – 411
- NieR: Automata – 369
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 350
- Final Fantasy VII – 287
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony – 257
- Chrono Trigger – 231
- Sakura Wars – 223
- Shenmue – 217
- Danganronpa 1.2 Reload
- Shenmue 2
- Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Future Tone
- Yakuza 0
- Otoca D’Or
- Persona 4: Golden
- Okami
- Xenoblade Chronicles
- Suikoden II
- Final Fantasy XI
- Danganronpa 2
- Danganronpa
- Earthbound
- Dragon Quest V
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Final Fantasy X
- Xenogears
- Monster Retsuden Oreca Battle
- Sonic Adventure 2
- Tactics Ogre
- Fate/Grand Order
- Persona 3
- Super Mario Bros.
- Kingdom Hearts II
- moon
- Hatsune Miku Project Mirai Deluxe
- Dragon Quest X
- Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Arcade Future Tone
- Final Fantasy XV
- Hatsune Miku Project DIVA X
Best Console/Platform Of All Time:
- PS2 – 16%
- PlayStation – 15%
- Super Famicom – 11%
- PS4 – 8%
- PS3 – 6%
- Arcade – 5%
- Dreamcast – 5%
- PC – 5%
- Famicom – 5%
- Gamecube – 3%
- N64 – 3%
- PSP – 3%
- Sega Saturn – 3%
- PS Vita – 3%
- 3DS – 2%
- Wii – 2%
- Others – 6%
Breakdown By Publisher:
- Sega – 20%
- Square Enix- 17%
- Konami – 12%
- Nintendo – 11%
- Atlus – 7%
- Spike Chunsoft – 5%
- Bandai Namco – 4%
- Capcom – 4%
- Sony Interactive Entertainment – 3%
- Koei Tecmo  – 2%
Breakdown By Year Of Publication:
- 2010 – 2017 – 48%
- 2000 – 2009 – 23%
- 1990 – 1999 – 24%
- 1989 or earlier – 5%
The results of the survey reveal that participants believe Persona 5 is the best game of all time, PlayStation 2 is the best console, Sega has produced the best titles and the best titles came out this decade.
Obviously, this survey isn’t representative of Japan as a whole, but you can see a lot of choices that are distinctly Japanese occupying the lists. For example, its near-impossible that any Western (online) publication would have an all-inclusive “best of” list from its readers that would include Danganronpa, Sakura Wars and Hatsune Miku within its top 15. Similarly, its unlikely we’d see a “best of” console list that is topped by the PlayStation 2, yet largely ignores all Xbox consoles.
Of course, there are many results that one would also expect to see on a Western (online) publication’s list. Though one could dispute Persona 5’s placement, there is no denying that it easily deserves a top 10 spot. Similarly, no “best of” list of this type would feel right without the presence of a few Legend of Zelda, Mario and Final Fantasy titles sprinkled in.
These results easily show that while Japanese and Western gamers are different in many respects, they’re also a lot alike.
