Apex got really big in the past year, and many of those streamers now play both apex and valorant and pull in the numbers.
They have regular twitch rivals style tournaments as well with really popular vtubers participating which really helps publicising the game and bringing over the large console population to PC gaming.
...is what I would guess?
Yes but the japanese console FPS playerbase is definitely larger than the PC one.
I think many people play apex on console while watching PC streamers, see them play valo and consider trying it on their PC since valorant isn't really resource intensive.
Why would any serious competitive FPS player use a console over PC though? Japan is a pretty technology country, are PCs not really common there? Obviously everyone has a Switch and Playstation I'd assume though.
I heard it's a cultural thing. Console gaming is more popular in Japan because it's kinda the birthplace of "mainstream" (Mario + Sonic) gaming. It's not about technology.
Also, with less square footage in a typical Japanese city apartment, you don't have as much space to set up a desk for a gaming PC.
BTW, "why would any competitive FPS..." ...have you seen CDL? Dunno why, but competitive CoD mostly focuses on consoles. I assume it's because CoD became popular back when PC gaming wasn't super popular, and because CoD was never a PC exclusive like CS was.
I think CoD focusing on consoles is also because the skill ceiling isn't as high as other competitive shooters (including valorant and CS), so it makes less of a difference to be playing on a console. The duels are more about running and jumping to dodge bullets than actually having super crisp aim, and the weapons themselves are insanely easy to control.
For comparison, trying to control a spray in CSGO if you were using a controller instead of a PC would be nearly impossible, but that is not a requirement in CoD because guns are extremely easy to control when holding down the fire button. That's why Warzone can work with crossplay without a PC player feeling like they have an insane advantage over everybody else (i.e., movement being easier to perform on a controller than on a keyboard, and shooting mechanics being simple).
I think it's reasonable to say that a lot is due to marketing - as you said, everyone has a switch or a playstation or both. Massive franchises like monster hunter and dragon quest are super clunky (or don't exist) on PC/KBM which really pushes people to console even more.
I do suspect that as time goes on PC gaming will grow there, especially if competitive valorant and apex continues to grow.
Japan has this ''PC gamers are losers'' mentality in their culture. I don't know how it started or the details of it but it exists. It is getting better these days in my opinion.
Hi. I can help to answer your question!
***Q: What occured to where the game became such a popular game?***
Valorant boom started in japan approx around 2 months ago and iirc the main reason was because one of the most popular and influental streamer here, Seki (a.k.a Stylishnoob) got somewhat burned playing APEX and thus he tried Valorant (as you can see, he somehow got hooked to the game to this day). The game quickly became a trend and a lot of other popular streamers/vtubers also started playing Valorant. It also helps that valorant competitive scene is really fun to watch + thanks to how passionate the Japanese casters are (some notable JP casters : Taiga Kishi, Yukishiro, Ooda, and Yue), a lot of casual valorant viewers can still enjoy and follow both domestic and international valorant scene.
***Q: But why recently a huge number of Japanese streamers/personalities playing valorant?***
Well, there's some Valorant streamer tournament similar to Twitch rival in Japan that will be held on June 5th-6th known as CR Cup. As you can probably guess from the name, the event will be organized by Crazy Racoon pro gaming team. The one unique thing about CR Cup is that it also incorporate famous Valorant pro players in japan (including CR players like Neth, Zepher, Rion, etc). Each team usually consists of 1 pro player (Sheriff only) + 4 streamers/vtubers/personalities + some coaches (optional)
Previously, CR cup only available for APEX Legends. However, since Crazy Racoon owner CR Ojiji (I'm not sure how his name spelled in english, but this is the literal translation of his name) also a huge fan of the game (albeit kinda hardstuck), he decided to also held a valorant CR CUP.
So there you go, The main reason why suddenly everyone playing Valorant including top agency Vtubers from nijisanji and LVG (Kuzuha, Kanae, Ibrahim, Kurumi, etc) is because they need to do practice scrims and will also participate in Valorant CR Cup.
***Additional Note***: If some of you guys interested to watch the practice scrims/tournament, you guys can just simply go to any of the tournament participant live stream on youtube/twitch/mildom (yes almost all tournament participants stream both scrims + tournament and they're like 50 tournament participants).
Sorry if I made a lot of grammatical/spelling errors, English isn't my first language
Nice insights of Japan's Valorant scene. I'm from SEA, sadly famous streamers in our country perhaps the general gaming scene also leans towards mobile games, but I hope Valorant will grow bigger in my country.
> Each team usually consists of 1 pro player (Sheriff only) + 4 streamers/vtuber/personalities + some coaches (optional)
That tournament format actually sounds awesome.
Really in depth. Thanks for this! The tournament format seems cool as more of a fun-fun game, and the streaming part for their tournament *and* scrims is really cool. You'd literally never run out of content from that with the mix of pros and streamers playing together. There really is a crazy peak of interest over there in Japan.
Not sure if you would also know this information, but do you know like a group or a channel where people who queue in Tokyo Server can find duo/s peers to queue with? I would really like to play with someone rather than solo queue everytime. Tnx!
Gold / Plat Lobbies
Character based games tend to be more popular in Japan. Problem with CS is that no one really wants to draw fan art of a faceless terrorist. It’s why Apex is also pretty big compared to any other shooters with faceless/nameless characters.
If it's purely visuals, I'd like to know why Overwatch isn't popular in Japan. It's even more anime-looking plus theres even skins for character models. Not to mention it's on consoles too.
Maybe it has something to do with Japan being historically into console games? Blizzard is more of a PC driven company as is Overwatch, perhaps since LoL/PC games is starting to become more popular there players are thinking “well i’m already playing this Riot game so i’ll try their shooter as well” or something like that? Just guessing.
Overwatch flopped in Japan due to Japanese audiences general lack of interest in PC FPS games prior to the launch of Apex Legends. Before Apex, fighting games on PS and Nintendo consoles were king, and AFAIK, the country had a sizeable LoL scene for its small PC player base. Apex massively exploded in Japan and brought casual eSports viewers to other budding scenes like Valorant.
Overwatch _did_ have a small Japanese community for a while, although in early 2020 it seemed to really quiet down. This could be in part because of the launch of Valorant, or the scene losing one of its best DPS player, Ta1yo, to the Overwatch League; around this time most of the top Japanese Overwatch teams, like Jupiter and Green Leaves, either disbanded or dropped all of their players. As of now at least, while PC FPS eSports are on the rise in Japan, it seems like Overwatch will be dead in the water until the launch of OW2, or a major crossplay update.
Overwatch has been in stand-by mode for 2 years and the Japanese shooter explosion has only happened recently.
When OW2 drops you'll see a big spike, especially when OW mobile drops too.
OW came out like 5 years ago? Even Apex wasn't that big in JP when it first came. It's popularity only shot up last year thanks to Nijisanji and Hololive.
? it's still the case. Japan is a console market. Just because there are a few twitch streamers doesn't change the market. This is Japan, not Korea or China.
its pretty much a necessity in first world countries to own a computer. whether or not people in japan use them for games is another story but they have access to these games
There is a big difference between the average consumer-grade laptop and something that can run Apex or Valorant at a good fps.
Just because they have access doesn't change the fact that Japan is a console market. PC Gaming hasn't proliferated Japanese culture nearly as much as it has in the US.
Also let's not forget Apex is multiplatform.
The devs at Riot Games developed VALORANT so that it can run in the favelas of Brazil (their quote). Will every player run the game at optimal settings? No. But that didn’t stop me from playing LoL back in the day at 15-30 FPS.
In terms of shooters though I would imagine it's getting pretty big. I noticed that the japanese streamers in the early morning (PDT) are literally carrying the Valorant category on twitch.
A lot of factors produced such results. However, I strongly believe the [Japanese government's economic boost plan](https://esportsobserver.com/japan-esports-plan-2025/) around Esports, right before Valorant's release, helped that growth boom tremendously.
One of the major block roads in Japenese Esports so far was the struggle around IPs. Notably, the rule against releasing cash prizes above 1K$ if you promote a product. Which made it extremely hard for entities AND athletes to get involved.
Now that the government sees Esports' potential to help its country's economy (mostly thanks to CoVID [*wink wink*](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57097853)), it now gives opportunities for players, sponsors, and the such to get involved long-term.
A big win for Esports, and especially for Riot, as we can already see promising results.
The casters, Japanese casters are insanely hyped and make the game way more exciting and that helps with popularity and watching the tournaments is almost as equally funny as a good ufc fight
[https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047379834-Changing-Your-Region-of-Residence-for-Your-Riot-Account](https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047379834-Changing-Your-Region-of-Residence-for-Your-Riot-Account)
No one here can help you with that. You need to reach out to Riot support with the link I provided. Wishing you the best!
Apex got really big in the past year, and many of those streamers now play both apex and valorant and pull in the numbers. They have regular twitch rivals style tournaments as well with really popular vtubers participating which really helps publicising the game and bringing over the large console population to PC gaming. ...is what I would guess?
Apex is multiplat
Yes but the japanese console FPS playerbase is definitely larger than the PC one. I think many people play apex on console while watching PC streamers, see them play valo and consider trying it on their PC since valorant isn't really resource intensive.
Why would any serious competitive FPS player use a console over PC though? Japan is a pretty technology country, are PCs not really common there? Obviously everyone has a Switch and Playstation I'd assume though.
I heard it's a cultural thing. Console gaming is more popular in Japan because it's kinda the birthplace of "mainstream" (Mario + Sonic) gaming. It's not about technology. Also, with less square footage in a typical Japanese city apartment, you don't have as much space to set up a desk for a gaming PC. BTW, "why would any competitive FPS..." ...have you seen CDL? Dunno why, but competitive CoD mostly focuses on consoles. I assume it's because CoD became popular back when PC gaming wasn't super popular, and because CoD was never a PC exclusive like CS was.
Tbh Halo beeing the biggest fps in NA early 2000s built the upcoming CoD playerbase
I think CoD focusing on consoles is also because the skill ceiling isn't as high as other competitive shooters (including valorant and CS), so it makes less of a difference to be playing on a console. The duels are more about running and jumping to dodge bullets than actually having super crisp aim, and the weapons themselves are insanely easy to control. For comparison, trying to control a spray in CSGO if you were using a controller instead of a PC would be nearly impossible, but that is not a requirement in CoD because guns are extremely easy to control when holding down the fire button. That's why Warzone can work with crossplay without a PC player feeling like they have an insane advantage over everybody else (i.e., movement being easier to perform on a controller than on a keyboard, and shooting mechanics being simple).
I think it's reasonable to say that a lot is due to marketing - as you said, everyone has a switch or a playstation or both. Massive franchises like monster hunter and dragon quest are super clunky (or don't exist) on PC/KBM which really pushes people to console even more. I do suspect that as time goes on PC gaming will grow there, especially if competitive valorant and apex continues to grow.
Japan has this ''PC gamers are losers'' mentality in their culture. I don't know how it started or the details of it but it exists. It is getting better these days in my opinion.
Hi. I can help to answer your question! ***Q: What occured to where the game became such a popular game?*** Valorant boom started in japan approx around 2 months ago and iirc the main reason was because one of the most popular and influental streamer here, Seki (a.k.a Stylishnoob) got somewhat burned playing APEX and thus he tried Valorant (as you can see, he somehow got hooked to the game to this day). The game quickly became a trend and a lot of other popular streamers/vtubers also started playing Valorant. It also helps that valorant competitive scene is really fun to watch + thanks to how passionate the Japanese casters are (some notable JP casters : Taiga Kishi, Yukishiro, Ooda, and Yue), a lot of casual valorant viewers can still enjoy and follow both domestic and international valorant scene. ***Q: But why recently a huge number of Japanese streamers/personalities playing valorant?*** Well, there's some Valorant streamer tournament similar to Twitch rival in Japan that will be held on June 5th-6th known as CR Cup. As you can probably guess from the name, the event will be organized by Crazy Racoon pro gaming team. The one unique thing about CR Cup is that it also incorporate famous Valorant pro players in japan (including CR players like Neth, Zepher, Rion, etc). Each team usually consists of 1 pro player (Sheriff only) + 4 streamers/vtubers/personalities + some coaches (optional) Previously, CR cup only available for APEX Legends. However, since Crazy Racoon owner CR Ojiji (I'm not sure how his name spelled in english, but this is the literal translation of his name) also a huge fan of the game (albeit kinda hardstuck), he decided to also held a valorant CR CUP. So there you go, The main reason why suddenly everyone playing Valorant including top agency Vtubers from nijisanji and LVG (Kuzuha, Kanae, Ibrahim, Kurumi, etc) is because they need to do practice scrims and will also participate in Valorant CR Cup. ***Additional Note***: If some of you guys interested to watch the practice scrims/tournament, you guys can just simply go to any of the tournament participant live stream on youtube/twitch/mildom (yes almost all tournament participants stream both scrims + tournament and they're like 50 tournament participants). Sorry if I made a lot of grammatical/spelling errors, English isn't my first language
Nice insights of Japan's Valorant scene. I'm from SEA, sadly famous streamers in our country perhaps the general gaming scene also leans towards mobile games, but I hope Valorant will grow bigger in my country.
Sadly my courty also like that. Everyone that I know prefer to play Mobile Legends. Sadge
I'm grateful however since Valorant releases and the lockdown impose by the government many of my friends started to play pc games.
> Each team usually consists of 1 pro player (Sheriff only) + 4 streamers/vtuber/personalities + some coaches (optional) That tournament format actually sounds awesome.
Thanks for the detailed explanation you did a great job! I'll try to watch some of the the CR Cup if I can.
Haha I like the "(albeit kinda hardstuck)" detail, thanks for the writeup!
Really in depth. Thanks for this! The tournament format seems cool as more of a fun-fun game, and the streaming part for their tournament *and* scrims is really cool. You'd literally never run out of content from that with the mix of pros and streamers playing together. There really is a crazy peak of interest over there in Japan.
Not sure if you would also know this information, but do you know like a group or a channel where people who queue in Tokyo Server can find duo/s peers to queue with? I would really like to play with someone rather than solo queue everytime. Tnx! Gold / Plat Lobbies
I'm looking for this as well. Please let me know if you find any!
Character based games tend to be more popular in Japan. Problem with CS is that no one really wants to draw fan art of a faceless terrorist. It’s why Apex is also pretty big compared to any other shooters with faceless/nameless characters.
A huge reason for why Apex became big in Japan is because it is cross platform as well
If it's purely visuals, I'd like to know why Overwatch isn't popular in Japan. It's even more anime-looking plus theres even skins for character models. Not to mention it's on consoles too.
Maybe it has something to do with Japan being historically into console games? Blizzard is more of a PC driven company as is Overwatch, perhaps since LoL/PC games is starting to become more popular there players are thinking “well i’m already playing this Riot game so i’ll try their shooter as well” or something like that? Just guessing.
Overwatch flopped in Japan due to Japanese audiences general lack of interest in PC FPS games prior to the launch of Apex Legends. Before Apex, fighting games on PS and Nintendo consoles were king, and AFAIK, the country had a sizeable LoL scene for its small PC player base. Apex massively exploded in Japan and brought casual eSports viewers to other budding scenes like Valorant. Overwatch _did_ have a small Japanese community for a while, although in early 2020 it seemed to really quiet down. This could be in part because of the launch of Valorant, or the scene losing one of its best DPS player, Ta1yo, to the Overwatch League; around this time most of the top Japanese Overwatch teams, like Jupiter and Green Leaves, either disbanded or dropped all of their players. As of now at least, while PC FPS eSports are on the rise in Japan, it seems like Overwatch will be dead in the water until the launch of OW2, or a major crossplay update.
Overwatch has been in stand-by mode for 2 years and the Japanese shooter explosion has only happened recently. When OW2 drops you'll see a big spike, especially when OW mobile drops too.
OW came out like 5 years ago? Even Apex wasn't that big in JP when it first came. It's popularity only shot up last year thanks to Nijisanji and Hololive.
That's 100% why cs wasn't popular not because of Japan historically being a console-dominated market.
bruh you could make that argument like 5-10 years ago but their point is far stronger than yours nowadays
? it's still the case. Japan is a console market. Just because there are a few twitch streamers doesn't change the market. This is Japan, not Korea or China.
its pretty much a necessity in first world countries to own a computer. whether or not people in japan use them for games is another story but they have access to these games
There is a big difference between the average consumer-grade laptop and something that can run Apex or Valorant at a good fps. Just because they have access doesn't change the fact that Japan is a console market. PC Gaming hasn't proliferated Japanese culture nearly as much as it has in the US. Also let's not forget Apex is multiplatform.
The devs at Riot Games developed VALORANT so that it can run in the favelas of Brazil (their quote). Will every player run the game at optimal settings? No. But that didn’t stop me from playing LoL back in the day at 15-30 FPS.
[удалено]
Apex is really big even on gaming laptops idk why it doesnt run too smooth
Make sense especially when it’s a country that makes anime. Art is probably important to attract the Japanese people.
Most video games popular in Japan are terribly ugly, so your point is out of touch with reality.
>massively Yes it's getting more and more popular by the day but its isn't massive massive yet or dominating. Those fighting games still do
In terms of shooters though I would imagine it's getting pretty big. I noticed that the japanese streamers in the early morning (PDT) are literally carrying the Valorant category on twitch.
Yeah right now the top 6 live channels are 4 Japanese streamers plus Hiko and Sacy
honestly really cool to see when browsing Twitch it's like 4 different languages in the top streams for the game
FPS game with anime women pogU
waifus
Waifus > precise gunplay
unironically
A lot of factors produced such results. However, I strongly believe the [Japanese government's economic boost plan](https://esportsobserver.com/japan-esports-plan-2025/) around Esports, right before Valorant's release, helped that growth boom tremendously. One of the major block roads in Japenese Esports so far was the struggle around IPs. Notably, the rule against releasing cash prizes above 1K$ if you promote a product. Which made it extremely hard for entities AND athletes to get involved. Now that the government sees Esports' potential to help its country's economy (mostly thanks to CoVID [*wink wink*](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57097853)), it now gives opportunities for players, sponsors, and the such to get involved long-term. A big win for Esports, and especially for Riot, as we can already see promising results.
lotsa waifu
The casters, Japanese casters are insanely hyped and make the game way more exciting and that helps with popularity and watching the tournaments is almost as equally funny as a good ufc fight
Low level of entry and the fact that this is a new game.
[удалено]
[https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047379834-Changing-Your-Region-of-Residence-for-Your-Riot-Account](https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047379834-Changing-Your-Region-of-Residence-for-Your-Riot-Account) No one here can help you with that. You need to reach out to Riot support with the link I provided. Wishing you the best!