TOKYO -- The year 2020 saw strong sales for Japanese entertainment products as consumers driven indoors by the coronavirus pandemic found the perfect cure for boredom in video games and anime. And while the rollout of vaccines could prompt more people to venture outside in 2021, analysts expect demand for fresh content to keep growing.
Japanese game makers enjoyed a surge in revenue, most notably Nintendo, which released its smash title Animal Crossing: New Horizons in the relatively early days of the global health crisis in March. Since then, the game has sold over 26 million copies globally while the company's Switch console has experienced a rush of buying.
