In better days, big companies like Sony and Toyota would symbolise Japan’s economic strength. Now they’re posting losses, jobs are being lost and people’s quality of life is being directly affected – usually negatively.

Japan isn’t immune to the global recession and financial downturn that is hitting the world over. But a belief still persists that the videogame industry somehow is. Surely this is just wishful thinking? Weirdly, no.

Looking at the end-of-year sales, it doesn’t look like the industry was hurt too much at all by the global recession. There were no obviously major titles scheduled, like a new Mario or Metal Gear, but perhaps this cleared room for the likes of Dissidia: Final Fantasy, which sold just under a million copies, as did Animal Crossing: City Folk. Even the PS3’s White Knight Chronicles sold 300,000 copies in just a couple of weeks.

Over the last week of 2008 and the first of 2009, there was a frenzy for the DSi, with 410,000 units sold after the dust had settled – a truly remarkable performance helped by the DS’s Japanese installed base of over 24 million.

Discussing high DS sales in Japan is hardly unusual, of course, but the 2008 figures are good for hardware in general: 300,000 Wiis were sold, 280,000 PSPs and 110,000 of both the PS3 and DS Lite. Even the Xbox 360 and PS2 sold a relatively healthy 30,000 units. All of these figures would be good under ‘normal’ trading conditions.

They’re even better when you factor in that titles we might expect to be big sellers are still to come. Capcom’s Biohazard 5 can comfortably expect to sell a million copies over the PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms. And then there’s Square Enix’s Dragon Quest IX for the DS. It should easily sell four million copies in Japan alone, but more optimistic estimates that take into account the ubiquity of the DS platform think it could do far better and hit six to seven million copies.

The launch of Dragon Quest IX will be an exciting moment in Japan, and hopefully this can extend into the series’ first big global impact. Equally, the Japanese are now becoming more excited about overseas titles. GTA has always done well here, but now I see games like Fallout 3, Prince Of Persia and Fable II hotly anticipated and selling favourably at this time of year.

The reason for this is, I think, simple. These titles are being localised well, allowing their quality to shine through, and forcing the old Japanese attitude about overseas productions to change.

You might have noticed that I’m not talking doom and gloom any more. Much of Japan’s economy is focused on exports, so if the world financial crisis continues then businesses like Toyota might suffer. But despite the recession and financial turmoil hitting Japan, and the increase in unemployment, the facts about videogame sales speak for themselves.

Perhaps videogames are proving to be strong in this situation, in Japan at least, because the market is still a little insular: that is, there is not such an overwhelming dependence on export sales.

From a personal perspective, I won’t be buying a new car any time soon, or taking an expensive foreign holiday. I have the feeling I’ll always have the money to keep buying games and enjoying them, though!