Japanese gamers, can you explain their genres to me?

This is a serious question as I've been googling all day and haven't come up with a satisfactory explination. Why are fishing, train sims, dating-sims, and horseracing genres so popular in Japan? RPG's I can somewhat understand in a way and maybe this explination is also the same for atleast fishing and the horseracing genres.

I imagine Japanese people live in very tiny spaces and do not have tons of money. Because of this RPGs, fishing sims, and horseracing sims give them a way to (for a short while) be in an imaginary place where there is lots of room. So they don't feel so cramp anymore. Also the money they make in the games allows them to buy virtual goods - so they don't feel so poor?

Why dating sims? Is there a 10 to 1 ratio of men to women and the words, "first impressions count" is taken very seriously? Are these sims for practice?

And train sims? huh?

just so you know japanese people are very very weird & perverted. more so then any other race.

lots and lots of geeks live in japan, they don't get girls, because they stay home playing fishing and horse sims. only in japan i guess. were they geeks first, or did the games make them geeks? it's the chicken and the egg i suppose.

Horse racing?

Derby Owners Club is world wide, i have one 3 minutes away, one of (continues to be) best gaming experince ive had.

My whole family are horse racing gamblers, its in the genes you could say, but great game.

Even if it wasn't horse racing, the elements make it great.

Fuck the Japanese, it's all passe, the games fun counts, wherever.

If by "dating sim" you mean a visual novel or the like; if you have never played one and have no desire to play one, you will never understand them. They bring a certain kind of fun that's unique to themselves. Although I think it's the fan base in Japan that makes them so popular, they spend more time talking about them on the internet than playing them.

As far as "dating sims" go, the only one that comes to mind right away is Tokimeki Memorial. If a nostalgic setting and interesting characters don't make you interested, Hideo Kojima's story should. Amazing games.