Well Pachter stated gta 4 was originally a PS3 Exclusive :P anways microsoft obviously used the time exclusive dlc to sway people to buy the 360 version of gta 4, will be interesting to see what happens with gta 5 considering there will most likely be no exclusive dlc what so ever.

Pachter lol  I don't understand why anybody even pays that guy.  I guess he does get a lot of hits on sites though.

My prediction for GTA V will be they will most likely be very even again.  It is pretty popular on both so I'd say it will be more front heavy for the 360 and the PS3 version will have better legs.  Lifetime they will be pretty even though unless a next gen console steps in which very well mught happen.

all foreign car companies together have a marketshare of 5% or something in japan, if you call that very successful i don't know. yes bmw and vw have more success there as ford or something, maybe because they are german cars (75% of foreign cars in japan are german) but it is a joke compared to japanese car companies in japan. vw was the most successful importeur last year with 50k cars^^. it's like you would call the 360 a huge success there because it sold 2.5 million units or something. the difference between a car compay and a console is that even 20k sold cars can be enough to make money there but with a console you have to sell a decent amount to get the developers on your side.

it's well known that it's hard for foreign companies to have a chance to truly compete against japanese companies as long as you don't have something they don't have or if you are really better in it and even if there are examples who managed it like coca cola or apple. but for 1 foreign company really successful in japan i could give you 10 foreign companies successful in germany or uk.

if the same xbox would be from sony it would have sold as much or almost as much as the ps3 because it has sony as brandname.

and that "patriotism" thinking or whatever it is is also in other countries but if someone would really make an analysis about the japanese and as example the uk market i would bet it's much harder to compete against japanese companies in japan as it is in uk against uk companies if all other factors would be the same (quality as example)

I was reading this this morning, it's a brilliant article, props to Eurogamer. 

I thought this was an amazing anecdote. Fucking Mikami! And RE4 could've been on the Xbox first! 

Microsoft had heard on the grapevine that Shinji Mikami, famed creator of Resident Evil, had grown tired and frustrated with developing for the PlayStation 2, which hadn't even been out a year. There were whispers that Mikami was thinking about moving Resident Evil away from PlayStation.

Bachus remembers Mikami looking every bit the Japanese rockstar, all mirrored sunglasses and leather jackets. An entourage of hangers on followed him into the Microsoft Japan meeting room.

Eventually an exasperated Mikami boiled it down: 'what is your philosophy? Sony says games are entertainment, something larger, fuelled by the Emotion Engine. Nintendo says games are toys, created by the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto, perhaps the greatest game developer of all time. What do you feel?' Microsoft had no answer.

The meeting was conducted by a member of Microsoft Japan's staff who could speak both English and Japanese. Things began cordially, but soon started to deteriorate. Bachus shifted uneasily in his seat. He could tell from Mikami's body language and tone that he wasn't happy with the answers he was getting. The entire meeting was conducted in Japanese. Notes were passed to Bachus explaining what was going on but all he could do was watch in horror, helpless, as it fell apart. The meeting ended abruptly. Mikami stood, bowed, and left.

Interesting article. However, a lot of the comments by Bachus come across as saying, "it's their fault, not ours." He mostly sounds like a guy trying to shift the idea of failure away from his end. The other people quoted in the piece seem more willing to be honest about the problems on both sides.

The part that stood out for me was this: "Many meetings and dinners later, a meeting in the US at E3 2003 was arranged. Microsoft and Square executives sat down to discuss Final Fantasy 11. From the off it was a disaster. “I had gone through a lot of work to set up this meeting,” Fries says. “I just sat there and watched it fall apart. There was a whole bunch of American attitude to the meeting, and the Japanese did not appreciate it.

“It was like watching a train wreck. It was like watching all this work I had done just fall apart.”"

With Microsoft, you had the guys in Japan telling the Japanese gaming industry one thing, doing it the right way, but the decisions themselves were still coming from the main offices in the US. I imagine that a lot of Japanese business people got offended one way or another during that initial period. You don't force your way in with the Japanese or wave money that them and you don't throw rigid rules at them from the start. Those kinds of power plays work fine in the US but not in Japan or even in many other places in the world. I think this "we make the rules" attitude is why Microsoft is a brand looked on with suspicion in a lot of countries.

Let's put it this way. When is the last time you've seen a big opening for a Japanese film in North America? In Japan it's very common place for Hollywood films to be shown in Japanese theatres. Lots of English speaking bands are popular in Japan. Can you say the same for any Japanese singers in English speaking countries?

It's all about making a product appealing to those of a different culture.

hmmm. interesting. i doubt if MS would do any better in the 8th gen., but i'm sure Sony will.

Your mistake was believing a single word that guy says. He has been so bad at analyzing and predicting this gen that I am convinced he is just trolling us.

GTA IV sold almost evenly between the PS3 and 360 in comparison with San Andreas which basically sold collectively the same amount between the PS3 and 360 on the PS2 alone.

Hey the 360 did better then original XBox in Japan so it was a success, albeit extremely small one.
If the 720 can do better then the 360 by putting in less effort then they did with the 360? Then that's a profitable adventure for them.

People forget about Cave to. Got some nice shooters from them as well.