Microsoft will lose alot of $$$ if they do.

Seriously...of course it will launch in Japan... Will it succeed? That is an entirely different question. Probably not. As most Japanese will be loyal to their Brand Sony or Nintendo rather then MS.

Probably not going to be that much separating the systems to warrant too much higher an adoption rate of the 360 though.

MS will take what they can get in Japan as they did with the 360 though and snag a few exclusives here and there to keep it's presence known.

They will, sales are sales even if they dont get many.

How could it be growing when it was selling better 3-4 years ago?

Of course they will - they'll still sell a few million there, which can make all the difference

Lol at some of the comments here.

Use your brain people, there are several countries where 360 OR PS3 OR Wii sells fewer amounts than the 360 does in Japan and they're not losing money on it.

Of course they should launch it there.

i think they lost money there because they tried much to sell there with advertisement and collaborations which isn't the same in other countries with lower sales. i don't really believe the few million sold consoles (most of them with a loss per console because of much higher sales in the first years) and some games brang more revenue as they paid for all of that.

but maybe they made more mprofit worldwide because they tried it in japan and got some japanese games but i think japan alone wasn't profitable. maybe that's what you meant and i didn't get it.

but what i don't understand is what 007bondagent means, just because the 360 is selling less in japan as some years ago has to mean the nextbox can't sell better as the 360? makes no sense to me. nextbox could also sell much better the frist years as the years after and sell better on a weekly basis as the 360 did (or less or the same).

was probably the same with xbox which sold better in the first year as the years after and 360 sold much more.

Yes. If they don't release it in Japan, then they won't get Japanese multiplats that help around the world; Final Fantasy being a good example, as is future Mistwalker games.

Not launching the system in Japan would mean repercussions across the world.

If they make money from it, why not. The Japanese game library is pretty cool as well, don't know why it sells so badly. Those sales are one more thing to add to the "Xbox 360 is Dreamcast 2" list xD

yep!