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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Why Did Xbox 360 Fail in Japan?

kain_kusanagi said:


Yet that's is not how my Japanese college friend describes it.

Your sports analogy isn't as accuret many would assume. Every sport has it's region. Soccer is more popular outside of the USA, but it really is the only sport that has world wide fanship. Most sports are as tied to their culture of origin as brands of beer. But we are talking about a ball game. Reduce soccor down to it's basics and it sounds a lot like football's basics. Get the ball to the other side of the field. In that regard sports games are popular everywhere.

Video games should appeal universaly in Japan like they do in the rest of the world. Why are the Japanese the only ones that don't want to play the rest of the world's games? My Japanese friend and the respected gaming industry veteran Keiji Inafune agree. The Japanese don't want to play foriegn games because they only want stuff made in Japan.

It took a decade for Japan to catch on to what the rest of world was enjoying in Apple's iPhone. But it finaly happened. Maybe the Nextbox will be able to do what Apple finaly did. I don't know. The Japanese have to be willing to try something new and keep an open mind to having fun regardless of the products country of origin. Keiji Inafune seems to think that it will be a difficult mountain to climb even though he likes the Xbox and enjoyed western games himself. He knows Japanese culture and he believes they aren't buying the stellar western games because they aren't Japanese.

Well, I don't know why you are jut writing off my soccer vs football example, or the link with photos of a japanese video game store aisles...

but moving on, if I were just to simply accept that your friend and keiji know better than everyone else, then MS just needs to make Japanese games and secure more Japanese software. MS knew this from the beginning, and really just barely tried.

Regarding Apple's Ipod, you REALLY need to read up on Japan mate. Japan has had cheap smart-phone-like phones for a good ten years before iphone. Iphone coming out wsn't like it was here, with fanfare and gasps and holy shit. It was like "ok this phone is made by apple and can do more than other phones but is more expensive". Dude, even new features that samsung shows us with galaxy have been on phones in Japan for over a decade. I'm not saying Japan had iphone and galaxy 10 years ago, but I'm clarifying for you that there is a stark difference between our market and theirs and you should stop imagining they are the same. Iphone here was revolutionary. Iphone there was just business as usual, but more expensive, and less pretty.



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Deyon said:

Found this on another site. I'm posting it because it has some very good points and reasons to why Xbox360 failed in japan.

Issue of trust due to Microsoft's lack of and how fast it stopped support for Japan on the original Xbox;
Failure rate, RROD added to the untrustworthiness of the already bad Xbox brand;
360 was also known for scratching up disks and bad support;
Having to constantly pay for online for something that is free on PS3, yet support on content is lacking compared to the west;
Constantly paying for online does not suit the majority of the gaming audience in Japan ie students;
Having to over pay for expensive proprietary add-ons like harddrives and HD-DVD drive;
Lack of games of interest;
A few RPG's were good but the support soon stopped just like the original Xbox, as predicted;
Bonus of Blu-ray and future proofing;
All the exclusives eventually went to PS3 and had more content;
Kinect doesn't work in 90% of Japanese homes; XXXX
Don't blame this on patriotism at a country full of iphones and foreign products, you simply made a worse product XXX

IGN can suck my left nut

This makes quite a bit of sense...



Black Women Are The Most Beautiful Women On The Planet.

"In video game terms, RPGs are games that involve a form of separate battles taking place with a specialized battle system and the use of a system that increases your power through a form of points.

Sure, what you say is the definition, but the connotation of RPGs is what they are in video games." - dtewi

Skip to 5:36 on the video.





Nsanity said:
ethomaz said:
The same reason 360 sells better in US lol

The 360 has only sold a little over a million Japan and the PS3, Wii have sold millions in the US so no, its not the same.


It is... the amount of sales didn't change the reason... Japan is smaller than US for games.

axumblade said:
...

On another note, there were a lot of reasons why the 360 stopped selling in Japan. The main reason, other than the rumor of them disliking countries from other countries would be the promise of exclusives that turned out to come to other systems. While Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon maintained exclusivity in Japan, more well known titles like Star Ocean and Tales of Vesperia turned into multiplatform titles, which led to the Japanese people losing trust in the "exclusivity" route.

Pretty much this, at the beginning of this gen the 360 tried to be the new playstation in term of software variety but it failed. The 360 is the shooter console and the Japanese are probably not hugely interested in shooters.

End of story.



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theprof00 said:
kain_kusanagi said:


Yet that's is not how my Japanese college friend describes it.

Your sports analogy isn't as accuret many would assume. Every sport has it's region. Soccer is more popular outside of the USA, but it really is the only sport that has world wide fanship. Most sports are as tied to their culture of origin as brands of beer. But we are talking about a ball game. Reduce soccor down to it's basics and it sounds a lot like football's basics. Get the ball to the other side of the field. In that regard sports games are popular everywhere.

Video games should appeal universaly in Japan like they do in the rest of the world. Why are the Japanese the only ones that don't want to play the rest of the world's games? My Japanese friend and the respected gaming industry veteran Keiji Inafune agree. The Japanese don't want to play foriegn games because they only want stuff made in Japan.

It took a decade for Japan to catch on to what the rest of world was enjoying in Apple's iPhone. But it finaly happened. Maybe the Nextbox will be able to do what Apple finaly did. I don't know. The Japanese have to be willing to try something new and keep an open mind to having fun regardless of the products country of origin. Keiji Inafune seems to think that it will be a difficult mountain to climb even though he likes the Xbox and enjoyed western games himself. He knows Japanese culture and he believes they aren't buying the stellar western games because they aren't Japanese.

Well, I don't know why you are jut writing off my soccer vs football example, or the link with photos of a japanese video game store aisles...

but moving on, if I were just to simply accept that your friend and keiji know better than everyone else, then MS just needs to make Japanese games and secure more Japanese software. MS knew this from the beginning, and really just barely tried.

Regarding Apple's Ipod, you REALLY need to read up on Japan mate. Japan has had cheap smart-phone-like phones for a good ten years before iphone. Iphone coming out wsn't like it was here, with fanfare and gasps and holy shit. It was like "ok this phone is made by apple and can do more than other phones but is more expensive". Dude, even new features that samsung shows us with galaxy have been on phones in Japan for over a decade. I'm not saying Japan had iphone and galaxy 10 years ago, but I'm clarifying for you that there is a stark difference between our market and theirs and you should stop imagining they are the same. Iphone here was revolutionary. Iphone there was just business as usual, but more expensive, and less pretty.

I'm not writing your example off. I just don't agree that it applies. As for the photo I'm not disputing it I'm just taking my friend and Keiji Inafune at their word. They say Japan doesn't want western "shit" and from what I've seen they are right.

You say MS should make the games that the Japanese want. That's true. MS did secure tons of Japanese games and many of them were exclusive or timed exclusive. It didn't help.

I say the Japanese as a whole need to be more like my friend and Keiji Inafune. They need to open their mind and try new things. The rest of the world can't be wrong about great games. If the west can enjoy Japanese style than the Japanese can enjoy western style if they would just give it a chance.

You want MS to change for the Japanese. You're right, that what they've attempted and I'm sure they will keep doing and building on. I don't think it will matter unless the Japanese can get past their foreign product issues. I want the Japanese to change so they will enjoy western stuff as much as I enjoy Japanese stuff. If MS bought up Japanese studios and put out tons of native Japanese 1st party games I'm sure they would be more successfull in Japan. But he problem would still excist that the Japanese won't even consider playing western games.



So according to this Japan and the US are terrible console market indicators since they are the homes of Nintendo and Sony, and Microsoft respectively.

In other words Europe, with its lack of native console makers, is the perfect indicator of an unbiased first world console market.



kain_kusanagi said:.

...

MS did secure tons of Japanese games and many of them were exclusive or timed exclusive. It didn't help

...


Yeah, of course "semi" exclusives didn't help. I cannot blame the Japanese for this. Microsoft's "timed exclusive" invention is a bit of a cheap trick and they made a practice out of it.



Nsanity said:

Skip to 5:36 on the video.




^that

as ive been saying for years.  americans are the only idiots in the world

 

>User was banned for this post [RH]



I didn't read through the thread but let me tell you why the 360 "failed" in japan

ok when going after a market you have to basically understand that market and target what that market likes. Not only that but you have to target THE most popular games in that region

The top games in Japan coming off ps2 were games like Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo and Hot Shots Golf

So basically Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy were their only true ways of ever getting success in Japan being that GT and HSG are Sony owned ips.


they also would've needed to convince the japanese market why they should buy their favorite games on the Xbox instead of on PlayStation

Look at America for a second and you will see that M$ went for the top game in that region which was GTA and they also gave the American crowd a reason to buy it on Xbox instead of Playstation(getting exclusive content 1st) I still cant believe Sony let that happen SMH. Halo and the rising success of COD(also getting exclusive content 1st) helped solidify their dominance over PS in the American region.

there was no Dragon Quest made so they really only had Final Fantasy to go after. They did get Final Fantasy but you can clearly see that Sony caught on to their strategy and they made sure that Final Fantasy released 1st on PlayStation. Even if it didn't nobody would've bought it on Xbox over there because there would be no reason. There would've been no reason to buy it on Xbox instead of Playstation


They also had Xbox Live in the way of things over there. they dont play shooters so the only games they would really play online was maybe something like Dark Souls. Now why would a Japanese person get a game like that on Xbox when they can get it on their already favorite console that they can play online with for FREE?

They will probably never penetrate that market now that Sony seems to have caught on to that M$ strategy