The REAL Reason for Poor Japanese X360 Sales.

[spitfire1945]

hanafuda said: There are a number of things affecting how it is performing over here. Don't forget the red rings of death. Pretty much any discussion board you go to here will have people telling of their 360 hardware failures, and other people saying they are tempted to get one, but don't want the thing blowing up on them. This is a major factor. Japanese people don't want unreliable hardware. Also, consider the game localization. Just look at the JPN release schedule. Fewer 360 games make it over here because companies just can't afford the cost of localizing the game for the meagre sales they will get. GoW only sold 50,000 here. Crackdown? 25,000 after four weeks, and they are the 'big' titles. Furthermore, even if they do get localized, the release is many months after the original release in the US. Another sign that 360 developers don't care about the Japanese market (I'm not saying they don't, but that is the impression JPN gamers will get).

well, you didn't quite hit the target... I'm fine with the first point you said, but not enterly with the second. I'll explain you why. Consider that I live in Italy, and we Italians are probably the worst treated gamers in Europe (excluding the minor countries) with lots of games not translated even from english. I consider myself a medium guy that likes videogames. Do you have any ideas how long we will have to wait for a game that comes from Japan? Based on what you just said Europeans, and more like Italians, shouldn't buy any games that comes from Japan just because it takes a year or so to get here? If I remember correctly, at the age of the SNES none of the FF episode came to europe because of localization, still we are eager to play them now on the GBA, FIFTEEN years later even if not translated in Italian!!! Hell, we are still waiting for FFIII on the DS that you had over a year ago, and for you was just a remake, but for us is a brand new episode never released here!!!! The real problem is not localization by itself, but the fact that NONE of the game that came out on that platform are worth your attention because they don't meet Japanese tastes... If the number of the installation base was 2-3 millions, more and more publishers will be pleased to bring their franchises to Japan and more Japanese SH will be happy to develop for it. See, it's just that the dog bites his own tail: Poor advertising+poor number of japanese games-->Poor installed base-->no localization from western publishers-->Japanese don' t get good impression-->even less japanese games and so on.