Theory: MS Is A Major Part of Why the Japanese Market is Down.

[bigjon]

Ok, so as we know Japanese gamers have a bias against buying any western made games regardless of their quality. I really cannot think an exception to the rule off hand. Even things like baseball which is popular in Japan does not sell well if it is Western produced.

Ok, so MS thinks the reason is because the stuff the west creates just does not appeal to Japanese gamers. So as MS does what they do best, they buy up as many Japanese oriented games as they can, and they also make sure they are the first next gen system on the market. What has this amounted to, About 200k more sales in 1 less year. I have no idea if MS thinks it was worth the price or not.

Ok, so now this is where I believe they have hurt the Japanese market in general- They were wrong in the assumtion that it was JUST the games.. it is them. There seems to be a major portion of the Japanese gaming population who will refuse until death to purchase a foriegn console. So this is where we are now- We have the 360 which has pretty much all the core Japanese oriented game up to this time but no one wants to buy it, then we have the Wii which has the casual side of the market (and Smash fans) all sown up, but the "real" gamers, the ones who buy all the games still own PS2s. Then you have the PS3 which does not have nearly enough japanese oriented games to warrant a purchase for it price. So imo we can give MS a big round of ovation for screwing up the entire Japanese Market with their failed market penetration tactics.... well, it was not a complete failure... they did sell 200k more consoles AND, they really f'd up their competition in Sony.

Now that aside, I do think regardless the market would be down over the past just based on demographic changes, but not the 50% down it is. And please do not say recession... we know how much negative affect they have on gaming .

How do they solve this? I think they are on the right track with the DQX announcement. They need to consolidate on to one console, which is what they have done every generation. The PS3, besides being undercut by MS, sealed their own fate when they left they base and tried to focus on the west(very Sega esque). Nintendo focused on the home land, then pushed there product on the west (we are just easier to push around I guess... lol).

I think DQX and the Train of Jgames that will follow it in Japan should help resurect(revive) it from what MS and a few other factors have done to it.... and maybe SMG and TP can rise with it... lol.