Is Japan really essential?

[waron]

you should look at the bigger picture here.
360 is western hardwarew and those always sell bad in japan no matter if it TV, console or George Foreman Grill BUT 360 is SUCCESFUL in japan. ps3 fanboys can talk all they want but MS have a plan and strategy bout japan and you can clearly see it.

so they released first xbox in japan, they moved only few consoles(about 670k LTD) because of couple japanese games BUT because ps2 had all those popular franchises in japan they failed miserably. they started to build up fanbase, product recognition etc.
here comes 360 and MS not only snatched most of past playstation exclusive franchises as multiplatform titles, but also snatched a lot significant playstation franchises as 360 timed exclusive/permanent exclusive. they introduced couple new IPs like Idolm@ster, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey etc. that drove in otakus that were quite big part of japanese playstation fanbase. that gives them HUGE product recognition in japan - people know that they will get almost every most popular game from playstation consoles on xbox for much smaller price and also they will get many exclusive games that can't be found on any other platform like Idolm@ster or Ace Combat.

right now 360 almost doubled its predecessor userbase in japan(that is great acomplishment) and it will at least triple it by the end of 2011. that's a huge investment in the future and great start for next xbox console also it gives MS ability to gain some japanese developers that would not make games for xbox console before cause in next generation while nintendo console might still be in the first place in japan, MS console might be the second most popular console.