Lets see how many reasons that the Japanese are not big fans of MS/Xbox/360: 1. With the orig. Xbox (which launched to decent numbers, 100k its first week) was far too large for typical J-households. Also, it had major issues with disk scratching that was precieved as not being a very refined console. This hurt the preception as a console that wouldn't stand up to Japanese gamer's tastes. 2. There was no real major Japanese support for the Xbox in Japan. Yes, Tecmo produced/still produces DOA games for the Xbox (which had insane tier rates on both the 360 and orig. Xbox). Namco had very little support, S-E was non-existant, Capcom barely paid attention. Those are the 3 largest Japanese Devs that shunned the Xbox pretty bad. 3. No internal developer support for MS to produce games that are J-centric. Rare is western, Lionhead is western, ect, ect, ect. Without games that appeal to the Japanese audience, the audience won't buy. The Xbox wasn't a shooter console, but it certainly wasn't a Japanese-friendly console either. What games were really made with a Japanese target audience? DOA? What else? Ninja Gaiden, and that was about it. Also, the Japanese do care about online gaming. FFXI (online only) sold fairly well there, and Phantasy Star Online/Universe did well as well. The issue is the fact that the online games that the Xbox have are irrelevant to the Japanese community. Now, the 360 is changing some of those major issues. 1. The 360 is quite a bit sleeker, and overall a better precieved console to the Japanese. 2. Capcom, Namco and S-E are all now producing games for the Xbox 360. Not quite to levels like Playstation or Wii, but there are FAR more quality titles by these makers for the 360. 3. MS still doesn't have a J-studio, but they did pretty much buy Mistwaker, which is close enough. They also got smaller, crappier studios like D3, Cavia, and such to produce low-key titles for the 360 to help it along. What has all this netted Microsoft? The 360 last year (2006) was the highest month a Xbox ever had in Japan. And despite this, 2007 is vastly outpacing 2006. The 360, in May, has already outsold what the 360 did upto August or September as of last year...If not October. ALREADY. The 360 is very very far behind, and will never even remotely threaten even the PS3. However, it WILL sell far better, and when the next generation Xbox comes out, MS will be within striking range of selling 5m consoles next cycle. Now, one can argue that the 360 is selling horribly (which compared to the Wii, it is), however, the 360 is only 120k units away from beating out the Xbox's entire 5-year life in Japan. By July, it'll pass this number just 18-19 months into it's life. IMO, I have a VERY high end prediction of 3m units by 2012 for the 360. The 360 looks to easily pass 375k units for the year, and depending how LO does, could do 450k, and set 2008 up to be a bit stronger than 2007 with games like DMC4, Last Remnant, Cry On, and others ready to ship. According to my spreadsheet with MS's MC number's last year, the 360 is at: 2006 (by this time last year): 46,797 Units 2007 Year to Date (MC): 93,550 Units Difference: 46,753 Units So it's basically at twice the number of systems at the same date. And unlike last year, there are about 3 major RPGs ahead, among other minor games.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
