WW - 21st August Up!

[Mr Puggsly]

Reasonable said:

I don't think it's the titles so much as the brand perception and genre association.  MS invested, particularly early on, in both true exclusives such as Blue Dragon as well as purchasing or otherwise negotiating timed exclusives that were specific for Japan, but I just felt they never overcame the brand/genre perception of being FPS/Western titles orientated and that they tried to use too western a style of marketing early on.

When the timed exclusives came to and end and the titles then hit PS3 with more content I think that hurt the 360 a lot in Japan, too.  In hindsight I think the timed exclusives approach was a mistake for MS, they should have either made sure they were true exclusives or only invested in real exclusives vs anything timed.

On paper the 360 has more than enough content to sell in the region I'd say - so I guess I disagree it doesn't - but it doesn't have the right perception in the market and MS don't seem able to attain it.  Now, it's irrelivent I think.  The boosts that saw the 360 easily beat the Xbox total seem over now, even the slight spike from the clearance sale and new model seems to be slipping away and never took the 360 near the Wii and PS3 in the region.

Unless Kinect suddenly becomes huge in Japan, then I think the 360 has achieved what it can there and will only see very small average weekly sales around the 3 to 5 k mark.

Not really much to argue with. Brand perception plays a roll. But I mostly blame software for poor sales. I mean if the 360 had major exclusives like the PS3 often gets in Japan. We could naturally assume the 360 would be in bigger demand there.