Why Did Xbox 360 Fail in Japan?

[kain_kusanagi]

Mr Puggsly said:

kain_kusanagi said:

Somini said:

HappyHenry said:
He right they are loyal to domestic companys. xbox will never sell in japan they need to focus on the markets their strongest in.

Isn't that the same reason why the 360 is selling much better than the competition in the US?

I don't think so. The PS2 destroyed the Xbox in American so I think the Xbox 360 did so much better in the USA because MS made sure it had the killer games that gamers couldn't go without. Halo had a lot to do with the rise of Xbox brand, for obvious reasons. But, American gamers grew up on Japanese games. We love Japanese games. We dont' descriminate. The Xbox 360 is not more popular in the US because MS is an American company. It's library of games is just what Americans are looking for. MS went out of their way to secure the games they knew Japanese gamers would want. But the Xbox 360 was ignored by the Japanese for being American, even though they probably all wanted to play Lost Odyssey and the others Japanese exclusives. But they turned their noses up at it for being western dog shit.

Japanese gamers perplexe me. They seem very narrow minded to me. Western gamers play Japanese games, but the Japanese don't play Western games. Why they refuse to try Halo I will never understand.

Xbox 360 didn't just have killer games, it had benefit of Sony making mistake after mistake with the PS3. That allowed the 360 to gain ground in all regions.

As I stated before, MS got games to appeal to Japanese consumers and there were sales boosts in Japan because of it. The only way MS could have sold a lot more consoles in Japan is by continuing to lock exclusives for their hardware. MS could have bought popularity in Japan, but that wouldn't have been financially worthwhile.

Hence, more so than loyalty to hardware. Japanese consumers just go where the games they want are.

I have a college buddy who's native Japanese and lives near Tokyo. I asked him once why Japanese gamers don't play Xbox. He told me straight up that the Japanese pretty much consider western games to be garbage. He said video game stores stock western games in bins labeled "foriegn shit".

Can you imagine that happening in the USA? Of course not. We love Japanese games as well as games from any country. How is it that western games like Halo can be so popular in evey part of the world EXCEPT Japan? While in college my Japanese friend played Halo with us. He wasn't good at first but he got better and loved it. But he was the type that wanted to try American things and see as much of the USA before going back. From what he's told me I don't think he represents the majority of Japan. The majority seem to agree with how Keiji Inafune so gently puts it. They don't want it if it isn't Japanese. Hopefully one day they will open their hearts to the amazing games that they are missing. Untill then MS will just have to bite the bullet and continue to futily support the Japanese market so they can secure the best Japanese games for the rest of the world.