| VAMatt said: Why would they give up on Japan? They should not spend significant marketing money there, but there's no reason not to supply retailers there with systems and games to sell. Who cares if the sales are tiny? MS doesn't lose anything. |
If MS wants to ship consoles to Japan, that's fine. But consider this. The Xbox One has sold a grand total of 80k systems in Japan. In comparison. MS can sell double that in one month in the US market. To say MS has nothng to lose by being there probably isn't true though. Xbox still Being in the country is more likely to save face for PR.
Considering you're only catering to a userbase of, if customers haven't already given up on the console, a mere 80,000, there are things to consider. You have to translate games and the Xbox UI for the Japanese market, this takes significat dev time, and is costly. There has to be customer service for the console for the few people who bothered with a purchase. Setting up an Xbox team for domestic sales. People have to be paid to do that. Convincing retailers to give their product shelf space. Getting the rare dev to provide content for it is probably more costly than any revenue the console provides MS there.
So, MS sticking with Xbox in Japan is likely more of a case of being able to afford to, than it being actually worth it.
