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Kasz216 on 14 July 2008
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Golvellius said:
starcraft said:

The last FF sold slightly more in the West than in Japan. This was from a total of just over 5 million units.

FFX sold around 8 million units, with a substantial advantage to the West. The Xbox 360 has a lead of around 7.5 million consoles over the PS3 in the West, a lead that is likely to remain, or alter slightly depending on price drop occurences for the Xbox 360 and the PS3 in North America.

There are a large number of people in the West and in Japan that will buy a console specifically for FFXIII. In the West, due to the large number of exclusive, reasonably high quality JRPG's avaliable, the Xbox 360 is likely to perform well in hardware and software related sales of FFXIII.

In Japan, the only possible boost will be to the PS3 due to the game's regional exclusivity, but over the last hour a couple of fundamental mistakes have been made alongside some of the assumptions regarding what FFXIII can do for the PS3 in Japan. The PS3 will not see a PS1 or PS2-like FF-related boost in Japan. Not only is Japan's relative importance to FF sales declining, but the Japanese hardcore market is declinging (quite rapidly according to last months Media Create aggregates).

But more than anything, for the first time in three generations, the Playstation console is not Japan's console of choice. MGS4 has shown us quite clearly that there is a very definite, and abrupt, limit on how far good exclusives can push a runner up console in Japan.

It is probable that the worldwide hardware boost caused by FFXIII will be larger for the PS3 simply because the console has a Japanese exclusive. However, what might have been a major worldwide boost over the Xbox 360 will now be mitigated almost to the point of irrelevance. The Xbox 360 could have had a day and date arrival of FFXIII in Japan, and just like DMC4 and other multiplatform titles, it would have done nothing for the console in that region.

Today saw a MASSIVE blow to Sony.

 

I agree with basically everything you said.

However, I would really like to know what the exact reason for not releasing an Xbox 360 version in Japan might be. Consider this:
- the game is developed in Japanese language
- the game is ported to the Xbox 360 anyway
- how much additional work would a Japanese 360 version require? (close to nothing imho)
So EVEN if doesn't sell well in Japan, the gains would definitely outweigh the (supposedly very low) expenses. So at the moment I don't understand why they don't release it in Japan.

 

It would delay the game more and the game is REALLY costly... therefore i'd guess... they need cash money?

I mean... they say it costs 10% to port. FF13 is likely EXTREMLY expensive. Japanese sales will probably go to funding the 360 port.

After all they have other projects on hold while developing it... they likely need the money.

Another reason they probably decided to hedge their bets... last thing they would need is another "spirits within" problem.