MS made a genuine and concerted effort to get games and genres and properties of interest to the Japanese gamer in the first 3 years of the systems release.  Some Japanese developers did likewise.  There were more releases that appealed to them during the first 2 years of the PS3's release.

But how did they respond?  The numbers show.

@Darth Tigris   yeah that was unfortunate but in their defense those games werent all that and the failure rate was abysmal, but kudos to MS and others for trying. I think we have to accept the fact that that region will never embrace a US console

Japan is about the only region I know of where a different (local) brand of MP3 player has outsold the iPod range. It is definately a unique case.

"Ex"as in short for excrement maybe? perhaps some english seeping through to Japanese.

However, seems a bit dodgy an explanation for me seeing as how many Japanese games have an X in them, don't they? or am I mistaken?

Very true. Wii sales outside of Japan prove people don't care that it sounds like the another name for urine. Nothing about Japan gaming makes sense. The whole world enjoys Xbox 360 and western style games as well as PS3, Wii, and Japanese style games. But for some reason Japan snubs western games. How is it that westerner's tastes include Japanese style games, but Japanese tastes don't include western style games? Good games are universally good and fun is universally fun, so the only explanation is the Japanese refuse to  let themselves enjoy western gaming. I just don't see how anyone can argue that it's about taste and preference when Japanese games are popular outside of Japan. If we enjoy their best games than they should enjoy our best games. It's the only region that refuses to give the Xbox 360 a chance or even consider western style games.

Sorry, but you're completely wrong.

Good games are NOT universally good and fun is NOT universally fun. If it was ,as you said, universal, then Yakuza and Valkyria Chronicles would do a lot better in the west (these are QUALITY games in Japan), but they sell really bad here, just like the PSP would sell more in the west (it's outselling all home consoles in Japan), but it's doing worse than any other console right now. Japanese could ask themselves: "Why does the PSP do so bad in the west, it's awesome!" You probably see what I mean... or probably not.

Quality is subjective, fun is subjective. Nuff said.

You might need some Icy Hot after all that reaching,  with typical trends for such a game, Other M is going to flop, selling less than Corruption, that's two of the supergamecube games flopping, next up, skyward sword for the full strikeout

Yet Yakuza and Valkyria chronicles have sold decently for the niche titles they are, and with almost no marketing what so ever. The PSP is very successfull, it just isn't as successfull as the DS, but still doing fine. Even the Japanese treated Valkria Chronicles as a niche game, that's why its sequal is on the PSP instead of the PS3. Your examples are not the trend. Look at Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, and the countless other very Japanese games that enjoy huge success worldwide. Sure there are plenty of niche games that are popular enough in Japanese that westerners scratch their heads at, but I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about blockbust games like Halo, Modern Warfare, etc. Those games are just too good for the Japanese to not like at all. The sales of the Xbox 360 are so poor in Japan, inspit of huge marketing, that I don't think it has anything to do with taste. Especialy considering that MS secured tons of extremely Japanese games just for Japan, yet they still ignored the little white box.

Fun may be subjective to a certain extent, but quality is not. The Japanese are really missing out on some top quality software, but they don't even seem to want to even give any of it a chance. Maybe their are just too set in their ways. It would explain why Japanese RPG are still using random battles and turn based combat while thw rest of the world moved on years ago. But I think it's deeper than that. I think the Japanese see gaming as a Japanese thing and they don't like the idea of an outsider muscling in on the action.

Japan can't be the only nation in the world that doesn't "get it". Nope, they just don't want to "get it". Nuff said.

The PSP of course is very successful in the west overall. But it's still doing great in Japan while at the same time it's doing bad in Europe and America, that's what I meant. The PSP can surely be considered as a success, but PSP's time in the west is over, in Japan it's far away from being dead.

Regarding games like Halo and CoD: these games are selling really well in Japan, even better than many JRPGs, so saying that Japanese automatically dislike all western products is just not right.

There are of course lots of Japanese games on the 360, but it doesn't really destroy the image of the 360 being a shooter console. And shooters don't really appeal to them. These Japanese games btw are the reason why the 360 sold so many units there, without them it wouldn't even have reached 1 million by now.

Quality is definitly subjective, the ultimate proof of it is metacritic. I don't care about review scores at all, but I'm using it now to make my point clear, because many people rely on review scores. If quality is objective how can FF XIII then get review scores of 40, but get scores of 90-100 at the same time? Are many reviewers just biased or is quality subjective? What makes more sense to you?

It remains a matter of appeal. You don't even have to look at Japan vs. the west. Just compare EMEAA with Americas and you'll even see big differences here. Racing games sell better in EMEAA (GT4 as an example), FPS sell better in Americas. The 360 has a huge lead over the PS3 in America, in Europe it's pretty close and the PS3 is slightly ahead, but the PS3 is definitly in a lot better position. I don't here anyone complaining about Americans having a bias against the PS3.

Look, it's not like the Japanese don't buy 360s at all, there are just less people who buy it. Just like there are less people in America who buy PS3s. Nuff said.

You make a good point, but  seems to me that the ratio of westerners who buy Japanese games/systems is much higher than the ratio of Japanese who buy western games/systems. That's my point. Obviously the Japanese do purchase Xbox 360 and Halo, but not at the same rate that westerners buy Final Fantasy. The same goes for racing games. They might be more popular in Europe, but they are still plenty popular in North America. It's all about ratios and it seems to me that Japan is out of wack with the rest of the world. How can it be that one tiny nation disagrees with the rest of the people on the planet. It's not 100%, nothing is, but if the rest of the world likes something it stands to reason that the Japanese would too if they gave it a chance.

I doubt even a reviewer would scores FFXIII 40 out 100 would claim it's of poor quality. There are plenty of games I hate but still consider high quality. I hate Final Fantasy Tactics, but I consider it one of the finest crafted games around. High quality, but I'd score it low. FFXIII is a high quality game with love it or hate it gameplay. The gameplay is finely tuned and of the highest quality but some reviewers didn't like it. That doesn't make it any less of a quality game. There are people who apsolutly rail against Halo, I don't understand it, but some people hate it. That doesn't change the fact that each game in the series is among the highest quality FPS of their day. I don't see how Japan can be the only nation that doesn't "get it". I don't expect everyone to love it, but you'd think the same ration of people would.