I live in a small town in Gifu Prefection. There is one major gaming store here and a few department and electronic stores that sell video games. Of all these places that I have visited the Kinect 250GB bundles were sold out. This may not be saying much because the stores probably dont stock up much on Xboxes, but I was surprised regardless. I was thinking that Kinect would get no love here just like the 360 which has been on life support for several years now. 

At the elementary schools I work at Ive been asking my students if they know what kinect is? Quite a few actually do. Probably the same amount that know what the 3DS is, and the latter hasnt even been advertised yet. I don't know any one here who has a Kinect though. I really want to play it. My apartment is too small for one unfortunately. However, I might just get a used one if I can find it for cheap.

A lot of the games have sold out too. Dancemasters, Sonic Free Riders, and at some places Adrenaline Misfits. This is really odd because I have never seen an Xbox game sold out anywhere though it occasionally happens for PS3 games.

As far as I can tell, the advertising campaign here has not been aggressive at all either. There are only a few odd commercials on TV with a bald guy announcer.

Here are two of them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbthwRoCWSo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9pHbSGibsE&feature=related

I was wondering if there is anyone else in Japan that has impressions of their own to share.

I don't think Kinect will help much the 360 much in Japan, but it is nice to see some people are embracing it.

Well there was some stuff in here:

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=119904

and hey you're like my neighbor, I live in Aichi Prefecture (Nagoya). ;-p

Well... What can I say? I'll say what I have always said about Kinect in Japan. Space CONSTRAINT.. I am currently searching for apartments (in Tokyo), I have been at maybe 20, and NONE of them are Kinect friendly... I even have a MUCH HIGHER budget than ALL MY Japanese friends (only because my company will pay half of my rent) and I even earn WAY MORE than the average young Japanese (gamer demographic, as well as kids). So I don't believe people will buy it (in the LONG RUN). Also, I have been looking for electronics to buy for my apartment recently, and I have yet to see people flock around the Kinect demos. I even have a girlfriend who says that her average Japanese family has LESS SPACE (per room of course) than many of the apartments I have been looking at!

So even me, with a much higher salary and much higher apartment budget, can't find an apartment in Tokyo suitable for Kinect, how the hell can the average Japanese find one?

But hey, what do I know...? The poster above me certainly doesn't think I know anything about this. LMAO!

Early reports... someone already posted?

Early Reports Suggest Kinect Having "Rough Start" in Japan

@tjallern

I think Tokyo certainly has space constraints based on real estate value and population but is this true for the rest of Japan? I did ask for some examples of space in Japan based on average sizes not just the headline space issues faced in the larger overcrowed Japanese cities such as Tokyo.

The concensus at the time is the average home in Japan is roughly the same as a home in the UK. Kinect certainly needs space and 6 foot would be the least you would want to try and get away with and even then you will find some games will not let you play two player.

I cannot edit posts or quote posts so please excuse my doulble post but I thought I would add this to the above. I live in Portsmouth which is famous for packing them in. Most of the husing on the Island itself is Terraced and small. I strongly suspect that a lot of households in Portsmouth will struggle. I live in a large terraced house and thankfully have no such issues and can even accomodate 8 feet of space with modifying my home.

Portsmouth is the United Kingdom's only island city and the thirteenth most densely populated place in Europe. It is the second most densely populated place in the UK, after Inner London

Of course, Tokyo is not the whole of Japan. I know this... But there is about 13 million people in Tokyo Metropolis, not counting the whole Metro area which houses about 35-39 million or something. The prefectures houses 8,4 million or something with a density of 5,847/km2. In comparison. Yokohama (2nd biggest) houses 3,6 million with a density of 8,335/km2 and Osaka (3rd biggest) houses 2,6 million with a density of 11,893/km2. So as you can see. Japan's total population is about 124 million or something, so Tokyo houses about 10% of Japan's total population and is still not as densely populated as neither Yokohama nor Osaka (if I understand the numbers correctly). With these numbers in mind, and with the total 360s in Japan in mind (1,4 million VGC numbers), I think it's fair to "guess" that many of the 360s sold in Japan is located in Tokyo. Of course there is no proof of this, but I like to imagine things. When I can't even find a Kinect friendly apartment in Tokyo, how the hell am I gonna find it in other cities which have LESS people, but are more densely populated? Yes, there are farm houses and everything around in Japan, and I have been to some of them as well (visiting gf's family), but they are not really the 360s demographic. So IMO, I feel that I have a pretty valid argument, based on the numbers. Of course, IMO.

Oh, and lets not forget the best piece of info. All the rumored 360s selling to American soldiers stationed in Japan =D

Numbers are taken from... Wikipedia... Where else? =)

I mean Its a great piece of technology and Japan still doesnt seem to bite, What more do they want???

I think its because xbox is from a different country and they seem to some-how believe that japan was the one that created the video game industry, which is why I suppose they refuse to buy anything foreighn!!!

pretty B.S. in my opinion

By your logic they shouldn't buy Apple because Sony "INVENTED" the walkman.

America is going exactly the same way, by the next gen I am willing to bet a wager on x720 (or whatever) being the bestselling console in NA by some margin...then the story will be "Sony or Nintendo can't sell in NA because Americans would no longer buy a foreign (Japanese) console".

I hope Kinect does well in Japan.

LOL if you believe people in the U.S. buy xbox because its american, people buy it because it has the genres they love, Sports, fps, rpg, and to some extent racers. In the U.S. people buy consoles because they have the games they like or a fresh new experience. up til about 2008 360 had a much better Japanese lineup than PS3 but still nobody bought it because it wasn't japanese.