Nope, the JRPGs in Japan sell like crap, look at the sales for FF13 in Japan on 360 versus US sales. THey might as well not even come out in Japan. The Japanese are simply not buying Xbox. Change the name?? WHy?? you think their stupid?? as soon as the see "Microsoft" there gonna head for the hills. Moneyhatting more JRPGs, that didnt work before why would it work now?? THe sad thing is i can see them doing that, like most Americans they'll just keep doing the wrong thing and hope it becomes right (im American). Plus with the crappy sales i doubt that publishers will want to enterain the timed exclusives for 360 anymore, especially now

1.  Demon's Souls massive in the west?  Surely you jest. 

2.  The bolded is a rather high benchmark to place.  Only a single PS3 game has sold over a million in Japan: Final Fantasy XIII.  The Wii, on the other hand, has had 13 million sellers, but almost every one has "Wii" somewhere in the title.  Any game breaking a million in Japan is a feat, this generation.

Edit:

Ah, I see you said franchises, not games.  That's still not a very even bar, given different publishers' tendencies to iterate on a success.  For example, the PS3 has had several franchises that have surpassed a million from Japanese publishers, but they're all franchises that see sequels at least once (and sometimes more than once) a year.  Dynasty Warriors, Pro Evo, Yakuza, etc.  Tack in 360 figures for multiplats, and that doesn't change much.  I haven't seen many Western franchises that have seen so many versions spanning multiple consoles save Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and Assassin's Creed, and the former two of those do cross the million mark I believe.

The only Japanese franchises that have broken a milion on the back of 1-2 releases are Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, and Gran Turismo, the latter of which likely wouldn't have happened had Prologue not been so heavily bundled.

I agree with your general point that Western games are disdvantaged in the Japanese market, partly due to differing tastes and partly due to an unwillinginess to try such games, but that "one million copies" barometer just seemed so... arbitrary.

You really dont have to resort to an insulting tone. Im perfectly educated thank you.

And like i said, i believe you when you say thers japanese gamers who have that view, but i i dont feel thats the underlying reason they dont buy western games. They do not like the games, thats the main reason and the most important reason.

And quoting Wada when hes talking about a game hes company publishers? And i also dont see why a retailer would procure a game that probably wont sell, that makes no sense.

Im pretty sure if a western game developer made a game that japanese gamers like it would sell decently...western games and japanese games are different, they prefer their games thats that.

But anyways im not one for arguing, especially when i get told to educate myself. So il leave it at that.

To touch on the "Japanese people don't play Western games" subject, I remember reading an article awhile back about a Japanese developer who was given the chance to play a demo of Uncharted 2. Upon starting the demo, he sat there with the controller in his hand, unmoving, for several moments. When the developers asked why he wasn't doing anything (he was at the train crash scene, from what I recall), he said, "Well, when will the cutscene end?"

I also read an article featuring game designers from Square Enix who talked about how Japanese developers generally look down upon Western development culture, and how they personally, upon working with such developers from Eidos, began to realize the benefits of such methods of design. Though these articles may be one and the same.

There is certainly a lot of ignorance to be found in the Japanese gaming industry, both from gamers and developers alike, and this no doubt has some impact on the sales of Western developed games in the region.

tagged for later...

They will have a hard time getting japanese developer on board with their next console, its a very big loss for MS. Its likely to affect the popularity of their next console outside of Japan too. With that said, with their current situation in Japan, there wasnt much other choices.

Perhaps if there were still some exclusive JRPGs scheduled to release on 360, but I don't think that this will affect any games that are already released and did whatever sales they were going to do.  

Ok, so...why is everyone saying that Microsoft is pulling out the Xbox360 from the Japanese market? Did I miss something in the article? from what I understand, it is the retailers who are dropping or lessening their stocks of the X360. This is normal in retail, when a product starts to not sell or is not selling it is not uncommon for the product to be dropped or discontinued. Or if the product still sells but sales is small relative to stocks on hand or display space, retailers would cut down on its display space and replace it with some other product that sells faster or sells more.

To me, it isnt even the retailer dictating the move to drop the x360 from their stores but its the consumers who care dictating it. If people arent buying then why would the retailer carry it?

You don't seem to get it. He's talking about ratios and so it doesnt matter how much hardware was sold. 1000 to 500 is the same as 50 to 25. They are both 2:1 ratios. The xbox 360 having a higher software tie ratio says that the owners of an xbox 360 like to game on the system more than the owners of the other systems.

Actually, it's not just that. The Japanese are a very loyal, they also have great pride in thier country. I'm not going to go as far as to call them xeniphobic, but it's right on the edge of being so.