European Xbox chief Chris Lewis has said part of the reason Xbox 360 has failed on a relative level to connect in southern European markets as it has in the UK is a failure to develop culturally appropriate marketing - but that the situation has improved and will get better still.

Let’s pick on France, Italy and Spain, for example,” Lewis told Edge. “There’s a much more casual gaming orientation there – people like to dip in and out, they’re not perhaps so likely to buy multiple consoles and they are more price-sensitive markets.

“I would also put our marketing fairly central to it in as much as I’m not sure we work hard enough to develop locally customisable, culturally connected marketing in the way that we needed to. We are addressing all that and I think we’ve got a much deeper insight, much higher levels of empathy with that now than we had in the first few years and phases.”

Show us some figures, Chris. More through the link.

Check here.

http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/08/10/culturally-connected-360-marketing-will-help-break-southern-europe-says-lewis/

Or maybe because those countries have a huge 'I love Japan and his games' fanbase and are less interested in Western games + consoles?

When referring to ships and most countries you refer to it as a female.

They are trying. 

You can't blame them for trying.  It's good that Euro gamers are getting some more love.

""Let’s pick on France, Italy and Spain, for example,” Lewis told Edge. “There’s a much more casual gaming orientation there – people like to dip in and out, they’re not perhaps so likely to buy multiple consoles and they are more price-sensitive markets.""

==> so less hardcore ? so more price sensitive ?

so why PS3 >> Xbox360 in France Italy Spain ?

... headshot!

"“I would also put our marketing fairly central to it in as much as I’m not sure we work hard enough to develop locally customisable, culturally connected marketing in the way that we needed to. We are addressing all that and I think we’ve got a much deeper insight, much higher levels of empathy with that now than we had in the first few years and phases.”"

==> Wow, people begin to buy Xbox360 ???

Let me gues ... Arcade+PGR4+Halo3+GTA4 = 200 euros ...

I m guessing that I guess very good.

i think they will fail miserably
europeans are less likely to do impulsive buys than americans (which have worked great with games like halo and gears)
but unless they get gran turismo 5 on their console its not gonna happen.

they are practically giving it away there.

you get a FREE xbox360 if you buy a samsung omnia (5mpx touch screen windows mobile cellphone 499euros)

I live in a Southern Europe country and I think the problem is brand name.
At least in my country, people usually take the name of the most successful product and associate it to the hole class where it belongs.
eg:
all MP3 players are called iPod;
all brands of cola are called coca-cola;
all video discs formats are called DVD;
although less frequently, sometimes all optical discs are CDs


In the early 90s, the most known brand here was SEGA and consequently whether you had a mega drive (genesis in USA) or an SNES you'd have to describe it to your parents and/or friends as a SEGA. For the portables, until the GBA, all of them were Gameboys.
In the mid-90s, that changed. the PS1 started to be heavily marketed and fastly became the most popular. Nowadays the name "Playstation" is used to describe all of the game consoles. When the PSP came out, its name started to be used for all the portables. Currently, the DS is referred as a dual-screen PSP. And I'm talking about 30, 40 and a few 20 year old people.

This happens to a certain degree in software as well. If you ask someone to tell you the name of a:
driving game => Gran Turismo
Sports game => PES
party game => buzz
music game => singstar
And any game they mention will likely to be thought as a playstation exclusive.
Earlier today I talked about super mario galaxy to a guy and he told me he thought Nintendo didn't existed anymore.

Here, the playstation family represents more than 90% of the market share.
Unless microsoft/nintendo (wich both have third parties distributing their products) can at least change the popular notion of what a console is, they'll never get bigger market shares.

My country might not be that great of a market but I remember to read a few years ago, probably 2003, that PS2 sales had reach 100k. Which I think is isn't bad in a 10 million population with one of the lowest average personal incomes in the UE-15.

Sorry for bad english.
thanks for your patience. lol

eg:
all MP3 players are called iPod;
all brands of cola are called coca-cola;
all video discs formats are called DVD;
although less frequently, sometimes all optical discs are CDs

I live in the US and a lot of people use this terminology. This is what happed to Xerox and some other well known brands. Instead of saying photocopy, people say Xerox. There are well documented articles in marketing that discusses this phenomenon.

He does have a point about price consciousness. Remember after the European price cut the 360 did see a sales increase, and it stabilized at a much higher level. The only real question is which segment of the market is more sensitive to pricing that should be the demographic they start marketing their product to.

I also wouldn't say that Sony has it right either both are relatively close in sales. The 360 this week had seventy five percent of the sales of the PS3. That is not a large margin. Not compared with the margin the dominant console has in the market. So the question remains what are both Microsoft and Sony missing. The disparity in volume is in no other region that extreme. Percentile yes in Japan, but not North America. So both Microsoft and Sony are obviously having some issues marketing their products.

Anyway the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have a problem. I am thinking it was probably a poor strategy for Sony to have canned so many in their advertising department so soon in Europe, and I have yet to see where Sony is redoubling their efforts in the region. This may work for Microsoft they are starting to try and quantify their problem. The price cut was a good first step. Now they need to appeal better to the gaming needs of Europeans.

I also think that the effect of GT5 is being to zealously used in these discussions. I think the attach rate of twenty five percent for Mario Kart for the Wii should be somewhat more then disconcerting for the fans. Perhaps Europe really has gone around the bend. Regardless discussing the impulse buying of North Americans, and then suggesting that one game will sell millions on the PS3 in Europe is somewhat of a oxymoron. After all that would be the very definition of impulse buying. You could say North Americans are impelled by other types of games, but you would have to say that the Europeans are no different. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Either the Europeans are impulsive or they are not impulsive.

I have heard this before more times then I can count. Someone says that Europeans are not impulsive with a sort of snotty overtone. Then at some point later in the thread. They imply that the brand name sells Europeans on something, or a particular game will sell Europeans on something. This just comes across as nationalistic idiotic pride. Which is contradicted when the truth slips out the other side of an argument.