I was  jokin it was just a response to Reasonable's post above dont be so defensive.

Quality is important in Japan, so RROD will hurt, even if it has been removed. The image remains.

I confess to encouraging the defendant your honour...

I think its the combination of a number of things... some under MS control others not.

First and foremost, like the PS3 it is a victim of the Wii.  The Wii has just grabbed the general gaming market in Japan and no doubt about it.  This is outside MS (and Sony) control and is severely hampering either HD console in the region.

Two, 360 started with the market image handed to it from the Xbox - Western shooters, a lot of competative online with rude kids, no jRPGs, no games of local interest, aggresive, Western marketing,etc.  That's not a good image for Japanese market.  Given that for the major part of its release to market the 360 reinforced that image - Halo 3, COD4 and Gears of Wars hardly challenge that image after all - with only a few Japanese centric games like Blue Dragon in the mix it quickly fell behind even the limping start of the PS3.  Simply put for a long time at the beginning I think there was little available in the ways of games/content to generate demand in Japan.

Three, RROD did not go down well in Japan.  Their tolerance, in my opinion, for such a fault is very low compared to Europe and extremely low compared to US.  On top of the above two points this really didn't help the console at all.  Being seen as an unreliable console was the worst thing that could have happened to 360 at that time IMHO.

Four, if you were Japanese and wanted an HD console with online and shooters, etc. why not go for a PS3?  You know and have more faith in Sony & Playstation brand than MS and Xbox 360.  You still get COD4, DMC4, etc. and its not like Halo and GoW are big franchises there.  Also the PS3 would have better local perception of quality and the promise of a more appealing library of games at some point in its lifetime.

Given all of the above, the 360 just hasn't generated a lot of demand / interest in Japan given how long its been on sale there.  Now, with recent moves around jRPGs the console's finally seeing a little traction.  But in the big picture not enough IMHO.  PS3 will likely get enough jRPGs to hold it off (after all for every 360 spike in Japan PS3 will likely see one with its titles when they hit and probably a bigger spike to) as well as an ever more appealing library of games for Japanese gamers.  GT5 is still to come, and when an HD  title that appeals to the Japanese is multi-platform I reckon the average gamer would chose the known brand of Sony over MS brand.

If MS had got FF for Japan as well they might have really put a dent in the market, but unless something changes that would appear not to be the case.  And while having FF outside Japan is good for the console it means zero in Japan.

That's my take on the major issues facing 360 in that market - and they're not going to be easy to solve.  In some ways a really deep price cut probably makes the most sense as it at least opens the chance that if the console can be got cheap more Japanese will give it a try.

Personally I think that FF exclusive in Japan, plus GT5 will easily enable PS3 to stay well ahead of 360 in the region.  If Sony get their act together with more jRPGs and casual titles they can still easily block 360 (they're obviously of the opinion for market research and focus groups, etc that LBP, for example, is going to be really popular in the region).  As for the Wii, unless something outside MS control happens they have no chance of getting near that in the market, lower price or not.

This should have an amazing effect in Japan. Note that amazing for the 360 is Japan is a relative term. That is a rather massive price cut of what thirty percent. That is bound to stimulate more sales especially with the given lineup over the coming months. By the end of the year the 360 should have six decent Japanese role playing games. So the console should approach a parity of value. Especially with Star Ocean, Cry On, and the other Mistwalker projects factored into the mix.

What is striking for me though is that perhaps this genre on consoles is not very relevant in Japan anymore. I am starting to think that perhaps the Japanese do not want to play these games on consoles regardless. There after all has only been a single title to reach half a million domestically. Every other title has sold less then a quarter million, and most do not even break two hundred thousand.

This should be a good proving on whether my suspicions are correct. With that price and that lineup even given that the console is not domestic. I would expect nothing less then weekly average sales of ten thousand. Now if that does not occur then for the most part we have to start debating whether the genre is dead on consoles as far as Japan is concerned.

That's a decent move on Microsoft's part--isn't September 11 roughly around the time that the 360 shortage in Japan is supposed to be over? It would make sense if they were making room to put out the 60gbs.

I'd say they could start pulling in 4-5k on average, possibly 6-7 if they keep putting out the exclusive RPGs.

They can sell them at $100 and the PS3 would still sell better. The X360 and hte Japanese don't mix.

The 9th of August Japanese sales numbers disagree with you ....

Tales of Vesperia says hi. That's the only reason it went up.

September 11th is:

• 1 Week after the Xbox 360 gets restocked in Japan
• Launch day of Infinite Undiscovery in Japan
• Jasper/60GB HDD gets to Japan.

So it's a very good time for the price drop - Just like MS did last year, when Ace Combat 6 launched (X360 outsold PS3 that week, FYI). Difference is that the X360 has had better trending this time of year than 2007 did, which gives me hope that the X360 will continue it's impressive revival #2 in the JP marketplace.

Right now, 2008 is attemping to become the best year Microsoft has had for the X360, as it's just a few thousand units shy of 2007's record pace.