does microsoft deserve to do well anywhere though ?.. no not really.

M$? Deserve? Japan?

I have to completely DISAGREE with Starcraft on this one. I don't care what RPGs M$ keeps buying. They rushed a flawed system to the market.....marketed it poorly (otherwise with all those "amazing" RPGs the 360, it would be dominating Japan), and are the true ones who are focused on the west. Why do you think that the bulk of the 360s userbase is in America, and then the numbers are sporadic everywhere else, whereas with the PS3, it's pretty well distributed?

HD Media center is a making it a hit in EU. Western games like FPSs and adventure games make it do equally well in the US. And games like Valkyria Chronicles, Disgaea 3, more to come make it do the numbers it does in Japan. And didn't MGS4 make it sell like 78K one week? Has the 360 ever done that?

It's hard to say Sony has done nothing in Japan and M$ has done everything when the numbers seem to show differently. They must be doing something right if their userbase there is over 2 million, and the 360s is like 670k

The PS3 probably has more Japanese centric games than the 360. But not all of them get localised in the west.

Bold = me. Although I've since bought a DS for my jrpg fix.

Do they deserve to be doing well in Japan? I would say no and I'm a pretty staunch Sony fan. Regardless of whether MS bought exclusiveness of rpg's or not, Sony still has essentially zero in Japan, let alone anywhere else, two years into their release.

I'd say current state of play reflects each console well right now:

Wii - good marketing, good image, great games, reliable HW - Leading
PS3 - okay marketing, good image, weak games, reliable HW - second
360 - weak marketing (there was lot's of it but it all looked Western to me), weak games (at launch and until recently), unreliable HW - third but some recent spikes

So no Sony doesn't automatically deserve victory but then neither does MS at this point in Japan. Only recently have MS made moves with games for region in any numbers and of course in Japan I believe the RROD is viewed much more harshly than in US.

Nintendo seem to have got most things right for the region, and that's why their sales are where they are. I'd look at PSP too, and the sales it got when it had titles/features that were actually popular in the region vs beforehand when it seemed mainly to offer slightly cut down PS2 games.

Deserved is such an emotionally charged, and thoroughly loaded term. That said Sony has probably seen better sales then they ought to have. Based primarily on brand recognition, loyalty, and short sighted consumers making erroneous assumptions. Which will not exist next generation unless Sony takes some large strides in Japan this generation.

Sony consciously made some bad decisions they would not have made were they not suffering from an inflated sense of self importance. The mentality that told them they had the right and the clout to dictate terms to the industry. They committed a cardinal sin they were abusive to third party developers. Everything they did was contrary to the best interests of third party developers, and accordingly a lot of them went looking to form new relationships.

That is where Microsoft came in. With all the abuse Sony laid out on third party developers it is no surprise that so much of that loyalty went out the window as quickly as it did. All Microsoft had to do was provide a decent development environment. This was how Sony blew it all as it were. They had these third party developers on their side until they started to screw them over. They went and performed a Nintendo assuming they could do whatever they wanted, because nobody had another option. Well they had two, and Microsoft was even willing to pay.

Sony deserves the library they have it is a culmination of all their misdeeds. Sony couldn't have been bothered to even make it harder on Microsoft. A lot of time Microsoft didn't even have to approach these developers. The developers approached them looking to sell an exclusive away from Sony.

Well i want the ps3 to do better then the 360 in japan. And the ps3 will do better then the 360 in japan. does the ps3 deserve to hell no, they have done fuck all for the japanese consumer, shame on them being as they are a japanese company anyway.

in my opinion if the 360 was called playstaion 3 it would be 360>>>>>>>>Wii every week, when it comes to sales.

but saying that i am glad japan is more or less shunning there efforts. Just waiting to see what LBP will do

They have to right now or else Sony would pull the PlayStation Brand. Still even with them aiming for profit with the hardware the first-party and second-party studios are definitely making amazing games. Im not seeing them siding with one of the other. I see them balancing out what needs to be done to get the console selling without really adjusting pricepoint.

I have a problem with the wording of this thread title. Has Microsoft done more to obtain JRPG's? Yes. Has Sony concentrated on more Western-style games to this point? Yes. Do either of them "deserve" to be competitive in Japan? Deserve has nothing to do with it. If companies got what they deserved, Dreamcast wouldn't have died such a quick death.

"Sony deserves the library they have it is a culmination of all their misdeeds. Sony couldn't have been bothered to even make it harder on Microsoft. A lot of time Microsoft didn't even have to approach these developers. The developers approached them looking to sell an exclusive away from Sony." source?