bigjon do you also believe in Zeitgeist the movie?

No, they aren't stupid. It just isn't easy to create franchises that the Japanese like. The existing big ones either cost them too much money, or aren't for sale (MH, DQ, FF).

How many new IP's have done well in Japan? Nintendo's IP's do well, but their games are far from traditional (the "casual" titles), and nobody can seem to replicate their success. Blue Dragon did pretty damn well, considering the state of traditional games there. Look at how Valkyria Chronicles did, or even new RPG's released on the DS. Blue Dragon sold on par with The World Ends With You.

I entirely agree with Zim and c0rd on this now.
The way westerners with obviously no knowledge of japanese culture or way of thinking, are stereotyping japanese consumers is just plain silly. It's typical westerner way of thinking applied to the japanese, just in reverse.
Zim and c0rd explanations just strike a chord with me, none of the other explanation do.

And yes, I'm a westerner, with some knowledge of japanese culture (I'm not an expert), and I just happen to have very japanese aligned tastes (or so it seems to this day). And the XB360 is just completely unapealing to me, except perhaps one or two games (only Tales of Vesperia comes to my mind right now).
Most westerners saying japanese don't buy the XB360 because they're xenophobic :
- are head deep in HD nonsense that japanese people just don't put so high on the value chart
- would not buy a horse race tycoon game or a train driving game
- believe the XB360 has all the best games
Which just shows how out there they are.

OT, MS is not responsible for any major part of the japanese market being down.
Even if they pay for that, the blame mostly goes to the japanese devs/publishers, who accepted to risk destroying their franchises (long term effect) for money (short term effect).
I'll always say this was a stupid move, whose results will become worse and more obvious as time passes (IMHO).

JaggedSac, there's nothing wrong with generalizations - although they can be misapplied. But that stats show that Japanese, Europeans and Americans in general prefer different types of game. This is a fact, but it doesn't mean that if you pick a particular Japanese person they will like Hot Shots Golf more than Gears Of War.

strongly disagree with the reasons
IMO MS 'failure' in Japan this gen is solely down to RROD. Japanese people don't buy foreign items, especially American, because the reliability is disgraceful. You won't see a Japanese guy driving a Chevy ever, because Toyota or Honda is a million times more reliable. Same thing here, if the 360's reliability was bulletproof as their japanese rivals they could have done really well. Now they have tarnished their rep in that part of the world forever.

 this

Oh ffs try and actually understand a post before replying. The japanese do not view themselves as gaming gods. The amount of hardcore gamers in Japan is like most countries tiny. Funnily the people who may think japan is the great gaming country (the hardcore) are the ones who have already bought the 360.

I even mention how most people use the ipod as an example, yet then went to explain why most people aren't using it as a correct example and how it can be applied here.

The funny thing is people that have actually lived in Japan understand Japanese people really don't care about the origins of a company because you get comments like ''Oh you have starbucks in your country too?''

There are certain specialist goods like high end cameras where having made in japan on it can prove to be a benefit. However consoles, where the majority of the market is made of casual buys, do not fall into this category. And the hardcore gamers are concerned with games,  not where a console was made. Thus why a lot of the hardcore in japan do have a 360.

You're not looking for an answer from me are you? I was just direct quoting MS with those paragraphs.

So what happened to the 3 million + that always make FF and DQ sell like crazy... Maybe RPGs are just casual over there... There are WELL over 3 million core RPG gamers in Japan, sales show that. The 360 is at 820k. If they were trying to make their machine the RPG machine for all they have failed. If they had not failed DQ might be heading there.

My theory is that failure has had a negative affect on the Japanese gaming... well in general.

I made it clear that MS is not the only culprit (Sony's dumbass marketing stagegy and the tactics they use to gain the upperhand in the west). But I firmly believe that the Japanese Market would be better off right now had MS never launched there.

what you say is true but i think the problem is not microsoft it is the Gamers themselves. M$ is trying with little success but they have not destroyed the japanese gaming market its the gamers themselves

And besides Japans sales hardly matter at all so who really cares