Japan is a waste of money for Microsoft. Imagine how much profits they would have made if they left that area alone.

agreed

Call when a game sells over 2 million in one week in the UK.

It depends on just how resilient the games industry is to recessions. The UK are in a poor position for this recession, so I'm skeptical that their games market will continue to grow so much.

As long as games are much cheaper in the UK then mainland Europe, the UK videogame market will continue to do amazing.

With an aging population and incredibly low birthrate you can expect the Japanese market to continue to shrink. Man I miss the mid 80s-90s of gaming, Japan was on point at home and the arcades, now they're just a shadow of what they were.

UK was already larger in terms of software units. If it wasn't or the collapse of the pound it would have been larger in value too. MCV never said that UK will overtake Japan this year, they just said it would if the trends continued. That's not really correct as they failed to take into account exchange rate movements.

Games are a lot more frontloaded in Japan, so first week sales aren't the best comparison. I doubt many games have even sold 2 million in one week in the US (Halo 3 did 3.3m in 12 days).

good news, with xbox 360 have very healthy sales over there, hardware and software it is good news

Wait, is that right? Including portables? I'd like to see the numbers, the site only shows home consoles, I think.

I have a hard time believing this... I mean, Japan. They hit 19mil DS's before Others or America did. The UK's total current gen hardware doesn't even reach the DS in Japan. What have they been doing recently?

It's a strange situation. I mean, videogaming isn't dying there, is it? If everyone already has their system of choice (DS, PSP), would that justify them putting down less money on games, since they have no need to purchase the hardware?

Yeah, I need some legit excuses. I'm not liking this idea of Japan's market shrinking...