It's kind of sad but if any of the other two consoles had the kind of lineup the 360 has put out in Japan they would probably be selling 70,000 a week.

The Famicom sold 19.35 million units in Japan. That's almost double the 10 million units the PC-Engine/TG-16 sold worldwide.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/historical_data/pdf/consolidated_sales_e0806.pdf

http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/111822/the-10-worst-selling-consoles-of-all-time/

"The PC Engine was extremely popular in Japan, beating Nintendo's Famicom in sales soon after its release,"

http://www.consolepassion.co.uk/pc-engine.htm

The PC Engine was a competitor to the Super Famicom and still the doesn't change the fact that it failed to surpass either in sales. The Super Famicom sold 17.17 million units in Japan. The Famicom sold 19.35 million. The PC-Engine sold 10 million would wide. The PC Engine was more popular than the Mega Drive/Genesis in Japan but that still put NEC in distant second for the generation.

I didn't read the whole thread but uh, I think the JP people are more used to hardwares that don't fail as much so I'm not surprised that it's selling poorly, and FPS is not their cup of tea in general for console gaming since they can play those on their PCs, and like hell if they'd want to pay for live ya know? MS has been trying with some exclusives, but uh.... the games on the xbox360 doesn't appeal to the JP people much in general and I can totally understand that since I'm originally from Asia myself and it's a very different market there. They don't find violence to be as funny or entertaining as the rest of us barbarians in general.

Much like the PSP and PS3 are doing in Japan now (and I consider Playstation consoles to be the spiritual successor's to the PC Engine look at a picture of a PS2 and then one of a Supergrafx) at the height of the Famicon's popularity, the PC Engine came along and began to sell more consoles than the Famicon. From the time of its release until the time of the release of the SNES, the PC Engine was the reigning console in Japan (much as the PSP is doing now and I do expect that PSP will have outsold the DSi by the time the next consoles are released).

PCE was a very good piece of hardwar, I especially liked the way they handled their media, it was so slim, so compact, and easy to insert or clean, it was very impressive for it's time.