"although 800k of the s/w sales have come from Japan, that's not too bad considering the 400k h/w insall base (ie, 2:1 software attach rate for 1m sellers)"

Sure it's not bad, and that's why I said obviously they shouldn't abandon Japan altogether. But if Microsoft does not have an infinite amount of money to spend, they would get a better return on their money if they focused elsewhere instead of Japan. If there are games that sell well in both Japan and the rest of the world, that would be ideal, but spending lots of money on games that will sell "not bad considering the [tiny] install base" in Japan while bombing elsewhere seems like it would be a bad business decision at this stage.

 

"Halo Wars - 1,000,000 seller"

Halo Wars not selling 2 million would be disappointing, considering it has "Halo" in the name.

 

"Add DOA4 onto the list, as far as we can tell."

DOA4? Vgchartz has it at 430k for US and Japan.

http://vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=479

 

flagship said: I'm not sure about Lost Odyssey, the US hasn't been kind to Blue Dragon and while LO looks like a more America friendly I wouldn't put it as a def. 1 million + seller. I think Star Wars the Force Unleashed might have a problem hitting 1 million simply because it's being released on every single system and that tends to hurt single system sales, some people will buy the PS2 version because it will be $10 cheaper and probably have very similar graphics, the Wii controls will probably entice others.

well, we can most likely add around 300k from japan to this title, if not more in the lifetime of the game. IN america, im almost certain it will do better, because it is def more american like then BD, if it doesnt then rpg is forever lost in 360 world. pretty much it needs to sell 500k in america for it to hit 1 mil (100-200 k elsewhere) and i dont think thats hard, just needs a 100k+ opener and it will most likely hit it

Ironically the release lists seem to tell a different story for this holiday season then one would have expected in Japan. Microsoft appears to actually have more RPG titles directed at the market in Japan then does Sony. They appear to have many more titles in that category then does Nintendo. Microsoft seems to be doing all the right things. So it should be interesting to see if they get the right results.

Were they to go nowhere this holiday season in regards to increasing market share, or show a sizable jump in volume. Then if I were Microsoft I would not abandon the market, but I would certainly allocate resources elsewhere. Specifically going towards western RPG style games. When catering to a demographic gets you nothing its a good sign that nothing you will do will get them to side with you. Thats when anything beyond token effort is a waste of time.