Actually it speaks to how well the Wii is doing in Japan. The console appears to be so dominant that its effectively strangling the other two manufacturers. Thats the sad truth of it without the Wii the other two would probably do markedly better then they are. That sounds like a pretty decent bundle for Microsoft. I expect Microsoft to be a contender to Sony with offers like that.

Microsoft might end up being niche in Japan, but if Nintendo keeps eating up the mainstream audience that might actually be a good position to be in. Who knows Microsoft's short term goal should be to get over ten thousand units weekly. That would signify some momentum in the market.

I wonder how the two consoles stack up in Japan can someone lay out the best offers for both?

I've wondered lately if the 360 might be able to outsell the PS3 for a few weeks in Japan. Lost Odyssey should do better numbers than Blue Dragon and with BD, Gears, and several other games going Platinum that week, we should see a huge sales spike.

It will be interesting to see if that sales spike is enough to eclipse Sony's sales spike for that week or two.

In any case, MS is slowly making small gains in the Japanese market. No one with a brain thought it would be easy for them, being outsiders in a primarily Japanese industry.

I've wondered lately if the 360 might be able to outsell the PS3 for a few weeks in Japan. Lost Odyssey should do better numbers than Blue Dragon and with BD, Gears, and several other games going Platinum that week, we should see a huge sales spike.

It will be interesting to see if that sales spike is enough to eclipse Sony's sales spike for that week or two.

In any case, MS is slowly making small gains in the Japanese market. No one with a brain thought it would be easy for them, being outsiders in a primarily Japanese industry.

What's bad for Sony is that everyone expected them to do well with the PS3 there (at least until its architecture and price were known). On the other hand, no one expected Microsoft to do well in Japan, they're merely trying to crack into the market, and they're having a small success at doing so, by outselling their previous attempt (Xbox).

The bottom line is that for Japan, we have so far:

- An outstanding victory for the Wii
- A small success for the 360
- A terrible failure for the PS3

I repeat, my statements are from the standpoint of expectations vs performance.

wait wait wait wait....since when does seven eleven sell consoles?? They must own some other franchises because the convenience store doesn't sell consoles.

This is going to do little to help the 360. A price cut means zero improvement in product or any other benefit to the consumer that another competitor cannot easily accomplish so, it would probably be incorrect to view this as the 360 brand being any stronger in japan. In fact, when you think about it, the 360 is probably thought of as more of a western brand which wouldn't really appeal to the japanese or asians in general b/c they have different tastes with gaming and probably want to be marketed to on familiar (asian) terms.

That is why the 360's Japanese competitors ( Wii/PS3) are doing a lot better than the 360 anyway. When you think about how hard it would be to secure asian game development, promote the brand for asians which frankly is about non-existent right now, etc Microsoft has a big hill to climb over just to get to the point where it is relevant in the Asian market.

From a earnings-based perspective Microsoft should stop worrying about Asia so much and concentrate on the West.

Actually.....


This is about the same deal that Microsoft offered last year with the Blue Dragon pack-in. Now it just includes the other 2 bundled holiday games.

Alt, I would agree the competitors (Sony, Ninty) have the brand appeal of being more "Japanese oriented", but to change that, all it takes is games. Lost Odyssey is a Japanese product, and will be seen as such, and increase sales.

At any rate, this will definately help Microsoft out. It's not going to make it competitive Vs. the Wii, but could attempt to match the PS3. And considering at the beginning of this generation, the X360 was poised to sell vastly worse than the Xbox, this is a great new, stronger trend.

IMO, I'm still sticking with 40-50k h/w units sold on the week of December 6th.

I agree with your statement that the essence of the brand will be in the games.  But I also think that for every dollar of revenue that Sony or Nintendo brings in for Japan, MS will have to spend 2X's as much simply because their japanese development teams are little more than paper organizations at this point.  Costs are always a lot higher when you are starting up and growing a development ( a new factory, new product, new business, etc) than what you would find when you are just coasting along like the other two are.  MS doesn't really have a chance to grow unless it puts more of its budget towards japan which I think would be a pretty bad idea, b/c it would take away money that would have gone to NA which has been their meal ticket thus far. 

...But at the same time, having quality Japanese-developed titles invariably will help out US and European audiences.

Capcom is a major player - last gen, they supported the Xbox merely with Dino Crisis 3. Now, we have Dead Rising and Lost Planet - 2 games that did well for the userbase in Japan, but did phenominal in the US and Europe.

As much as one might say "Microsoft should spend its cash elsewhere, for more bang-for-the buck" but at the same time, Microsoft, outside of buying a few more Western studios, doesn't need to spend money here. They already have a great relationship with many, many developers, and have not lost any exclusives. Their battle for quality games to get clearly is in the land of the rising sun. If MS ever got more developers there (which they are), it'll effect every market postiively.

For instance, when BD launched in the US, we saw a clear jump of +10,000 hardware units despite no other game, nor pre-Halo increases. Why? There are plenty of people that want to buy a X360 for LO, ES and BD....But aren't in the typical Western FPS market.

@mrstickball:

What about Steel Battalion? Or Steel Battalion: Line of Contact? Or... okay, I give up.