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[Lord_Byron28]

They were fooled by a trailer that also didn't have a release date?

I don't think they were tricked necessarily. However, typically when I see a trailer for a TV show, Movie or videogame on a videogame, commercial, or movie theater I usually think they will be out within the next year or so. I don't usually expect to see trailers in videogames, commercials, movie theaters, that is still 3 or more years away.

 

[DCharlie]

yup, the X360 launched and then built up some japanese friendly games including RPGs.

The PS3 launched and the first person who got one at Tsutaya Shibuya when asked what game he'd bought it for responded "Final Fantasy"

And the craziest thing is that the PS3 was overladden with "western games" and STILL beat out the X360.

It's simple - foreign brands either take off or they die in Japan. MS has died and it's never EVER going to recover. Burger King has come back for a second try in Japan and it's doing better than the first time but it's STILL not setting the world on fire. Meanwhile, Krispy Kreme's Shinjuku routinely has a 1 hour plus queue.

 

[bengraven]

I think MS will try the Xbox 3 out in Japan, but it won't be called Xbox there.

But I don't feel they need to. Japanese software isn't pushing enough units worldwide to require that. But Microsoft knows that the gamers themselves in Japan have some importance, so I think they'll try and court them a bit longer.

 

[mujun]

yup, the X360 launched and then built up some japanese friendly games including RPGs.

The PS3 launched and the first person who got one at Tsutaya Shibuya when asked what game he'd bought it for responded "Final Fantasy"

And the craziest thing is that the PS3 was overladden with "western games" and STILL beat out the X360.

It's simple - foreign brands either take off or they die in Japan. MS has died and it's never EVER going to recover. Burger King has come back for a second try in Japan and it's doing better than the first time but it's STILL not setting the world on fire. Meanwhile, Krispy Kreme's Shinjuku routinely has a 1 hour plus queue.

I think MS would be better served by almost totally ignoring Japan (release the machine but only release Western games on it) and putting their dollars to winning people over in Europe and the States. If for whatever reason something about the console attracts people in Japan someone over here will pick up on it and it'll become popular by itself.

No amount of marketing or moneyhatting is going to help MS be competitive in a market where Sony and Nintendo are doing well.

 

[Dunan]

FINALFANTASYDOG makes a good point; the article is just about one store, not the market in general and not even about one chain of stores.

Kakaku.com, one of the best price-comparison sites in Japan, has a page for the Xbox:

http://kakaku.com/game/game-console/se_5/

...and the best price they can find is Y18,180 (over $200) for the 4GB Xbox without Kinect.

Hmmm... I might just wait a little bit if that's how much it is. Maybe pick up some used games for cheap next time I'm in the US and then buy the console. Y10,000 would have been a steal!

 

[okenny]

With the strong Yen, isn't Microsoft in a better position to push the next xbox in Japan (Not saying things will stay the same in 18 months but lets assume a similar financial climate persists)?

 

[Atomski]

Its crazy how when I was a kid Japan felt like a gaming mecha. These days.... eh? wtf happened? Why has the west been so open to consoles and games from around the world yet Japan just seems to only want home grown games.

 

[Nostalgia~4ever]

Is it needed? Not especially - this generation has proved it otherwise. Aside from a few titles from Nintendo, Capcom and Square - eastern gaming sales have stagnated greatly in the past five years.

The better question is - is it wanted? There will always be a legion of players who yearn for old school Japanese games but unfortunately that market is dwindling with each day passing. The main stream no longer is buying these types of games in the US market.

considering there has been a huge outcry in the US and a campaign that is called Operation Rainfall for a jrpg it sure seems wanted.

 

[Anerythristic]

Its amazing what MS accomplished this generation if you remember the sales of the original XBOX.

Next gen I honestly believe they will continue to widen the gap with Sony in NA. I think it would be smart for them to concentrate more on Europe and really save money by not necessarily ignoring Japan but there is really no reason for them to "try hard."

 

[iceatcs]

Um:

a) It wasn't just in Australia

b) IN Australia, they've given away somewhere far closer, and probably over 100,000 of them. Which is actually a fair chunk of the userbase here, because people actualyl buy Bravias.

If Nintendo or Microsoft wanted to give away as many as Sony has attached to products that actually sell, they'd need to give them away with Samsung or Panasonic TVs.

a) Other countries, all I see only promotion in Sony Style or Sony Store.

b) 35,000 is first promotion and they did again after the break. My uncle already have one before the 2nd promotion.

Nothing to do about Nintendo or Microsoft.. I want Australia promotion on rest of the world because I don't want buy HDTV only in Sony store because they like to stay on the RRP price.

 

[McLovin]

Don't know why they tried so hard, It seemed to me like all they did in japan was piss off Japanese ps3 owners. Scoring all them exclusives and all.

 

[FoxSpirit]

But all those Shmups.

Maybe they'll still come to PS3? :-\

 

[345triangle]

i went to summer sonic (huge japanese
music festival) at the weekend and they had massive outdoor kinect demo units set up with dance central. that can't have been cheap! i think microsoft is still trying, otherwise they wouldn't be spending any money at all on marketing a product that literally will not work in the home of a normal japanese person.

 

[BKK]

Sony gives free PS3s with Bravias AND Vaios, now.

And Mortal Kombat has just sold 3 million copies. It will outsell SFIV in less than two months, despite not even being released in Asia and Australia. The whole "only hardcore play fighters" comment has no merit whatsoever. Even serie that aren't as recognizable as MK (Tekken, SC) sell in the millions.

It has been released in Asia.

http://www.play-asia.com/Mortal_Kombat/paOS-13-71-dw-49-en-70-46an.html
http://www.play-asia.com/Mortal_Kombat/paOS-13-71-bp-49-en-70-46am.html

 

[gcubed]

way to go out on a limb Edge.

 

[DCharlie]

went to summer sonic (huge japanese
music festival)

i was at Sonic Mania on Friday - i bumped into a grand total of 6 random westerners all day and i knew 2 of them. Was Summer Sonic itself any better on that front? I'm used to seeing a large foreigner contingent for Underworld and the appearance of Primal Scream and Chase and Status i thought would see people out in force.... just seemed weird. Lowest turnout i've seen in 11 years of being here.

 

[345triangle]

i was just at the osaka leg on the sunday. i guess there were more foreigners than i'd expect to see, say, in the street? i was mostly there for perfume and kaela kimura (and DFA1979) to be honest!

how were primal scream? i've seen them a bunch before but a screamadelica show sounds pretty great.

 

[cultureculture]

Its crazy how when I was a kid Japan felt like a gaming mecha. These days.... eh? wtf happened? Why has the west been so open to consoles and games from around the world yet Japan just seems to only want home grown games.

I hope you actually meant "mecha" and not "Mecca" because that's a pretty awesome mental image.

Anyway, I don't think the issue is that Japan only wants home-grown games. Western games still sell. This is just my opinion, but I think a lot of it is down to the Microsoft just not being a household name as far as consoles go in Japan. (Given the original Xbox's performance in Japan, you might as well consider the 360 another "first attempt" in Japan.)

If Samsung launched a new console of their own right now, you'd be pretty cautious about the platform, right? It wouldn't inspire much confidence in me - I'd stick with what I know and see how it pans out, maybe. Though given that there's a lot of crossover between platforms in terms of releases these days, I probably wouldn't take the leap of faith.

 

[Hitoribhoshi]

Maybe they'll still come to PS3? :-\

nah, Sony hates 2D niche games.

(whoops, just bought a 4Gb jp slim before massive price drop...oh, well.)

 

[SpaceDrake]

This is really just part of the larger death of set-top consoles in Japan altogether. Remember, even the "successful" PS3 has only sold ~7 million units to date; a much, much slower rate than the PS2. Even if you factor in 100% of Wii users as "previous PS2 users", IIRC something like ten million console players have simply disappeared in a puff of smoke. More realistically it's closer to 15mil+.

It's a message I got from our Japanese partners as I talked Biz with them this week, during and after Comiket - the situation in Japan is kind of the inverse of the one in the U.S. and Europe. The trend has been toward mobile devices, not just phones but portable game devices, because Japanese consumers typically don't have a heap of room in their homes and it becomes a question of "why would I buy a big bulky gaming box that I have to tether to my TV when I can own a portable device that plays games that are essentially as good?" The one-two punch of the 15,000 yen 3DS and the Vita (which also might now be 20k or under) is really going to finish off the current consoles; if the Vita can push more-or-less PS3-like graphics, literally nobody in Japan is going to give a shit about the PS3.

The 360 never had a hope of success in Japan - not "just" because of the Foreign Console thing, but because consoles are rapidly becoming Not A Thing there any longer.

 

[YoungHav]

Xbox360 been been dayd in Japan, ya heard meh?

 

[Dunan]

Spacedrake, agreed entirely, and that's one reason why I think the Vita will do very well in Japan. The possiblity of getting PS3-like (or even PS2-like) graphics on a big screen when you're in front of your TV and then something almost as good when you're carrying it around with you is going to be huge.

(The other reason to have hope for the Vita is that people here in Japan aren't into digitally-distributed, no-used-sales-rights downloadable games on their phones. Phones don't even last all that long; the typical length of use for a mobile phone is something like 18 months. Remember when FF Agito was supposed to be for phones? That was in 2006. Today perhaps one phone in a hundred from that year's potential user base is still in operation. PSP games, on the other hand, are still thriving in used game shops everywhere. DS too.)

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

This is really just part of the larger death of set-top consoles in Japan altogether. Remember, even the "successful" PS3 has only sold ~7 million units to date; a much, much slower rate than the PS2. Even if you factor in 100% of Wii users as "previous PS2 users", IIRC something like ten million console players have simply disappeared in a puff of smoke. More realistically it's closer to 15mil+.

Due to the different launch schedules from each manufacturer in each generation it's kind of hard to decide how to format the perfect comparison, but here's one way: first vs first, second vs second, third vs third.

Wii through 245 weeks: 11.7 million
PS2 through 245 weeks: about 15 million

PS3 through 248 weeks: 6.8 million
GCN through 248 weeks: 4.0 million

X360 through 296 weeks: 1.5 million
Xbox through 296 weeks: Long dead, petered out before 0.5 million

Looks pretty even to me. The frontrunner just isn't crushing the others under its heels to the same extent.

As a percentage of the total market they're definitely smaller than before, though.

 

[scitek]

Didn't they base the Xbox 360's look around the idea of appealing more to the Japanese market since the first Xbox was considered clumsy and bulky in design?

 

[Neuromancer]

Followup:

“No, of course we're not pulling out,” Chris Lewis, Microsoft's European boss, told Eurogamer.

“It's a challenging market. We are up against very strong competition there. All of our competition is strong. We're very respectful of what Sony and Nintendo do and where they've come from and what they bring.

“Japan remains important to us. We're very committed to that market. The development community there is very important. Tokyo Game Show will be a notable element in the year as usual.

They're not pulling out, they're just going limp inside of the Japanese market and staying there.

 

[Syphon Filter]

Knowing MS they will never give up. I remember when they were trying to get the casuals a few years ago and failed,then Kinect came and they finally found them.

 

[Automatisch]

Japan has it's small market of hardcore 360 users and it's just going to stay that way. It's hard to say whether or not the development deals that happened early on were a waste or not, but things like Blue Dragon ended up doing not so well in general, and not just specifically to one region. SpaceDrake pretty much summed up what everything's moving toward, though, and it will be interesting to see if the Vita takes a price cut in Japan to compete with the cheaper 3DS.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Followup:


They're not pulling out, they're just going limp inside of the Japanese market and staying there.

As was expected even if the current system is barely a presence there. MS cannot afford to skip Japanese third parties just like Sony or Ninty couldn't if faced with the same poor performance. MS needs to be in the market no matter what because they've committed to XBOX being their global gaming brand. It's sorta interesting to wonder what Ninty or Sony would do if they faced a similar situation.

 

[Dural666]

The thing that really shocked me last year at the TGS 2010 was, while I was lining up to try out Castlevania LoS, my turn came around 30min earlier than planed, because the two Japanese guys before me didn't wanted to play the game on 360!
And the same thing happened again with Fallout NV, the three Japanese guys in front of me didn't wanted to play because it was on 360.

I saved about 1 hour waiting time, but I found that situation tragic really.

The guy from the staff, when he looked at me was all like: "Thank god, a Gaijin!" lol