Survey Sees Tough Times for 360 in Japan

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that a survey recently conducted by Japanese news agency C-News would tend to suggest that the Xbox 360 will encounter consumer resistance when it is launched in Japan. From the article: "The poor showing for the Revolution is perhaps understandable, given that Nintendo has released only sketchy outline details regarding the console so far - but the figure for the Xbox 360 will come as a disappointment to Microsoft, which has focused heavily on the Japanese market in recent months." GameDailyBiz has a look at the survey as well, concentrating on the PS3's popularity.

Doesn't surprise me

[alvinrod]

Given how the Xbox sold so poorly in Japan, I'm not surprised that the Xbox 360 is expected to. To get an idea of just how much the Japanese seem to dislike the Xbox take a look at this article [gamespot.com] from GameSpot about sales in Japan for various games/consoles.

The Xbox sales for the first half of this year are 9,000 some units. Well that's to be expected from old hardware right? Wrong, the PS2 sold over one million units in the same time frame, and it's older than the Xbox. Additionally the top selling Xbox game in the period was Fable, selling 12,000 units. A re-released PS game sold more copies than it.

I'm not sure what it is about Japanese consumers that turns them away from the Xbox. Maybe it's the fact that both Sony and Nintendo are Japanese companies whereas Microsoft is from the US. Even with games like FFXI slated to come out for the Xbox 360, I don't think it's going to do much for it in the Japanese market. I firmly believe it will be #1 in America, but in Japan it might as well not even try.

Re:C stands for Captain obvious?

[ZephyrXero]

I think this survey has happened too soon personally. Xbox360 hasn't had any real showing in Japan yet...just here in the states. The only thing the Japanese gamers know is from what they've seen happen over here and in magazines. Isn't MS having a big press conference later this month in Japan? And aren't there supposed to be alot of big name Japanese developers on board this time? I think they need to redo this survey after that happens...and then maybe once more when the official prices come out.

Re:Protectionism?

[ZephyrXero]

I think it has less to do with nationalism and more to do with the fact that there weren't many Japanese made GAMES on the first Xbox... Where the system is not nearly as important as the actual games they're playing on it. There's supposed to be about 10 times the Japanese support this time, so it should do alot better this go round on that factor alone.

Re:Sick of people calling the Rev a poor E3 showin

[Saige]

Second the games shown on the systems were fucking pre-rendered crap that wasn't even running on the console. Whoopty fucking doo.

You mean, other than the 360 games that were running on Alpha dev kits at E3? At least one system was showing actual games...