The Xbox 360 and Japanese Nationalism

Ant writes "4 Color Rebellion has a transcript of a segment included with its recent Podcast. The piece concerns the launch of the Xbox 360 in Japan, a launch that's amounting to one of the weakest in Japanese gaming history. The authors look into the reasons behind the failure, and try to dissuade gamers from some poorly thought-out rationalizations for the console's lack of success." From the article: "McDonalds knew that some of its tastes would not appeal to the Japanese so they changed their menus. Along with the standard Big Macs and fries they also have Teriyaki burgers, fried shrimp burgers, and other things for the Japanese pallet. They didn't force the American tastes on the Japanese and thus, they thrived. Now look at the Japanese Xbox 360 launch lineup. First person Shooters, sports and car games. Games that sell really well in America but other than the car games are not to the Japanese taste. Had they launched with RPGs, simulation games, party games, gambling games and fighters, they might have done a whole lot better. McDonalds changed their company for the Japanese taste. Microsoft tried to change the Japanese taste for their company."

Re:Excess inventory?

[voice_of_all_reason]

Why yes. Yes, there would be...

TOKYO/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) sold less than half of the estimated 159,000 Xbox 360 video game consoles that were available in stores in Japan in its first weekend of sales, a survey showed on Tuesday. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051213/tc_nm/japan_x box_dc [yahoo.com])

Re:Japanese video games are BIASED, so who cares??

[2nd Post!]

Right. That explains why the Japanese hate the iPod and are buying Sony Walkmen.. wait, they don't hate the iPod.

Or why they hate McDonalds... wait, they don't hate McDonalds.

Or why they hate the US... no wait, they don't hate the US.

Call it for what it is, Microsoft mis-stepped. They didn't have any compelling games for the Japanese market. Japanese games like Katmari Damacy, DDR, Lumines, DOA, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc.

You've proved nothing because Nintendo or Sony DIDN'T release a console with the same launch titles and do better. When the DS was launched, there was the Mario games, there was the quirking date-sim games, there was the Meteos puzzle game, etc. When the PSP was launched there was the Metal Gear Acid rpg game, there was the Lumines puzzle game, etc. Where are the puzzle games for XBox 360? Where are the dating sim games for the XBox 360? Where are the RPGs for the XBox 360?

Re:Excess inventory?

[LBt1st]

There are! Want pictures? http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/xbox-360-japan-launch -guide/xbox-360-sellout-is-impossible-142359.php [kotaku.com]

Re:Changing taste...

[ivan256]

Obviously, you're not a McDonald's shareholder who would be familiar with these problems.

No, but I have been a McDonald's assistant manager signifigantly longer than a few years ago. What every your friend's managers were doing wasn't something McDonald's was doing, or needed to "figure out". For decades, the policy was after 20 minutes it gets marked on the 'waste' form and thrown out. Recently even 20 minutes was too long.

As sombody who ate plane McDonald's cheeseburgers as a small child, and catered to customers who ordered "Cheese Delights" (a "secret" McDonalds menu item which is a bun with cheese only stuck in the BigMac bun toaster for 30 seconds) even when they technically weren't on the menu, I'm seriously surprised at your pickle problem. Forgetful line cooks, I can see, but cashiers that refuse to do it is at best uncommon, and something they should and could easily be fired for. There's even a button on the cash register for it... Even the old school registers with the printed on buttons.

Re:There's a simpler explanation.

[macshit]

Starbucks. It does very well in Japan (every location I've seen in Tokyo is equally busy as locations in the U.S. and Canada). And Starbucks did not alter its menu.

Starbucks Japan doesn't have a dramatically different menu than SB USA, but they've clearly changed it over time to better suit Japanese tastes. This is especially true of food; e.g. sandwiches 5 years ago were more "US style" and they have slowly become um, more "Japanese style" (i.e., they now suck; Japanese are not good at sandwiches), and the biscotti were changed from SB's half-way decent biscotti to some sort of bizarre biscotti-shaped butter cookie.

[and of course there's the size issue: SB Japan actually offers small drinks that are somewhat small; ordering a small in the US gets you puzzled looks and the smallest available size is roughly the size of a 55-gallon drum.]

This isn't surprising of course, if something doesn't sell well you'd be nuts to keep selling it unchanged...

Re:Microsoft has the last laugh

[dtfarmer]

Meanwhile you still can't find a 360 in America after over a million have been sold. PS2 sold 200,000 in the first 3 months as a comparison.

Please, stop making up statistics - it sounds like you're even starting to believe them and that will really fuck up your perception of reality. The PS2 sold nearly 1.5 million units combined [wikipedia.org] between the Japanese launch weekend (980k) and the first 24 hours of sales in the US (510k). I have no idea which launch you were referring to when you said 200k in 3 months, but as you can see you are wrong either way - and I would imagine the European launch numbers for the PS2 exceeded your stat handily as well, but can't find a good source for that info.