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XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

Has The Xbox Failed In Japan? 84

Posted by simoniker from the pope-sneaking-into-undergrowth dept.
Thanks to GameSpy for its article interviewing Microsoft executives about the Xbox's popularity in Japan. According to the article, 400,000 is the 'magic number': "...the number of Xbox consoles Microsoft has sold in Japan since launching the system in February, 2002. It is roughly the number of copies of Grand Theft Auto that Capcom has sold into the Japanese market. And, historically speaking, it is the approximate number of 3DO consoles in Japan as well." Apparently, "'That is the yogei-acceptable number in Japan'. [The term "yogei" refers to foreign or Western.]" However, Mike Fischer of Microsoft suggests that "game developers are tired of Sony's dominance in the market, and that that more Japanese-appropriate hardware will lead to better sales in Japan which will lead support from companies like Square/Enix which will then lead even greater acceptance in Japan."
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Has The Xbox Failed In Japan? More

Has The Xbox Failed In Japan?

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  • Has the XBox failed in Japan? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ArmorFiend ( 151674 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @05:27PM (#8886492) Homepage Journal
    Is rice white?

  • failure is such a subjective term (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BigFlirt ( 632867 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @05:31PM (#8886525) Homepage Journal
    I don't think the XBox is failing for any reason other than Japanese pride. My perceptions (ICBW) are that Japanese markets are extremely tough to nearly impossible to break into because of Japanese National pride... I can only equate it to the xenophobia of Russians in the 80s or only buying American-made cars instead of foreign cars.

    Japan might have a bunch of pro-Japan and subtly anti-foreign (US) propaganda, but hey... it's strengthening their economy and weakening ours... I'm not suggesting that we all go throw away our PS2s and GCs in favors of an XBox, but I predict that American electronics will never penetrate Asian markets until it's vastly superior and blows everything else out of the water, (which is impossible to do in a hardware war)

    ...but I ramble...
    • I predict that American electronics will never penetrate Asian markets until it's vastly superior and blows everything else out of the water

      Since when does superior hardware specs have anything to do with winning a hardware war?

    • Re:failure is such a subjective term (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Alkaiser ( 114022 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @05:49PM (#8886727) Homepage
      Wow. What a bunch of crap.

      Have you ever visited Japan? You know who the two biggest commercial draws in Japan were in 2002? Bob Sapp (a washed-up NFL player, turned K-1 "fighter".) and David Beckham.

      Japanese markets eat stuff that's huge in the States and Europe up BIG TIME.

      The XBox is failing on many reasons. It's HUGE, the average Japanese house has very small living room space, and it's common space. It's also commonly used for sleeping. Kind of hard to do that with a huge-ass console plus controllers there.

      Second, the XBox commercials SUCK. The XBox Live commercials in Japan were easily the worst video game commercials. One had this scantily cald woman, who looked like she was on drugs, creeping along a wall that's littered with pie remnants. She slinks up to one of them, and tastes the pie. That's it.

      In version 2, a man is in an elevator. A demon pops out from the ceiling. Man's elevator falls through the floor. This makes me interested in a system's online capabilities, how?

      What are the biggest console game sellers in Japan the last 3-5 years? RPGs. By far. Pokemon, FF, Dragon Quest. If you ain't selling them, you ain't selling consoles.

      What does the XBox not have? An RPG.

      Why is the average Japanese RPG fan going to buy and XBox and Live when a PS2 and FFXI is going to take up all his time?

      Figure out the answer to that question, and then go apply for a high paying job at Microsoft. Until then, the system fails not out of jingoism, it fails because of Microsoft's failure.

    • Re:failure is such a subjective term (Score:4, Insightful)

      by saden1 ( 581102 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @05:54PM (#8886793)
      The XBox failed because it came late in the game. Don’t blame it on the Japanese. Sony had the Playstation 2 and tons of games on the market when the XBox was getting out of the game. When almost every Japanese household has a Playstation 2 console what do they need XBox for? The XBox didn’t offer anything of value to me and I imagine a lot of Japanese people felt the same. The choice between and XBox and a Playstation 2 in Japan is a no brainer. You take which ever console has the most games and a lot of your friends have so you can share game libraries.

      Don’t blame the Japanese, blame Microsoft’s incompetence.
      • Nice apostrophes. ;)

        You're forgetting the 'Cube, which I believe (haven't checked any sources, so don't eat me up if I'm wrong) came out at roughly the same time - certainly not long enough earlier to make any significant difference to sales if it was just a matter of PS2 being there first. The Cube may still be second to the PS2, by quite a distance, but it's been outselling the 'Box since it was released, and not just because of the time delay.
      • Well, you do have the ones who buy an X-Box BECAUSE everyone has a PS2, such as my host brother (I'm an exchange student in Japan right now). But really, I can't understand why he didn't at least get a Gamecube. The Japanese controller (or are the smaller-type X-Box controllers standard worldwide now?) are at least pretty good, though. Only good game on it is Halo. He even admits this: "X-Box doesn't have enough good games!" ... "Heiroo!!!"

    • It's that time again, folks... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Senjutsu ( 614542 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @06:20PM (#8887096)
      The Yet Another Uninformed, "Japanese Hate American Products" That's Why The XBox Failed Rant.

      The truth is, the X-Box failed in Japan because of Microsoft's failure to sufficiently respect the Japanese market, not because of some supposed contempt for all things American on Japan's part.

      Think about it: Microsoft was launching a product (whose internal codename was Project Midway, for christ sakes. PR mistake Numero Uno, when that leaked) that was much larger than was convienient for your average Japanese living room, where horizontal space is at a premium vs vertical space (you didn't thing the small horizontal foot prints of the Cube and PS2 (when standing on its side) were an accident, did you?). On top of that, they launched with a very mediocre line up of games that largely didn't appeal to the Japanese market (after all, for a long time Halo was the only bright spot in their US line-up, and First Person Shooters aren't even remotely as popular in Japan as they are here).

      These problems probably would have been recoverable by Microsoft, were it not for their fatal mistake: The XBox, on launch in Japan, turned out to have severe problems with its drive; it was scratching the hell out of game discs only days after purchase. Microsoft's response? An imediate recall on first learning of the problem? An immediate apology on the part of MS Japan for the damage done by the machine (the traditional response by a Japanese company in such a situation, and one the public would expect)?

      Nope. Just a shitty press release stating "It is up to customers to mail their consoles back to us for repair. The scratch does not affect game playing.", and when the media began reporting this recall they followed it up four days later with the anouncement that "An apparent misinterpretation of information on a Microsoft Japan Web site resulted today in a media report of a recall of Microsoft's Xbox game console in Japan. This report is incorrect. There is no recall of Xbox in Japan or any other market". Fuck you, Japanese consumer.

      Selling (what was percieved as) a low quality, defective product to the public and then showing an enormous amount of disrespect for them by failing to own up to and apologize for their mistakes did a hell of a lot more damage to XBox sales than anti-Americanism ever did. Indeed, blaming it on such smacks of the same cultural contempt that led Detroit to attempt to sell cars in Japan in the 80's with the steering wheel on the wrong (left) side of the vehicle, and then blame their lack of success on Japanese people hating American products. The lesson, therefore, isn't the ignorant and trite canard that "Japanese hate American products" but rather the same as the lesson of failing products everywhere: Know your market, and respect what they prefer rather than expecting them to want what you tell them to want.

      • Re:It's that time again, folks... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by josh glaser ( 748297 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @07:01PM (#8887448)
        Very good. With products like the Xbox, I wouldn't be suprised if the Japanese started getting a low opinion of American products...

        On an interesting side note, I've heard that the letter X is supposed to be bad luck, and that, since the Japanese are super-super-superstitous, it would be like naming the Xbox 13666box here or something. That's probably another excuse, like the whole "Japanese people don't like American stuff" crap, but it's still pretty funny.
      • bravo...mod parent up.
      • I'm not sure where the word anti-americanism came from but it's a pretty funny one.

        Please bomb us some more, we'll elect you school president.

        Morons.
      • The truth is, the X-Box failed in Japan because of Microsoft's failure to sufficiently respect the Japanese market, not because of some supposed contempt for all things American on Japan's part.

        A Japanese Ambassador spoke at my university in my freshman year. The X-Box specifically didn't come up, but this same sort of thing was discussed for a while.

        One particular professor (who's about as ethnically open minded as a Grand Inquisitor) asked why Japanese consumers so widely reject US products, while
    • "or only buying American-made cars instead of foreign cars."

      Actually one of the main reasons for buying American products (especially cars) over foreign models is more than a mere xenophobia. American cars might be more expensive and slightly inferior, but the money is going back into our economy. The production costs pay for our works, our neighbors, and the profits stay on our soil. Buying foreign cars transfers our economies money overseas.

      So don't just assume that Japanese don't buy American tech p
    • Many western companies have had huge success in Japan. To name but a few:
      • Dominos Pizza, Lipton Tea, Starbucks, MacDonalds
      • Walmart (albeit under another name)
      • Gap, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc
      • Virgin, HMV, Tower Records
      And those are the kinds of companies you might shop at often, they're not esoteric markets. National pride has very little to do with the companies that Japanese shop at.

  • RPGs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hords ( 619030 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @05:31PM (#8886528)
    If I'm not mistaken aren't RPG games huge in Japan? The X-Box is pretty lacking on this genre at the moment. That was the same reason I held off on buying an X-Box (except I had to get Ninja Gaiden.) I don't think they researched the Japanese market as well as they should have (controllers, game genre's, etc.) Plus they are taking on the two most popular console makers still around that are both based in Japan. Get Sqare/Enix to develop an RPG (good luck) on your console and you got it made in Japan. Maybe Fable will help turn things around a little. I know I'm looking forward to that one.

    • Re:RPGs? (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by BTWR ( 540147 )
      develop an RPG (good luck) on your console and you got it made in Japan

      First off, IAAHNF (I am a hardcore Nintendo fanboy), but if your argument is true, why is nintendo so popular? The gamecube is lacking in RPGs as well, yet it is the solid #2 console in Japan and profitable.

      • Re:RPGs? (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Because Nintendo has franchises with a history of quality. And Xbox had very few frans of any noteriety that were not being published side-by-side on PS2
      • I'm also a Nintendo fan. Some reasons that they might be so popular is...

        - They have been around longer than the Playstation and used to be the king.

        - They have established game brands like Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Metroid, etc. Zelda is the most popular Gamecube title if I'm not mistaken. It is pretty much an action RPG if you ask me.

        - They are based in Japan.

        - Japanese homes are very small and so is the Gamecube.

        - It is kid friendly (perhaps?)

        - I still believe that they have more RPGs than X-Box
        • Well, the Xbox does have Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Morrowind. But those are too open-ended, and Japanese audiences tend to shy away from choice in their RPGs. (It's a cultural thing, they don't believe in forging your own destiny.)

          There's also Arx Fatalis -- an excellent Ultima Underworld-esqe RPG -- but I'm not sure it was even released there.

          Actually, I'm not even sure KOTOR and Morrowind were released there.

      • Re:RPGs? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Alkaiser ( 114022 )
        If you count the GBA, it's in 3rd.

        System Total Sales in 2004
        GameBoy Advance SP: 971,900
        PlayStation 2: 960,500
        GameCube: 321,400
        GameBoy Advance: 117,300
        Xbox: 16,500
        PSone: 8,300
        WonderSwan Crystal: 4,700

        Solidly in 3rd is struggling to hold onto 1/3rd of the #s for #2.

        It is easy to see the impact of the quality RPG.
      • Gamecube sales in Japan skyrocketed after the release of Tales of Symphonia (most definitely an RPG), which IIRC happened at the same time as a world-wide price cut for the Cube. So good timing and the release of an excellent RPG are why the Cube has been doing well in Japan, along with all their other hugely popular in Japan titles (Pokemon, for instance).
  • Does anyone else find it ironic that Microsoft is basing the acceptance of the Xbox on the possibility that developers are tired of Sony's dominance?

    Hello? Anyone home? Ever wonder why you're having trouble breaking into new markets? Or maintaining existing ones? If recent trends are any indication, there's one company whose dominance developers are getting tired of and it's Microsoft.
    • Does anyone else find it ironic that Microsoft is basing the acceptance of the Xbox on the possibility that developers are tired of Sony's dominance?

      No.

      Developers have ALWAYS pointed out and complained about the difficulties of programming for the PS2. If the PS3 is also difficult to program for, chances are most third-party developers will move to Nintendo, the tried-and-true champ, or possibly to Microsoft (assuming they don't screw up the X-Box 2).

      • There's a big difference between being "tired of someone's dominance" and "finding a platform difficult to program". Complaints about one do not imply the other.

        That's the main problem with your comment. It's illogical and unreasonable on a number of other levels, but I'll just leave it at that.

  • System architecture or cultural rejection? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0r0din ( 304712 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @05:43PM (#8886658)
    My guess is the problem isn't as much a problem with Xbox hardware specs as much as two things.

    The first is quite frankly a cultural rejection of a product made in the USA which is admittedly similar in nature to the kinds of autos the US would have a problem selling in Japan and which sort of defines us to them: big, bulky, and power-consuming. This is of course in sharp contrast to the culture and of course their subsequent designs for the Gamecube and PS2, which both have fairly eloquent designs.

    If anyone would understand the other reason their product doesn't sell so well, it'd be Microsoft. Software. The hardware is fairly good, but their most popular-selling titles are Western titles like Halo, KOTOR and Morrowind. While RPGs are very popular in Japan, Morrowind and KOTOR definently don't fit their archetype.

    I just don't think Microsoft is going anywhere in that market, because I don't think their market is nearly as open as a US market.

  • Tiredness (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tzarius ( 688342 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <suiraztr>> on Friday April 16, 2004 @06:16PM (#8887050) Homepage Journal
    game developers are tired of Sony's dominance in the market

    I didn't know that developers would get tired of developing games on the most ubiquitous home videogame system. It's usually the best way to make a profit.

    • Re:Tiredness (Score:3, Insightful)

      by daVinci1980 ( 73174 )
      You haven't developed for the PS2. Its a real bitch.

      Seriously, consider the following:

      1) Launch titles usually look / sound / play weak compared to games developed later for the same console. The hardware hasn't changed during that time, so what did? All of the quirks and the bottenecks have been figured out.

      2) The XBox doesn't have this disadvantage, because developing for it is *very* similar to developing for the PC.

      Personally, all I believe MS has to do to become successful is get someone like Squen

  • Pretty confident, aren't you? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Daetrin ( 576516 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @06:20PM (#8887094)
    However, Mike Fischer of Microsoft suggests that "game developers are tired of Sony's dominance in the market, and that that more Japanese-appropriate hardware will lead to better sales in Japan which will lead support from companies like Square/Enix which will then lead even greater acceptance in Japan."

    Because if they get tired of Sony's dominance, clearly they have no one else to turn to besides Micorosoft, right?

    If they want someone other than Sony but who has more "Japanese-appropriate hardware," there are good odds that they'll flock back to Nintendo long before they consider you.

  • ...at least it's a start... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 16, 2004 @06:23PM (#8887136)
    I know it's not a lot, but at least this kind of humility is a start. While there is still arrogance throughout that interview, I think Microsoft is finally getting the picture that you have to earn respect in Japan before anything else, and the same blitzkrieg marketting tactics don't work their like they do here.

    Jingoism aside, the XBOX is a very American-centric system. It's big, bad, and proud of it, pretty much why everyone hates all things American at the moment. It's hard to buy loyalism this way.

    As a counter example, I present Apple. Apple takes up a significant computer market share in Japan, despite being an American company. The Japanese love Apple products because they're simple and elegantly designed. As a corollary, this is also why they like laptops.

    All things aside, the XBOX is a great console. From a developer side, it's a godsend. It unfortunately has the problem of being a Microsoft product being marketted by idiots. It is also so American it might as well bleed red white and blue.

    If MS would just drop the arrogance and American pride for some humility, as well as hire a competent marketing team with global marketing experience, and finally hire some hardware designers with some modicum of zen aesthetic design, Microsoft would be a force to be reckoned with.

    --jedi\/\/.
  • basically, what MS is hoping for is that Japanese developers will say to themselves "Hey, we're tired of making a profit by selling games for Sony's playstation, let's go make games for the incredibly small XBox market!"?

    Good luck with that one, guys.

    • No, what they're hoping for is that all of the Japanese game developers that really really chafed under Nintendo's iron-fisted rule (if you can dig up a copy of Game Over, read it) and who jumped to Sony when Sony offered them freedom and light, and who now see Sony as becoming the new Nintendo, might want to work with the current 'new company who will bend over backwards to accomidate them,' that being Microsoft.

      • Nintendo isn't quite like that anymore. They've changed in recent years.

        Of course, you could make the argument that developers are worried about Nintendo becoming like that again. On the other side though, you have Microsoft who is notorious for using all means at their desposal necessary to win.

        Nintendo... Microsoft...

        Who would you choose?
  • Does it really matter? It's entirey possible for a console to be successful and not be number one in Japan. Not that Japan is not significant, but it's not as significant as it once was in terms of console sales and game titles.

  • Appeal (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jetfuel ( 755102 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:57PM (#8889199) Homepage
    In a Japanese game shop, you see racks and racks of attractive PS2 games with a wide variety of genres from war-simulation to dating (sometimes both in the same game), GameCube and GBA titles galore, shelves and shelves of used PS and DC (and even Saturn games). The packages are very attractively illustrated in a Japanese aesthetic, and then... In the corner, this radioactive-green glow emanates from the XBox shelf, an ugly contrast to the pastels and rich colors of the other games. The games themselves are FPSes, sports, a platformer here and there. It's simply not attractive compared to the competition, in a country where such a thing really matters.

    The last time I was in Japan (last summer), there were more new Dreamcast games coming out than XBox games. That's encouraging to a DC fanboy like me, and indicative of the XBox's acceptance there.

    Tecmo is arguably the only important Japanese developer that takes the XBox very seriously. Everyone else ports to it or releases a game or two just to cover their bases.

  • Yes. Next stupid question. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fondue ( 244902 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @09:54AM (#8891114)
    The Xbox did not fail because it was American. It failed because it has no games that appeal to anyone outside of the US.

    To all of the clueless idiots talking about 'pride': this is a system that only sold in any numbers near release, to Tecmo completists who wanted to play DOA3. The Xbox no longer registers as a going concern in Japan (or most other Asian markets). It's not just 'underperforming', it's dead. And yet MS still try to put a brave face on it. Just as they do with the (moderately successful among US teenagers, utterly rejected by gamers and developers worldwide) Xbox Live system.

    MS have subscribed to the belief that hardware brute force, suffocating software conservatism, spiralling production costs and infintely deep pockets can overcome the need for support and cooperation from the rest of the industry. Obviously, they think, the consumer is expected to buy what they are told is cool. This is why they have failed to make much of a dent in Sony's dominance of the sector (the sole objective of the Xbox's existence in the first place). And they still can't figure out why.
    • In terms of dev support MS has been the best I have encountered so far. So, I'm not sure what you mean when you say "support and cooperation". MS has a lot of dev and publisher support for the Xbox, just not in Japan.
  • Ten bucks says that Square/Enix is now twice as unlikely to make games for Microsoft, because they mentioned them caving in to Microsoft.

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