Japan Sales Thread *renamed

For comparison, Oblivion 360 did around 43K in its first two days.

Well, Halo 3 certainly did good for a 360 FPS, but I'm also curious why Japanese 360 owners bought the console if not for Halo 3.

 

40-50% of them own the aforementioned Blue Dragon.

 

I was just assuming they ran a similar ad campaign for Halo3 as here, but maybe they didn´t.
Anyway those numbers do not indicate any crazy increase in the number of sold consoles, will be interesting to see what they turn out like.

 

They are about 6,000.

PS3=13,000
Wii=25,000

According to Famitsu, media create will vary slightly.

Also a GAF poster said Halo 1 sold about 70k lifetime in Japan. Did not find anything about Halo 2.

Also it was reported that, Halo 3 sold most of it's shipments and was actually sold out many places, so it may be able to have some kind of decent second week.

 

Halo 2 sold 37.000 units the first week. Halo: CE sold about 50.000 units in its first week, IIRC, but I couldn't find any link for that (so I guess you have to put faith into my cognitive capabilities )

 

Warhawk was finally released on the JP PSN this week!

 

A lot of those people apparently resold the console immediately after beating the game apparently according to anecdotal reports (stores were full of the the 360 version that had Blue Dragon packed in).

Also being sold out is normally bad news for sales in Japan as they are extremely front loaded often so don't really expect much better next week. Either way still great sales for Halo 3 for Japan.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=84688

580.000 PSP slims sold now in Japan.

 

Is that with a price drop? I didn't think it was, which shows there could be substantial demand if a lower price were introduced. Not that a million units a month (sustained rate) isn't substantial demand!

 

Why would you think that I am personally negative about these Halo sales? Rather, I stated the opposite...

It's more what the numbers might represent in terms of market impact: Even if MP3 is a limited success, that might indicate (with the rapidly growing Wii userbase) that 'proper games' can be commercially viable on the Wii. These figures, on the other hand, might indicate (with the small X360 userbase) that even the most popular game in other markets can't break through the glass ceiling in Japan (for that hay would have needed different games).

Apples and oranges. Context is king.

 

Yes. Thus:

 

What's signficant?

360 has sold nearly 500,000 units in JPN, and sales are up slightly over last year. If they make it to one million is that signficant? How about 2 million?

With Last Remnant and Lost Odyssey they may be able to pick up even more momentum going through 2008.

 

I'd say any resemblance of being in contention with the 'opposition'. As of now they've had one game that moved systems in Japan, yet it doesn't seem like those who bought a 360 for BD are too inclined to buy into the rest of their lineup. More games with a local appeal would make the 360 a more viable investment for others than the minority of Japanese gamers that prefer western style games. That would be costly though, and MS might have held a slight hope that Halo 3 could be one to break through the glass ceiling. That doesn't seem to have happened, but by all means: It did well all things considered, and I don't think Japan is a fiasco for MS this gen by any means.

 

Isn't Last Remnant Mulitplatform? I could be mistaken though.

 

Pretty sure it's an exclusive IP from SE for 360...I too could be wrong though

 

i'm pretty sure LR is coming to PS3 too.
http://www.gamespot.com/search.html?qs=Last+Remnant&x=0&y=0
http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/thelastremnant/news.html?sid=6170405&mode=recent
http://ps3.ign.com/objects/904/904859.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/4914.html

 

I think it's headed for PC too. One of the reasons for choosing UE3 over an internally developed engine is immediate cross-platform support.

 

oops my bad then!

Personally I think MS makes a significant impact in Japan when they can reach a break-even point for Japanese Developers. When they can develop a strong enough base that quality Japanese games can turn a profit in Japan.

Then they'll begin getting more software which will diversity for the western audience, which is IMO the key goal for MS in Japan, not intended to sell a ton of consoles, but to secure additional 3rd party japanese titles for western release.

Now, I don't know what number that would be, but if Blue Dragon can sell ~250,000 copies with a 500,000 install base, then maybe only a couple million consoles would be enough to have a meaningful impact on the WW market?

 

Good point. I do believe, though, that they'll need to pay for exclusives catering to that market to get there (and at the same time hope for the western games to expand their audience somewhat). Timed exclusives doesn't appear to be solid system sellers. I.e. Eternal Sonata was anticipated, well received, and had a 50K first week but petered out quickly. My instinct says this may be because 'everyone knew' it was coming for the PS3 as well eventually. I'm very interested to see what MS makes of Lost Odyssey this December.

 

How did you determine Blue Dragon sold around 250,000 in Japan? I know it's 100,000 + but 1 out of every 2 X360 owners bought Blue Dragon in Japan? That's pretty damn impressive.