Japan Sales Thread *renamed

As you said the Wii install base may prefer party games but I think that it only means that SMG has higher chance of moving hardware.

 

Exactly.

MS wants Support from the big studios on the big(er) games with WW appeal.

Sega
Konami
Capcom
Namco
etc.

These are the studios they want supporting the xb360 and for the most part they are getting that support. In the end, that's all that matters. If Japanese gamers still want to ignore the platform, who cares. The WW sales outside of Japan more than make up for the loss and the potential for Japanese devs to profit from such an installed base (on an easy to dev for platform ) make it an easy sell for any dev with their head removed from their rear (or not paid off).

 

Excuses.

The ps2 had it's fair share of HW issues at first and that didn't stop sales.

Bottom line is, a non-Japanese console will never sell as well as a Japanese one (unless the Japanese one is REALLY crap).

MS realizes this and has stopped wasting money in the region. They are moving on to EU where they have a shot at doing business.

 

That's pointless even among tu quoque excuses, the failure rate of Xbox 360 is unprecedented for consumer electronics. In Japan the Xbox brand was not something ready for mass-market consumption before 360, then 360 came to put another nail in the coffin in a suicidal kamikaze attack with RROD.

The history tells you there were not-so-crappy game consoles released by huge Japanese corporations other than Sony or Nintendo. Turbografix 16 by NEC, 3DO by Matsushita, what happened to them? But those were the old days, today the Japanese market is weary of a simple game console when cellphones can play games and PC is ubiquitous. Or it might have started when PS2 was sold with the DVD player function. Not so crappy as an old-hat game console is merely a minimum requirement, or an option that works only for a nostalgic demographic who want to watch their favorite IP in HD.

 

yup

Nintendo should have added cell phone ability to DS. Then it wouldn't be a flop in Japan. Although, they did make the right move by loading Windows on Wii ...

Face it, Japan will stay buying Japan. That's fine as long as they realize selling outside of japan will require them to think outside the box ... or inside it.

 

Nintendo added a touch-screen to DS, a remote to Wii. Most of DS releases are now non-game applications and Wii will follow with things like Wii Fit. These are differentiating factors and something that divided Nintendo and the rest including Xbox 360.

 

I'd bet a lot of money that if MS were a japanese company the 360 would sell 3x as well in Japan with no other changes.

 

With Halo 3 that sold 60,000 copies and PGR4 that sold 5,000 copies?

 

The numbers for Halo3 are relatively not bad. It's not the killer IP in Japan that it is elsewhere, but 12% attach rate isn't terrible for less than a month, I'm sure Heavenly Sword would have been happy to get that in the US (it would have almost doubled their sales). There's titles for the x360 that do very well in Japan considering their install base. You're not going to have much luck trying to convince me (anyone maybe) that there isn't a stigma surrounding foreign products in the Japanese market.

 

The high attach rate shows the main audience of 360 in Japan are hardcore gamers. Yet Activision Japan stopped localizing their games for 360 and COD4 is supposed to be only available for PS3. As for the stigma of foreign products, I think you should investigate Japanese box office numbers. They are filled by Hollywood movies from top to bottom except for anime movies for children. Children are the main customer of games. If you limit it to the gaming market, yes a stigma exists and it was basically created by Xbox 1.

 

As far as I know, only the following western console games were reasonably successful in Japan: Starfox, Ratchet, Crash Bandicoot, Jak. These were all published by either Sony or Nintendo. The most an EA or Vivendi game has ever sold is about 200K.

 

Grand Theft Auto series has done very well there.

 

This phenomena is hardly exclusive to consoles.

 

Latest numbers from NeoGaf (Media Create Sales 10/15 - 10/21)

 

Wii not in the top ten! Looks like the honeymoon period is over, Wii Sports will no long carry the system in Japan, and Nintendo will need to start attracting custom through other products. Great first run though! How many other system sellers can boast 12 million sales?!

 

um so why have other asian regions (including those that have been invaded by japan, and have expressed open anti-japanese sentiment in the past) havent been receptive to the xbox1/2 as well?
in black + white - the xbox1/2's titles so far dont fit their gaming niche as well ( the handful of asian orientated titles released dont constitute making a major effort )

to reflect the argument - why does the US account for ~2/3 of the xbox360s sold worldwide (is it cause its from an american company , why dont the europeans (outside the uk) care about the xbox's )

sure theres ppl that will buy a product cause its made in their homeland (incl here in nz), but to say this is the sole reason to attrib the xboxs failure is xenophobia pure + simple

yes thats why the ipod is not the number one selling mp3 player in japan.... oh wait it is, (anyone care to check whats the largest selling phone in japan)
heres the top10 films (alltime in japan)
1/ spirited away,( japanese film ) i rated this 10 btw a must watch if u havent seen it
2/ harry potter
3/ harry potter
4/ titanic
5/ LOTR
6/ star wars
7/ princess mononoke (japan) 9/10 by the same guy as the first also tearjerkingly beautiful
8/ kindaichi (japan)
9/ armagedon (wtf)
10/ independence day (see above)

so u see, in japan ppl are only willing to pay to watch japanese films

 

The answer why the 360 doesn't do as well is very simple. Two of its main strenghts, FPS games and Online Play, just aren't as hot yet in Asia. This is the exact opposite in the U.S., and conversely, the Xbox brand is very popular there, because it has been leading the (console) field in terms of online and FPS games for a considerable amount of time. Europe is somewhere in the middle, and again that is reflected in sales.

 

Yeah, Wii sales are definitely slowing down or rather have stabilized at ~ 24000 units / week. It will be interesting if Super Mario Galaxy or Super Smash Brawl can kickstart sales again.
However, the real litmus test will be Wii Fit, IMO. It will show whether or not non-traditional gamers are still buying new Wiis or if the reservoir of the proclaimed expanded audience is slowly drying up. Moreover, the software sales could be a good indicator if those target groups continue to buy games beyond the initial investment.

 

SMBG is guaranteed to kickstart the Wii. It is the Wii's 'Halo', after all.

Wii Fit will be interesting. But looking at the Tai Chi / balancing aspects of it, if it is a success anywhere then definitely Japan.

The only thing that can get in the way of the Wii at this point is if 360 and PS3 (well, in Japan mostly PS3 obviously) start showing their worth to the Japanese consumer. But even then, Wii is again successful enough in targeting a new, different market that I expect we'll at the very least initially see something akin to the DS/PSP division we have now, though the PS3 should be doing slightly better compared to Wii partly on account of its last gen props (in the handheld area the DS also had that advantage) and the PS3 having some good home-console qualities.

But I'm convinced they will both do well, as long as the software keeps coming.

 

Being American, sure isn´t anything companies are putting in their marketing slogans these days in Europe. But I also doubt the nationality of companies have much influence on the consumers in their choice of game consoles. It is very much the game titles and the perceived value of the console that rules, after all most people don´t have unlimited gaming budgets and want to put their money where they think they get best value for their money for their specific taste.

I only have to look at some of my own buying behaviour. Many times have I thought I should get an AMD cpu in my next PC just because I wanted to support the underdog in the CPU arena, but each time i defaulted back to Intel, because of some great offer from Dell, Shuttle etc. which just felt more solid even though they were just on par or even below similar AMD offers, mind you my experience goes back to the time when AMD was infamous for some of their CPUs.

In the same way I have made half-hearted attempts to start using Linux at home for daily stuf but defaulted back to Windows, because it was more convenient.