Japan Sales Thread *renamed

[Rangers]

Except America has a long history of supporting Japanese consoles, but the reverse is true in Japan. They even shunned the mega drive while even South America supported that system, because of Sega's American connections. One might also ask why Europe and America and the whole rest of the world support Xbox, but only in Japan it can barely sell at all.

Or maybe you'll take Ryan Payton who works for Kojima's word for it..he has said as much on 1up your podcasts. In fact he pretty much guaranteed Little Big Planet will fail in Japan because of it's western roots. Even if it is published by a Japanese company. He said it's almost like Japanese consumers have radar to avoid things produced in America, even when they go to great lengths to hide it in the advertising. He mentioned some American game where the Japanese publishing company invented an entire Japanese producer and so forth in advertising to try to hide the fact it was from America, yet the game still bombed. We can see if that happens with Little Big Planet, but I suspect it will.

From a business perspective in the end this might hurt Japan more than it helps though, it simply segments off the Western market. If 95% of Xbox360's sell in Europe+America..then they are just that more dominant there, and if EA and Ubisoft games dont sell in Japan..then they will not consider that region in software development scenarios. EA doesn't care about the 1.2 million PS3's in Japan, those might as well not exist, they're not going to buy EA games. The only people it benefits are the Capcom's of the world, who can sell in both Japan and the West. But there are no Western developers that can sell in Japan. In the end I'd argue it makes Japan more marginalized, not less.


PS3 price drop last week stimulated sales very little in Japan yet again. Meanwhile Wii isn't doing that great either..but at least it has Mario Galaxy coming up.

 

[one]

They even shunned the mega drive while even South America supported that system, because of Sega's American connections.

I suspect at least more Japanese people bought MD than South American people did...

One might also ask why Europe and America and the whole rest of the world support Xbox, but only in Japan it can barely sell at all.

I heard it was not doing well in Korea?

Or maybe you'll take Ryan Payton who works for Kojima's word for it..he has said as much on 1up your podcasts. In fact he pretty much guaranteed Little Big Planet will fail in Japan because of it's western roots. Even if it is published by a Japanese company. He said it's almost like Japanese consumers have radar to avoid things produced in America, even when they go to great lengths to hide it in the advertising. He mentioned some American game where the Japanese publishing company invented an entire Japanese producer and so forth in advertising to try to hide the fact it was from America, yet the game still bombed. We can see if that happens with Little Big Planet, but I suspect it will.

If LBP fails in Japan, that's because of artistic difference. Most Japanese people can easily discern art contents produced by Japanese artists and the rest. Most Japanese artists in game character design are based on anime/manga discipline. When Japanese gamers look at Halo 3's character design, they will see it as very outdated, straight out of 80's sci-fi movies. Some may like it in the same sense that some feel '80's music are cool, or because they just like American culture overall, however they are minorities in the audience of games in Japan who are younger than the gamer demographic in the US. It's not only about character design, look at the difference of UI design between Forza 2 and GT5P, or PGR4 and RR7. This phenomena are stronger today than 20 years ago, because Japanese cultural scenes including the anime/manga genre itself advanced greatly since and games became HD. It's no wonder Metroid and Ninja Gaiden are not liked by general Japanese gamers.

An interesting experiment is seen in the character design of the Last Remnant by SquareEnix, it has 2 protagonists. However the UI design is definitely Japanese, I hate that cheap look and it won't do good in the US.

PS3 price drop last week stimulated sales very little in Japan yet again. Meanwhile Wii isn't doing that great either..but at least it has Mario Galaxy coming up.

PS3 lacks softwares made in Japan now. The first big one to come is GT5 Prologue, then DMC4 and MGS4 are going to follow in early 2008.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

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.

You might want to scrap online play and Asia in the same sentence because online play is insane populair in Asia. They dont play anything other than that in China and Korea.

I'd agree with you on the games, Xbox just isnt very exiting if you are a Japanese gamers. I dont understand some people still believe in the Japanese only want to buy japanese products myth.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I heard it was not doing well in Korea?

I don't think any console is doing 'well' in korea, but if you want to go relatively, the ps3 was doing much worse the last I heard.

 

[Rangers]

Wow, first day sales of Mario Galaxy in Japan are reported at just 130,000. Likely a 300,000 first week.

Very poor.

And here are the weekly media create hardware numbers 10/22-10/28 while I'm at it. Wii's slump continues, relatively strong PSP sales continue.

DSL 76,243
PSP 59,792
Wii 27,502
PS3 18,785
PS2 11,698
Xbox360 3,718
GBM 64
GC 58
GBASP 41
DS 30

 

[Evildeus]

Effectively, poor Mario Galaxy's figures. The next price decrease for PS3 is on the 11th isn't it?

 

[avaya]

Except America has a long history of supporting Japanese consoles, but the reverse is true in Japan. They even shunned the mega drive while even South America supported that system, because of Sega's American connections. One might also ask why Europe and America and the whole rest of the world support Xbox, but only in Japan it can barely sell at all.

FPS.

I mean there is nothing more than that to say. 360 rightly or wrongly will always have the stigma as the FPS/shooter box. Halo 3, Orange Box, Call of Duty. PS3 seems to have caught that a bit now as well.

As long as you maintain that stigma you will never see mainstream success outside of the American continent. The public generally abhors FPS games. The whole principal of hunting down people/things and killing them for entertatinment. If that's your primary franchise or one of the leading experiences on your box then you will probably never ever win mainstream approval and achieve mainstream success.

Look at Wii today, look at PS2, PS1, NES. No FPS titles that lead the platform. It's a genre that was marginalised. They were right to do it to. Maybe they didn't do it proactively and today they they see an opportunity in the genre but I think what's gone on just comes back to show them that the old strategy was the best.

If you look at the home shooters, the PC, what are the best selling titles of all time? They aren't shooters. They are sandbox franchises and non-games. Other PC titles just go out to a very small enthusiast community and piracy runs rife.

This is not another FPS is s*** post. It's just one of the primary reasons for the faliure of the Xbox franchise outside of America/Anglo-saxon sphere of influence.

 

[Arwin]

Fps certainly matters, but I think online is even more important. It was the main advantage of the Xbox in the previous generation, but online didn't catch on in Japan at all, and even if it is starting to take off in Japan (not really yet, imho), combined with the little support it got from Japanese publishers last gen, it puts the Xbox at a big disadvantage this generation - you can see that in the US, where online was much more important (as well as fps, certainly that matters more in the US than in the EU, where racing games are bigger), Xbox sold 66% of its total last gen market share (and that division has continued exactly the same in this gen so far - 66 US, 33 EU, basically)

 

[avaya]

Fps certainly matters, but I think online is even more important. It was the main advantage of the Xbox in the previous generation, but online didn't catch on in Japan at all, and even if it is starting to take off in Japan (not really yet, imho), combined with the little support it got from Japanese publishers last gen, it puts the Xbox at a big disadvantage this generation - you can see that in the US, where online was much more important (as well as fps, certainly that matters more in the US than in the EU, where racing games are bigger), Xbox sold 66% of its total last gen market share (and that division has continued exactly the same in this gen so far - 66 US, 33 EU, basically)

MS Japan actually mis-managed the strategy at the begining. Some really unbelievable errors in marketing: HD instead of Hi-Vision in their adverts, that was a silly oversight.

 

[Arwin]

I also can't imagine that the loudness of the 360 would help in Japan especially.

 

[inefficient]

Effectively, poor Mario Galaxy's figures. The next price decrease for PS3 is on the 11th isn't it?

40GB PS3 and Ratchet comes out on the 11th.

Heavenly Sword does not come out till the 15th!

 

[Arwin]

So basically, all the good numbers we see now are due to Lair ...

(or maybe more likely, GT5 Prologue Demo )

 

[Johnny Awesome]

FPS.

As long as you maintain that stigma you will never see mainstream success outside of the American continent. The public generally abhors FPS games. The whole principal of hunting down people/things and killing them for entertatinment. If that's your primary franchise or one of the leading experiences on your box then you will probably never ever win mainstream approval and achieve mainstream success.

This is absolute nonsense IMO. PC gaming is huge in Germany for instance. PC is known VERY widely as an FPS haven. Look at the sales of other "killing" games like GTA in Europe. Even the sales of Halo 2 were huge in Europe. Japan might be a different story, but MGS and Devil May Cry were huge there. Not FPS, but certainly a lot of violence. I think the idea that FPS = a lot of violence = poor sales outside the US is ridiculous.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I also can't imagine that the loudness of the 360 would help in Japan especially.

All of those things are red herrings and not relevant. Just like the size issue last generation. Japanese consumers don't like the Xbox brand on a marketing/emotional level and then justify their decision by stating ridiculous reasons like size, loudness, too many FPS, etc... The real debate should be around why they don't like it to begin with. The gaijin factor is huge IMO.

 

[Arwin]

All of those things are red herrings and not relevant. Just like the size issue last generation. Japanese consumers don't like the Xbox brand on a marketing/emotional level and then justify their decision by stating ridiculous reasons like size, loudness, too many FPS, etc... The real debate should be around why they don't like it to begin with. The gaijin factor is huge IMO.

It's definitely there, but look at the xbox, which is a US product doing well in the US. Is that only because it's a US product in the US? Or are there other factors? Or is it perhaps that a US product has a better feel for its home market than foreign products?

Imho, it's often a combination of factors. In Japan, I'm for some reason imagining people who have to share small rooms with many people, don't have a lot of personal space, and so on, and something like how much noise a machine makes and how private your gaming experience can be (think also about popularity of portables in Japan) may just count for something.

Just as a simple example, everyone from the US is convinced that PS2 was not relevant for DVD uptake, but in Japan, PS2 was in fact very relevant for DVD uptake. Just like Japan saw a special PS1 that was capable of playing Video CD, that never saw the light of day in other regions.

There's tonnes of complicated little things going on, so I'm not ruling any one factor out, but I'm thinking some factors may be more important than you (or I) might think.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

@jonny
Than why do things like iPod sell like crazy over there? I dont think its a matter of foreign or not but wether or not they have better alternatives. In the case of consoles they have nintendo and playstation who've been there a very long time and always caterd to what they wanted. MS doesnt nearly do that much so for most of them there just isnt a reason why they would want a xbox.

 

[Arwin]

Incidentally, related to one's post, it's not a Gajin factor per se. It's really just different tastes. There's a pretty old Dutch cartoon figure for really small kids that turned out to be extremely popular in Japan, and if you see the style, you can easily see why. Nijntje, or Miffy as it is more popular known, and it's older brother who's clearly related and I think originates from Belgium, Musti, are probably inspirational parents to the much later conceived Hello Kitty, but at any rate, they are a good example of how Japanese trends and tastes can differ from the rest of the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miffy

In that respect, a game like Guitar Hero is also interesting, because such rhythm (bemani) games have been wildly popular in Japan for more than a decade already in many shapes and sizes, and even in Europe we've seen Singstar and later also Buzz, that were franchises for some reason not released to the US yet - and yet now we're going to get something like Rock Star, which goes beyond even most Japanese stuff so far.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

iPod is the exception, not the rule. The Xbox has bad branding in Japan for many reasons, one of which is that it is a foreign product. The list of foreign product failures in Japan is enormous. Very few foreign products ever succeed there. It's far more interesting to analyze why, than to dispute the facts IMO. For instance, it's silly to look at console size when the PS3 is as big as an wall-mounted A/C unit and sells much better than X360 there.

 

[Arwin]

iPod is the exception, not the rule. The Xbox has bad branding in Japan for many reasons, one of which is that it is a foreign product. The list of foreign product failures in Japan is enormous. Very few foreign products ever succeed there. It's far more interesting to analyze why, than to dispute the facts IMO. For instance, it's silly to look at console size when the PS3 is as big as an wall-mounted A/C unit and sells much better than X360 there.

But that's not to say that it helps the PS3 to be this large either - apart from that the 360 and PS3 really don't differ that much (certainly if you take the Wii into account), the question is whether not that size difference is overcoming the 360's RROD problems (not good for a product trying to make inroads), noise, huge power brick, online gaming still barely mattering in Japan, and not having anything to build on from the previous generation. If the 360 had been twice as big, maybe it would have sold much worse still.

However, I'm interested in your reasons for why you think the Xeno-factor is so big in Japan. Is it just a matter of extreme loyalty? Because if so, then indeed there are a fairly big number of exceptions.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Nijntje

Now there's a nice word to pronounce No wonder they changed it to Miffy.