Japan Sales Thread *renamed

[iceberg187]

Never thought I'd see an American ever say that.

rewind 15~20 years and I bet that's exactly what Toyota were saying.

We import way more than we export. Sony has been regarded as the nation's top brand like almost a decade running.

 

[PARANOiA]

Japan's largely important from a software point of view. There are stacks of unique games (and styles of games) released by Japanese devs, and they have historically targeted the machine that sold the best in Japan, even if worldwide sales may not show the same numbers.

All up this means it's important for each of the big three to make an impact there... more-so than a similar sized market elsewhere, such as some of the European countries that tend to get their sales numbers blended together.

 

[DJ12]

We import way more than we export. Sony has been regarded as the nation's top brand like almost a decade running.

And 20 years ago, Americans bought American products above anything else.

I find it laughable that an American citizen can comment about another countries xenophobic purchasing habits when it was rife in their own country in my life time. In fact I'm sure a lot of it still goes on to this day.

It's not like any other country is different, we in the UK bought British Leyland crap cars way after the Japanese started importing their far superior cars, we soon cottoned on though.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

What north american titles have sold well in Japan? I can't really think of any...

Some Sony/Nintendo published platformers, like Starfox, Crash Bandicoot, and Jak or Ratchet were the only games to pass 4-500K units. The greatest western hits like GTA, Halo and such typically sell about 200-300K, the rest of the games even less.

EA, Activision and the rest are better off ignoring Japan completely.

 

[one]

Some Sony/Nintendo published platformers, like Starfox, Crash Bandicoot, and Jak or Ratchet were the only games to pass 4-500K units. The greatest western hits like GTA, Halo and such typically sell about 200-300K, the rest of the games even less.

EA, Activision and the rest are better off ignoring Japan completely.

Starfox is a title developed in Japan. Where did you read Halo sold 200k-300k in Japan?

 

[DJ12]

I thought that was roughly the number of 360s sold in Japan?

Anyway, VGchartz (Japanese figures are based on actual retail numbers aren't they?) say Halo sold about 74,250 copies before it dropped out the chart.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Okay, so Halo sells about 100K, doesn't really matter, it's low anyway. But Starfox was a Rare title, wasn't it? Or they've just developed the GC sequel?

 

[DJ12]

Argonaut Games and Nintendo in house according to Wikipedia (I guess Argonauts involvement was manily to do with the SuperFX chip they designed as they aren't listed under "designer")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fox_(video_game)

 

[Laa-Yosh]

One less exception to the rule, then. Western games sell even more poorly in Japan than I've thought...

 

[Teasy]

http://www.betanews.com/article/PS3_outsells_Wii_in_Japan_during_November/1196448337

Wow! It's official, hell has frozen over. Now can they keep it up.

According to Media Create PS3 outsold Wii by 325 in the past month in Japan, with PS3 already back behind Wii again in weekly sales.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Sorry to be the devil's advocate, but is the Japan market really so important as to spawn these kinds of discussion threads? According to the site that shall not be named, Japan sold only 4k more consoles than the UK last week. Does anyone hold the UK as a crucial or representative market? If not, then why Japan? Japan is handheld land. Sony's overall success won't come on the back of such a small console market.

Yes Japan is important, maybe not in overall console sales (though I dont think thats true, they sell alot of hardware too, especially given how many people live there) but 2 out of 3 hardware builders come from Japan but also alot of big franchise come from Japan and Japanese devs in history chose 1 platform to give their biggest support to and that always was the platform that did best in Japan. So if lets say SE choses platform X than platform X might also become more populair overseas because people want to play FF games and they need console X for that.

 

[Pete]

Argonaut Games and Nintendo in house according to Wikipedia (I guess Argonauts involvement was manily to do with the SuperFX chip they designed as they aren't listed under "designer")

This is an interesting piece on part of Starfox's development history, if anyone's interested. It would appear that Jeremy San, the British founder of Argonaut, helped design the SuperFX chip, and StarFox itself is billed as an extension of the StarGlider series he created. But StarFox seems to have been made in Japan. So, confirmed for the third time, made in Japan. :smile:

 

[Shifty Geezer]

According to Media Create PS3 outsold Wii by 325 in the past month in Japan, with PS3 already back behind Wii again in weekly sales.

Does that matter though? The issue was that from 6:1 sales of WiiS3, things have changed such that PS3 can outsell Wii a month, even if by only a dozen consoles. Wii isn't the super-must-have system against undesirable PS3 any more in Japan. Now that the PS3 has changed it's position, it's showing there's equal market for both systems in Japan (at the moment). This also raises the hypothetical case that if PS3 were the same price as Wii, 25,000 Yen instead of 40,000 Yen, would be outselling Wii? In which case, the market for a media box would look larger than a market for Wii-style mass-appeal gaming. Long term there's actually a real possibility of PS3 surpassing Wii's install base in Japan (not saying it's gonna happen though!) which just goes to show that the early sales aren't the be all and end all of the console market.

 

[StefanS]

Well, if the crowds lining-up for Wii Fit this weekend are any indication, Wii sales should be boosted by that title quite a bit again.

Given the less impressive Super Mario Galaxy sales, we can certainly start to conclude that Wii has a non-traditional audience in Japan that has less interest in classic gaming.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

SMG didnt do that bad, SMS sold 870k and SMG already did 400k in 3 weeks or so. It will probably do atleast 870k in total. Keep in mind 3d mario never seemed to be very populair. But wii indeed probably has some non traditional gamers. Though if you look at the charts I think you could say its not only for wii but japanese gamers in general seem to go more towards handhelds and stuff like wii fit than the more traditional games.

 

[archangelmorph]

SMG didnt do that bad, SMS sold 870k and SMG already did 400k in 3 weeks or so. It will probably do atleast 870k in total. Keep in mind 3d mario never seemed to be very populair. But wii indeed probably has some non traditional gamers. Though if you look at the charts I think you could say its not only for wii but japanese gamers in general seem to go more towards handhelds and stuff like wii fit than the more traditional games.

Didn't Mario 64 & Sunshine both do over 2+ million units a pop?

 

[taucias]

This is an interesting piece on part of Starfox's development history, if anyone's interested. It would appear that Jeremy San, the British founder of Argonaut, helped design the SuperFX chip, and StarFox itself is billed as an extension of the StarGlider series he created. But StarFox seems to have been made in Japan. So, confirmed for the third time, made in Japan. :smile:

This is incorrect. The game was coded by Argonaut Software and directed by NoJ. Music and graphics were also created NoJ staff. However, the core of the game was made by Argonaut Software.

Here is a link to the credits http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7wkh1oHqqY

Edit: Ah, well Argonaut did develop it in Japan, but it was made by English guys. I see what you mean though.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Didn't Mario 64 & Sunshine both do over 2+ million units a pop?

Sunshine did 5m something WW but the bulk of that was in the states, only 870k in Japan.

 

[Pete]

This is incorrect. The game was coded by Argonaut Software and directed by NoJ. Music and graphics were also created NoJ staff. However, the core of the game was made by Argonaut Software.

Here is a link to the credits http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7wkh1oHqqY

Edit: Ah, well Argonaut did develop it in Japan, but it was made by English guys. I see what you mean though.

Thanks for the detail. From the interview I posted, I was under the impression that the English devs (I suppose Argonaut, though I wasn't clear if the interviewee was part of Argonaut or freelancing) were more involved on the technical and so engine side, while the Japanese staff were responsible for the gameplay elements (talk of Miyamoto cutting aspects of the game that he considered extraneous)--though I can see how with a game like Starfox the engine can be considered the game, doubly so since it's billed as a sort of Star Glider III, I & II having been all Argonaut. But, yeah, I mainly meant that regardless of who was in the lead, it was all done in Japan. The credits thank Argonaut for its "assistance," which is a strange acknowledgement if they "made" the game, but I think we're both on the same page. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Teasy]

Does that matter though? The issue was that from 6:1 sales of WiiS3, things have changed such that PS3 can outsell Wii a month, even if by only a dozen consoles. Wii isn't the super-must-have system against undesirable PS3 any more in Japan. Now that the PS3 has changed it's position, it's showing there's equal market for both systems in Japan (at the moment).

No doubt PS3's doing a lot better then it was at the moment, but that should be expected after a price drop.

This also raises the hypothetical case that if PS3 were the same price as Wii, 25,000 Yen instead of 40,000 Yen, would be outselling Wii?

I assume your going to be realistic and downgrade the PS3's processing power to match the price drop with this theoretical what if? After all there's a reason why PS3 costs 40,000 Yen, that extra cost buys PS3 an advantage over Wii graphically, one it wouldn't have were it to cost the same.