Next-Gen Survey in Japan (Famitsu)

[dantruon]

It's "effectively" no effect, because in the overall impact, jumping 40% of a small amount for a short period of time is almost the same as no effect.

lol, i was being sarcastic about it all, i know that nothing in the world right now can save the xbox360 in Japan right now. A proven franchise has proved that it wont be easy to make games that can sell many console system.

 

[Serenity Painted Death]

Well, it did the same. It pretty much bumped Xbox unit sales up 5k... which is pretty irrelevant (1% of total Xbox sales, which still doesn't amount to much). Given that, why were people expecting this to help the 360 much? Did NG sell well in Japan? It seems people were just pulling this one out of their asses due to the fact Itagaki is Japanese, or something.

 

[Dr. Nick]

Not to mention DOA sold 60k the first week. So obviously people had picked up the system and were waiting for the game to release.

Hardknock is right. Given the history of the Xbox in Japan and the crappy list of titles to be released on day 1, DOA pretty much is the only reason it sold as well as it did. Without it on the system things would appear to be worse than they are now.

Out of all the Japanese Xbox games Team Ninja games are the only ones to sell over 50,000 units after launch. That is the reason why people put faith in Itagaki in Japan. It was felt that a combination of what was successful last time and some great new franchises would help the Xbox 360 in Japan. Unfortunately neither was available the week of launch.

Remember that the sequel to DOAX ,which was the best selling Japanese Xbox game in Japan, has yet to be released. Some people could be waiting for that as well.

 

[Serenity Painted Death]

Yea, those three thousand hold outs are really going to light up the charts.

I was also fairly sure that Enchant Arm and maybe one other game had sold better than DOA4, but I could be wrong on that.

You could always stake the claim that Blue Dragon will help, but at this point I think the best you could realistically shoot for is being helped up to Xbox status. Not to mention by the time any of those Sakaguchi games come out the PS3 and Revolution will already be out. It also bears mentioning that Sakaguchi pretty much had no involvement in the actual design of any of the PS1+ FF games (he was the executive producer... he wrote checks). Proven products do a lot better in Japan than new ones, even if they are of superior quality. Maybe the real hope should be put on BD2/LO2.

 

[mckmas8808]

Proven products do a lot better in Japan than new ones, even if they are of superior quality. Maybe the real hope should be put on BD2/LO2.

But by the time these games come out the PS3 and Rev will be out in Japan, so it probably won't look to good.

 

[one]

Remember that the sequel to DOAX ,which was the best selling Japanese Xbox game in Japan, has yet to be released.

Well, technically DOA3 was the best selling Xbox game in Japan though with a sub $10 price tag in later years.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But by the time these games come out the PS3 and Rev will be out in Japan, so it probably won't look to good.

As Serenity rightly pointed out, by the time the first BD et al are out, PS3 and Rev will have launched. XB360's Japanese titles will have to be something pretty amazing to attract Japanese gamers away from Nintendo and PlayStation. And by pretty amazing, I mean tempting people away from FF and DQ amazing. Or, Japanese gamers are happy to buy and run XB360 along with whatever other console(s) they want.

If the Jap titles had launched strongly with XB360 they may have garnered attention, but outside of 'hardcore' Famitsu readers I question who's going to learn enough about BD and XB360 after PS3 and Rev launch to even consider buying into the platform.

 

[expletive]

I wouldnt be the least bit surprisedif MS was shooting for the lead in the other territories and just some semblance of 'relevance' in JP this gen.

Sure they are going to give it their best try but the apathy in JP is really undeniable. Their best bet is to be the market leader in 75% of the global markets (everything outside of Japan?) and continue to plug away in JP, gen after gen, until the country finally takes them seriously. Theyll have some fantastic games this gen but so will the other platforms.

I see their only chance at any real big success there is if XBL and XBLA really take hold and build a strong community. If that happens i can see good things happening.