Japan ain't going to buy the Xbox 360
by Conrad Quilty-Harper 
{ Jul 12th 2005 at 1:30PM }
We've got another bit of market research for you, this
time about possible future purchases of next-gen consoles in Japan. Maybe not surprisingly, the Xbox 360 didn't do too
well. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that to date the original Xbox has sold around 500,000 units, a sales
figure which the PS2 reached two days after launch. The researchers asked 1,000 japanese people which console they will
buy and a mere 2% chose the Xbox 360. This is in comparison with the Playstation 3 garnering 60% of the vote. Now,
these numbers are purely based on a thousand japanese people's opinions at this current time. They do not represent any
factual market share figures for the next-gen market, they only indicate how the market will go in the future. So don't
shoot the messenger!
[Via igniq]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Scott @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Not surprising. Japan has to be the toughest market for an American company to crack. The Japanese are very loyal to their home country products.
sam @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
No big surprise here. Trying to sell Amercian products in Japan is like trying to sell Malcolm X videos at a Klan meeting. They think we are savages.
Chiablo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
That's like asking which they prefer, Ford or Toyota.
The Xbox will never beat out Sony in the Asian market. Their only hopes are to do well in the US and European markets.
Cem @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Pretty worthless research in my opinion. Just wait and see what MS is going to do for Japan. Some of the greatest Japanese game developers are going to create games for the xbox360. It's all about the games and when lots of must-have games are xbox360 exclusive, the Japanese WILL buy the xbox360. Perhaps not as much as the PS3, but it wil definitely not be the 2%!
Lesbian Ham @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
"Not surprising. Japan has to be the toughest market for an American company to crack. The Japanese are very loyal to their home country products."
No, not loyal. The word to use is stubborn! And closed-minded!
(not all japanese people, just the japanese people i can see in my head not even giving the 360 a second thought coz they love their PS2 coz they have a 6th cousin who has a friend who knows someone who's married to someone who works for a 3rd party company making peripherals for the ps2)
Christopher7xii @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Agreeing with Cem here. The thing Xbox lacked, the X360 is fixing. Japanese developers. I can guarantee most Japanese didn't give a rats ass for Halo 2. When the X360 releases Mistwalker RPGs and Square-Soft... er, Square-Enix(gag) games, people will start picking up 360's. Then Live will be a crazy place to chat on.
KACHON!
Christopher7xii @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Oh, and Conrad... Ain't ain't a word.
pOThOLDERS @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
i hope the US Sony fanboys take this into consideration. Being US gamers, we should show more support for the xbox instead of gettin teabagged by sony.
Myria @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
MS could give away Xboxes and still only get 1% of the Japanese market. It doesn't matter how good the console or games are, by and large the Japanese aren't going to buy it (or very much else in the way of American products). MS would probably be better off just writing off Japan as the waste of time and resources it is and instead put the money, effort, and product they would otherwise waste on Japan into taking over the Anglosphere and European markets.
White Rose Duelist @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
#7
Yes, because Microsoft is a small, struggling company that may not survive if no one buys Xbox360s...
I agree that Sony hates us, but I'm not going to buy a console based on where the megacorp taht makes it is located. i'm buying whatever console has good games and won't break if you look at it funny.
SurfMurph @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
How did the Atari 2600 sell in Japan? Or the Colecovision? Maybe the Xbox team should consider branding the 360 differently in Japan. This is similar to how Sega and Nintendo rebranded their systems for the U.S. market.
jc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Hey pOThOLDERS, I don't understand what you are saying.
We should be loyal to Microsoft, only because they are an American company? How does this ensure that our personal needs are being met? What if neither system is what we are looking for?
nod @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
I realize that being "big in Japan" is important, but it's really more of a symbolic importance. At best.
It's no surprise that this crack research has come up with the data. In the end, this poll doesn't mean anything.
Zell @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
"Hating Microsoft and the Xbox is un-American."
I can't remember where I read that but it was just the thing I needed for a good chuckle.
Mo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
What about i-pod - how successful are they in Japan?
What about the Windows operating system?
Arch-360 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
thats why we call them cows. they follow their master. (ken kutaragi) whatever he sais goes. not to mention that they are a stubborn people to convince if its not japanese. even if japanese developers make games for it the fanboys will say it doesnt matter. they will use such words as flop and gay, and shit, and end everything with erz
Jason @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
I would put no stock in these results. Wouldn't be surprised if they hit up 1000 Japanese Sony fanboys to get the results they wanted.
Jason
http://www.xboxsoftmods.com/main/
pOThOLDERS @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Im not saying that the xbox 360 is the next messiah or anything, but according to hardware and input specs, both the xbox and ps3 are gonna be very similar. it's pretty much 2 equal(sorta) systems goin head to head. one american, one japanese. why not just go with something that will benefit the U.S. gaming culture? C'mon, the U.S. fuckin rules!
(sans our cute ass political leaders)
benhc911 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
... so 38 % said revolution? nice. That is plenty to keep Nintendo going, especially with there profitable console (not losing 70-90 bucks per console) And the fact that all of the big sellers will be developed by them, therefore they get all of the profit on the big titles, not just licensing money. Dont make me laugh and say that Microsoft, the company, and sony, the company (not the console), puts out even half as many blockbuster games.
Paul @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
May the best product win. It seems Americans have no problem buying foreign hardware. I wonder what's so special about Sony that makes the japanese not even consider an American product. This issue really is larger than Sony vs. Microsoft. If only the US consumers could learn from Japan we might see some positive economic growth.
benhc911 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
oh and I will be getting ps3 and revolution. Oh, finally, at the risk of being flamed, US doesnt "fucking rule". It is a nice country, but tries to police everyone, put tariffs on Canadian softwood, despite their continual free trade support and attacked Iraq, with only minor non oil incentive. You should have gone for Korea, they SAID they have nukes. Not some possible report that they may or may not have weapons of mass destruction.
pOThOLDERS @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
on a video game blog:
Posted Jul 12, 2005, 2:50 PM ET by benhc911
oh and I will be getting ps3 and revolution. Oh, finally, at the risk of being flamed, US doesnt "fucking rule". It is a nice country, but tries to police everyone, put tariffs on Canadian softwood, despite their continual free trade support and attacked Iraq, with only minor non oil incentive. You should have gone for Korea, they SAID they have nukes. Not some possible report that they may or may not have weapons of mass destruction.
lol.
Gamer Jay @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Unfortunately, many of you are misled by the Xbox's woes in Japan. It's true that the Xbox has a meager market share compared to Sony and Nintendo. But the video game market is unique and not indicative of the brand awareness of American companies in other sectors. For instance, Japan is one of the best markets for Starbucks (another Seattle-area mega-company). Starbucks stores in Japan have more than double the volume of their U.S. siblings. Coca-Cola, KFC, and 7-Eleven have had similar success in the beverage and food services industries. In the technology and internet sectors, you can look at Intel, Google, and Yahoo. Each have strong brand awareness in Japan, which correlates to profitability.
The strength of many of these companies depends on their approach and how (if?) they adjust their product/service for the Japanese market. REI, a Seattle-based outdoor equipment co-op, failed miserably in its approach to the Japanese market and it shut down after only several months of operations. Other companies made early mistakes but adjusted later to acheive success. It's not too late for Microsoft...
nod @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
One thing you have to remember is that Sony, and to some extent Nintento, cater to the Japanese buyer and the take into account certain things about Japanese lifestyle and culture when desiging both hardware and software. This is due to their very nature of being Japanese companies.
That's why you don't see alot of HD / 16:9 widescreen games by Japanese developers. Or online much online play. (Xbox live will flop in Japan by the way.) And small hardware profiles. It all fits the Japanese lifestyle from sensibilities to ergonomics and so on.
It's not surprising that Sony and Nintendo beat-out MS in Japan. It's also not that big of a deal.
Huh? @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Screw Japan, go for the big pie, China and India. There's tons of consumers there.
jc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Microsoft wants it's profits raised in Japan.
If was I selling on a global market, I would feel the same way. I would likely take some of the same steps MS has taken... but growth is not going to happen overnight. A 5% growth might be all they get.
You know, it really doesn't matter to the western hemisphere how MS does in Japan. And strangely enough, MS is a better #2 company, than they are being in the lead.
We are seeing a better product with the 360 than we see with somthing like WinXP.
We the gamers are the ones that are supposed to win, not the console makers. Look at the bigger picture people.
Lesbian Ham @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
lol, western hemisphere.
Paul @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
"We are seeing a better product with the 360 than we see with somthing like WinXP."
Isn't WinXP like 6 years old now? I realize it's sub-par now, but back in the day it was a pretty kick ass OS. Far ahead of its time I'd say.
Sorry for the off topic post. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...
jc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
no Paul, until ServicePack2 we wouldn't even use XP here at work because it was so buggy... imho, Win2K was better than XP till SP2.
funkonaut @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Christopher7xii,
According to Merriam-Webster, ain't is indeed a word:
Main Entry: ain't
Pronunciation: 'Ant
Etymology: contraction of are not
1 : am not : are not : is not
2 : have not : has not
3 : do not : does not : did not -- used in some varieties of Black English
http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=ain%27t&x=0&y=0
Ice Raider @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Besides PS3/Xbox360/Nintendo Revolution are all made in Taiwan anyways, what does it matter!!!! :-)
Danny Boy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Gamespot said that the Revo only got 8% or something like that.. They also failed to mention that it was out of 1000 people, what a Bunch of asshats.
Mac User @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Isn't WinXP like 6 years old now? I realize it's sub-par now, but back in the day it was a pretty kick ass OS. Far ahead of its time I'd say.
----
LMFAO!! It's 4 years old and it was never ahead of its time. It's a Win2K skin and Longhorn is loooong overdue..
When Longhorn comes out in 2007, Windows will only be about 4 years out.. of...date...
Oh shit.
LMFAO
rog27 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Originally Posted by Zell:
"'Hating Microsoft and the Xbox is un-American.'
I can't remember where I read that but it was just the thing I needed for a good chuckle."
Man is that the truth. As an American, the thing I love about being an American is that I have the freedom to hate most other Americans and the garbage they stand for. Most Americans are so far removed from living by the original morals and ideals instantiated by the founders of our country that they almost always misinterpret or just plain don't know what they even are. Most times they just sound like uneducated, arrogant hypocrits. Maybe if most Americans got off their sheltered, half-witted asses and traveled elsewhere about this earth, they would realize how close-minded and stupid they really are--and certainly how shallow they are. It IS quite a humbling experience.
That's why it's sooo easy to hate people that suck Microsoft's figurative dick. It's not even about siding with any of the other companies out there (regardless that they are not American, but rather, Japanese). It's not even about how good the American products are, materially. I think the Japanese, as well as many other cultures, have a much harder time embracing American products because the current ideals, morals, and culture behind them. Most American are too fucking stupid to see this.
Thank you and have a pleasant evening.
Sin ViCiOuS @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
at the risk of being flamed, US doesnt "fucking rule". It is a nice country, but tries to police everyone, put tariffs on Canadian softwood, despite their continual free trade support and attacked Iraq, with only minor non oil incentive. You should have gone for Korea, they SAID they have nukes. Not some possible report that they may or may not have weapons of mass destruction.
------------------------
How funny are you serious?
1. Tarrifs: The Bush administration announced October 31 that it would impose another tariff on Canadian softwood lumber imports after finding that Canada is dumping its softwood lumber on the United States at artificially low prices. (GEt your facts straight)
2. Attacked Iraq - so let me get this straight we liberate a country that had rape rooms, fiancially supported terrorists,currently a democraticly elected officials are sitting in power that are U.S. friendly.. and we attacked? IF we attacked why isnt Bush the president of Iraq! (I hate you liberal F*ckers, always have your head up Mike Moores ass)
3. Oil? I dont see oil do you?
4. North Korea? Exactly they have them! Do you wan to start a war with people who have nukes?
5. YES AMERICA RULES we provide more aide then any other country. The BUSH we all love to trash has signed historic legislation to assist africa in debt relief. You may not like him, but he does stick to his word.. love him or hate him..
pOThOLDERS @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
ALL THIS POLITICAL TALK IS GIVING ME A BONER. especially rog27, with his gangster lingo. puto.
Zell @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Damn, rog27. That was a good read.
Sin ViCiOuS, you need to read what rog27 wrote. If you did, read it again. Maybe a third or fourth time for good measure.
Stephen Fung @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
I think some of you guys miss the point. The reason Japanese perfer Playstation3 over XBOX360 is mainly due to the type of games that's
available on the two systems. It's not because they hate the American's hardware, it's all because about the games. If you go to lik-sang.com or play-asia.com and check out the list of JPN game for PS2 and XBOX. You will find that a lot of PS2 games are related to anime! There's also a lot more RPG (Grandia, FF etc.), Simulation (Train simulator) and Strategy games (Such as SRW) for PS2 than XBOX is Japan. If MS want to penetrate the JPN market, they need to get more RPG and strategy games. They also need games that are related to anime! (such as Gundam or Super Robot War!)
These are also the reasons I am getting a PS3 instead of 360. It's the type of games available. To me, XBOX 360 is a good piece of hardware just like the PS3. I am having a lots of fun with Z-Gundam PS2 game at home. It's still hard to image a Gundam game would be on XBOX. Maybe it will someday, if MS change the strategy.
Just games from Mistwalker and Square are definitely not enough. If I remembered correctly, Mistwalker's founder is also the founder of Final Fantasy. The last FF he made (Final Fantasy IX) didn't really impress a lot of the fans. Square's FFXI online is cool, but I rather play World of Warcraft.
Zell @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Posted by Stephen Fung
"I think some of you guys miss the point. The reason Japanese perfer Playstation3 over XBOX360 is mainly due to the type of games that's
available on the two systems. It's not because they hate the American's hardware, it's all because about the games."
I have to agree, Stephen.
pOThOLDERS @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
word, stephen, word.
courtney @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Xbox 360 may have bought some Japanese devolpers that are going to make exculsive games but after a year and Japanese people don't buy them then they will stop making them and things will be exactly like they are now.
Lost_Canadian @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Sin ViCiOuS and benhc911 - calm down!
Sin: the US takes an insane percentage of Canadian lumber profits and simply hands it over to US lumber companies - free money, oh joy. The fact is, we have lots of lumber in Canada and don't appreciate being bullied into getting ripped off. We are free to allocate our resources how we choose, and having the US government attempt to dictate how our country works is very unreasonable to say the least.
There are many other points I could bring up regarding Bush and Iraq, but I'll save this gaming website from it all.
To the person that argued that "ain't" is a word, here's another word: "nonstandard".
Xbox 360 all the way. ;)
Paul @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Gee, I didn't know the PS3 had more RPG's and anime games on the PS3 than the 360. That truly is fascinating!
Since when does the PS2/XBox library dictate what games will be available on the next gen consoles?
Meesterjojo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Well, not only the unfair Japanese trade tariffs which jack the hell out of the prices for American goods, there's also this simple fact- The Japanese have no taste for anything which isn't safe, regurgitated, grossly outdated, and horribly stupid.
Don't get me wrong, I like games, every now and then, with characters that have giant purple dick bulges; games where in every boss battle, or movie cut scene some lame orchestra music plays while people are being killed, but then the intense hardcore music plays during the romantic stuff; games that are just like the previous 10 in the series because the Japanese love to milk a franchise (if Americans weren't so fickle by comparisson, they could teach our companies something about consumer rape).
I'm just fed the hell up this week with Japanese games. It's all such a cliche. Every game. Every. Game. I can't cope with Dick-bulge-zombie-killer-falsetto singer-covert ops guy-and-his-rpg's-which-are-really-combat-sims-with-shitty-dialog-love-simulators.
Dang.
BTW- if you want to watch your games, rather than *play* them, then sure Playstation is the choice. I'll end up buying one, just because I might want to play the above game (and really, every Japanese game is an "every" game).
Meesterjojo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Oh, I forgot- I'm sick of the Japanese idea of what Western history and culture is like. And all those fairy-dudes who are both ambiguously gay and American with natural blonde hair (and hey, lets not forget the spikes. All Japanese characters must have spikes some of variety, and either blonde or white hair. Just like in their action movies, there's always that "Crazy" guy who wears 3 piece suits, and makes you wonder 'he's an idiot, how did he get his job?'. )
The problem is- the Japanese have been portraying the same hairstyles and characteristics since the 80s. Dang.
arg! @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
"games that are just like the previous 10 in the series because the Japanese love to milk a franchise"
Yeah, because San Andreas and Halo 2 are completely different than their predecessors
Lucas @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Gamer Jay,
7-Eleven is a Japanese company. The Japanese division of 7-11 bought out the parent company. Convenience stores make big money in Japan. Check out 7-11's corporate website.
Stephen @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
"Gee, I didn't know the PS3 had more RPG's and anime games on the PS3 than the 360. That truly is fascinating!
Since when does the PS2/XBox library dictate what games will be available on the next gen consoles?"
There's no way to tell for sure of course, but the past generation of games is probably a very reliable way for us to tell what we will be expecting the next generation. Just like we can always expect Mario and Zelda on Nintendo for sure. I am not bashing MS. I am glad they are trying to get more titles from Japan. My mind is always open to getting XBOX 360 when they have more titles that I would want. I really love Ninja Gaiden on MS. That's definitely a good Japanese exclusive they got, but one title is not enough.
"BTW- if you want to watch your games, rather than *play* them, then sure Playstation is the choice. I'll end up buying one, just because I might want to play the above game (and really, every Japanese game is an "every" game)."
Some anime games are definitely only good to "watch", but some are really fun to play too. Such as Super Robot Wars, it is one of the best made Strategy game in my opinion.
Different people have different taste for games. I like a mix of RPG, Strategy, adventure and action. Sony and Nintendo so far are the only ones that can cover all these areas for me. MS doesn't have enough of RPG and strategy games on their console in my opinion. The RPG and anime culture has a huge influence on the Japanese market in my opinion. If MS wants to penetrate Sony's Japanese market, they need to realize it.
Gaijin @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Ah.. nothing like a little racism in the morning.
Ok. Where do I start?
I have lived in Japan for several years, and American stuff is really big business in Japan. Go to Tokyo and just try to find an MP3 Player that is not an iPod. (and that includes the SONY made ones). You will also find American fast foor and Starbucks coffee (as another poster has said), All the computers at my office run Microsoft Windows (as do almost all computers in Japan). The Japanese love Levis jeans, they listen to American music and watch Ameriican moves at a much higher rate than their domestic music and films. So please don't tall me the Japanese hate American stuff.
What they do hate is First Person Shooters, the genre just never really took off here, (though I have a few Japanese friends that LOVE quake), and other than soccor, they are not as big on sports games. Also most Japanese homes do not have broadband. In fact most homes of the 20 something gamer do not even have a phone line (cell phones are cheaper in Japan than land lines), so X-box Live (a major plus for the xbox) was a flop (so was Sony's PS2 online stratagey). Also the form factor. Small and sleek sells. Xbox was huge and bulky. Many stores would only keep one or 2 xboxes in stock just because the sheer size of the package took up so much valuable shelf real-estate. (a lot of japanese game shops are tiny kiosks sandwitched between other buildings).
The only games that did well on the box in Japan are the Dead or Alive series (which was very popular from it's Saturn and Dreamcast days) and Panzer Dragoon. The few RPGs and adventure games did ok, but RPG gamers didn't buy the system to begin with because they knew there were only a couple of titles they would want.
A few weeks ago I bought a "Kasumi Blue, Dead or Alive Ultimate Xbox. It came with DOA ultimate and the DVD playback kit. All brand new. For 9600 yen ($94). I saw it sitting there every day for a month and I finally just bought it. I got a good deal, but hiw could such a deal be there all month with no Japanese gamers grabbing it? It's because when you walk over to the games section there are about a hundred titles and nothing really stands out as 90% of those gamese are also on the PS2. Then you look at the ps2 section with it's tousands of titles (I wonder how many it actually is), or even Gamecube has a more diverse selection of games.
That is why it dosen't sell. Not because of Anti-American feelings. It's because of the games. The size and the fact that their playstation 2 can play all of their playstation games and they can clear off some shelf space.
I think the MS will capture more market share this time around, they built a sleeker consol and have some great exclusives coming. However after the Xbox failure it will be hard to convince a lot of consumers that this isn't just more of the same. It will be more sucessful than last generation and perhaps set MS up to be a major player next generation.
So please stop with the nonsense a lot of you are spouting. We are all gamers. And if this is how American gamers act toward the rest of the world, I could see how people could be reluctant to pick up an American system.
Jake Fry @ Dec 18th 2005 9:41PM
Something surprising to me is how little people are interested in the revolution. If I read it correctly, it was only 8% interested. Now I wonder if I read it correctly because last I checked, 60+8+2=70, and things usually have 100% in them. unless 30% said none, I dont see how this is plausible.
But anyways, it wasnt too long ago, right after e3, that famitsu did a poll that showed people were slightly more interested in the revolution than the PS3 and the xbox 360 was better than 2%.
Does anybody else know what I'm talking about and are surprised too?