Microsoft lacks confidence in Japan, losing next-gen battle without competition

Wow, I am really sorry about the formatting on the rant above. I ran it through Word to check for spelling errors and destroyed the spacing.

If it hurts you eyes to read through it above, a longer (but better formatted) version is also posted here:

http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2006/01/03/the-xbox-360-and-japanese-nationalism/

Can someone please delete the comments of #94 and #95? They are clearly in violation of the comments policy posted on the Joystiq site. They are not relevant to this blog entry and are most certainly inappropriate.

You know, after reading something like that, I'm tempted to destroy my Xbox 360 in disgust. Tempted, mind you...I'm still going to keep my Xbox 360 and still play it, though, to prove the point that not every Xbox 360 user is a racist nationalist conservative homophobe.

Im sure some of its due to national pride. They buy from manufactuers based there first.

Err, kids.

Calm down. You guys are both right... to an extent. The 360 is flopping in Japan due to BOTH a lack of games and a degree of xenophobism.

When you people use the ipod and windows as examples, you are ignoring some important points. a) The ipod is not nearly as sucessful in japan as it is elsewhere. b) If you are any sort of business, you're likley to use windows. thats a WORLDWIDE thing.


As for the Nintendo president thing: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshi_Yamauchi)

-third president of Nintendo beginning in 1949 until stepping down on May 31, 2002

-credited with transforming Nintendo from a small hanafuda (gambling) card making company...

-Before Yamauchi worked at Nintendo, he owned a number of different companies, including a taxi firm and a love hotel.

if only Microsoft Japan would port over some adult... er, i mean, "romance" porn... er, "simulations"

then they would sell some systems QUICK.

#98:

Why should that person post be deleted. A lot of people feel that way. I am one of them. What really irks me is that people call that hate. It is not hate.

It is a set of beliefs based on morals. Personally I have dated women of all races. I find interest in all cultures. I love to travel. However I also cannot stand homosexuality. It makes me personally vomit.

My point is if you are going to make your comments known than the people who think you are immoral and disgusting can also voice our opinions.

Can we please leave the homosexuality comments alone please? They have no place here and none of us can or will ever be right by bashing them.
Homosexuality has been around for thousands of years and is present in all forms and walks of life, its not a choice, I honestly believe that, so let them be. Ok?

Besides you know Keith some could say that interracial dating is immoral (heck i know a few who have criticized me for interracial dating) Does that make it wrong? No. So as for someone that's been the subject of prejudice, i tend to leave people to their own devices.

Being gay doesnt matter how you were raised or who raised you. You could ahve the stricted christian parents and be gay and your siblings not be. It's wrong to just say gay people raise gay kids, because its not true.

and keith your words are hate believe it or not, there's no difference by claiming moral values against gays and saying we should send all the african americans back to africa and keep america white.
Doesn't make them right because they believe that its "moral".
I happen to believe that your morality is immoral myself.

JJ you my friend are a moron. It is absolutely ok not to be ok with people who are gay. People who are gay are also responsible for the belief that pornography is ok and any kind of sexual perversion. Sexual perversion is not ok. Then is a pedophile ok?

You say no. Of course it isnt. Why isnt it? Because its IMMORAL!

So is murder ok. Of course not. Why? Because its immoral. This is not hate it is right and wrong.

Ok i'm sorry if i believe to GROWN people who are in love with each other plan to live and grow old together is a bit different than someone KILLING someone else.
and last i checked gay people aren't the only people who buy pornography.
and pedophilia is not alright because a child is not of legal age to be consenting, but then there were periods in time when it was ok (ancient rome etc). BUt that's neither here nor there because i believe that is wrong as well. But neither of those activities you mention necessitate the other.

Straight people are also perfectly capable of murder, pornography and pedophilia, it doesn't always mean gay people are the culprit. Dont you think its wrong to lay all that at the feet of one minority of people?

and to call me a moron for not subscribing to your views is very intolerant my friend. If you dont like gay people fine, but i have plenty of friends who are gay and you know what? I dont care, they can do whatever they want to do in the comfort of their own home as long as its not hurting anyone.

Also may i ask... why are we talking about homosexuality and pornography on a videogame blog? or is there really that little to talk about? Why is this a concern to some of you?

@heh

"a) The ipod is not nearly as sucessful in japan as it is elsewhere"

Quote your source. Here's mine:

"Apples' music player took the market by storm and held it. “As of the middle of November, iPods had a roughly 60 percent share of Japan's portable digital music-player market, according to Tokyo-based industry publication WebBCN Ranking, leaving arch-rival Sony well behind at just under 10 percent of the market," Steve McClure reports for The Daily Yomiuri."

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Year-of-iPod-in-Japan-15406.shtml

why isent microsoft doing well in japan you ask? simple, bill gates doesent care about japan.

ah well, I'm playing next gen games already on 360 in the good ol' U S of A.

Regarding Japan: "Individually, their citizens are just like everyone else - except that most westerners are still 'gaijin' and rank somewhere between street droppings and barbarians. It's just their culture - deal with it and accept it - and I am NOT being racist when I say this, I'm simply stating facts."

"Facts," people. Psh.

MS should just say F it next time. If the Japanese are so xenophobic MS should just say that they are not going to sell them in Japan. If it doesn’t work it would still be funny to watch them wine about a system they are not going to buy.

People, calm down....
Some of you have hit the nail dead center. It has nothing at all to do with where the product originates and everything to do with personal preference.

My opinion of why the 360 is having a hard time in Japan because:

1. the "next-gen" battle hasn't even begun. it's a bit difficult to make a choice with only one card on the table.
2. software diversity. you simply have to cater to your market in order to be successful.

There're probably more reason than that, but I've not been to Japan or spoken with a native gamer for their views/opinions. The only facts I have are the same facts known by all businesses - know your target audience!

I'm not Japanese, but my wife is, and I just came back from Japan. I did a very small poll with her brother, and some of her cousins. I saked them why they think that the 360 doesn't sell in Japan. None of the said that it was because MS is an American company, and ALL of them said it's because there are NO JRPGS (minus FFXI which is a PS2 port). None, nadda, zilch. JRPGS are what sold the PS2, and JRPGS are what is NOT selling the 360. It has nothing to do with nationalism.

Why are you fools bitching about homosexuality? When did that even come into it? You all sound like the exact same person, trolling fuck. Why not protest heterosexual marriage? I'd be offended by any kind of bond between two people if I were you. After all, you will die alone with
some false sense that you actually accomplished something in your life. Just thinking about it now makes my day.

homosexuality?..I'm going to ignore those comments.

I don't wan't to go into a World War II debate here, but as for America never being the first country to attack, what was Vietnam? And no, just because we didn't choose to call it a war doesn't mean it isn't. And no, Ho Chi Minh did not attack the US first; in fact, he went to the treaty of Versailles signing and submitted a letter to President Wilson asking for support - we ignored him. And, FYI, the unprovoked Pearl Harbor attack is still being debated - we had an oil embargo against japan and told them that we would attack them if they tried to get oil from indonesia. We were also supplying the allies with planes, weapons, and soldiers; just because we weren't officially in the war doesn't mean we were completely innocent.

All this, however, was besides the point; I wasn't saying that Japan was guiltless in War - it wasn't. But neither were we, nor were any of the allied nations. Germany wasn't the only country that put people in concentration camps - we put thousands of Japanese Americans in concentration camps and confisgated their property. No, we weren't as bad as Nazi Germany, but we were far from guiltless. And them being as guilty as any other country doesn't mean that they can't hold a grudge against us for dropping atom bombs on them; they might even remember it more because some of them are still suffering from the radiation sickness that stemmed from those bombs. All I was saying was that if they are a little wary of foreigners, it is understandable why.

However, many other posts on this topic have shown that they aren't against foreign products at all. They have embraced Western culture, the ipod, western music, and a host of other products. There are more KFCs in Japan than there are in the US; so arguing that they shunned the 360 out of Xenophobia is moot. And there are PLENTY of alternatives to the iPod - Sony, Sanyo, etc - they just like the ipod more.

So please, please don't cast a bad name on all us 360fans by spewing out racially heated statements. Almost all countries are nationalistic to a certain degree- the US probably ranks among one of the most nationalistic states. Why can't another country's citizens be proud of their country and products without being called Xenophobic? Their products are good, their technology awesome, and depite being the size of Massachusetts, they are the 2nd largest economy in the world. They are one of America's largest trading partners because they can make products that appeal to us - all Microsoft has to do is make games and game consoles that appeal to them as well. They can start by making a Japanese version of Oblivion and Mass Effect!

This thread embodies everything I have come to expect from the gaming community. Anybody want to play some Tetris?

Sure. What's your friends code?

I'm Japanese (but live in north america), and everytime I said about the failure of Xbox360 in Japan, many (north american) guys said "they-don't-buy-all-american-product" like comment. It was very surprising for me! Because for me, XBOX360 failure is very obvious result.

OK, they have new machine, but we remember the horrible horrible failure of original Xbox. We japanese were very doubtful about the MS. This means their starting point far far behind other competitor.

OK, they had good FPS games. North american like it. But FPS means almost NOTHING for japanese gamers. Also, we don't play NFL games. Madden? who?
When MS announsed the launch titles of XBOX360, many Japanese gamer thought like "oh, MS did again." They all knew XBOX360 would fail because they didn't have good games. Only MS didn't.

And XBOX360 was big and fan was noisy, many japanese hate that.

OK, now they have more and more good games (maybe). But we will have PS3 and Wii only after several month. Why now I must pay 40K yen (about 350USD) for this "old" machine?

In my opinion, they actually started early, but they didn't go forward but backward! Now they are far-far-far-behind PS3 and Wii (of course only in Japan).

Thank you for reading my horrible english.