Japanese Xbox 360 sales fall back to Earth

by Kyle Orland on Aug 22nd 2008 10:30AM

Well that was fast. It seems like just last week we were reporting the bizarre news that the Xbox 360 had suddenly leapfrogged the PS3 in weekly Japanese sales, selling nearly 25,000 units on the strength of Tales of Vesperia's release. Things are back to normal this week, though, with Microsoft's system once again sitting comfortably in last place with 7,258 units sold. Don't get us wrong, this is still a relatively strong number considering the system's historically low sales and reportedly widespread supply problems in Japan. But anyone hoping that last week's numbers were a sign of a permanent realignment in the Japanese console market might want to return to reality's cold embrace.

Source

Tags: japan, japanese-hardware-sales, tales-of-vesperia, xbox-360

Reader Comments (59)

So Kyle didn't read the story where MS said they were sold out in JP and were working on making more available next month?

Japanese sales are much like how big PS360 titles sell over here, a big, fast-burning explosion of sales which fizzles to naught rather quickly

It's hard to get the long tail over there, even for Nintendo which gets it easily in other regions

That being said, 360 being out of stock does have a lot to do with it :P

So, the fact that the 360 is out of stock means that MS themselves didnt expect to sell more than 20k consoles in the whole of Japan in the week they launched a major title like Tales (the gamecube title sold over 1 million). Isnt that an admission of defeat by MS?

Well the surely didn't expect guys there buying an xbox 360 just to play that game.

360's sold out in Japan? Hello?! Does anyone remember when that Sony exec said he'd pay anyone $1,200 if they could find a PS3 still on store shelves? Same spin, different company.

You mentioned that Microsoft had plenty of time, but you didn't support your claim with any evidence. You linked a post on a forum from three weeks ago regarding a rumor of an impending shortage, not any sort of official verification to your claim. I never implied that I had any prior knowledge of the shortage, nor pretended to have knowledge of how quickly Microsoft found out or how quickly they could respond. All I did was state when the shortage was officially reported.

Can enough Japanese Xbox 360s be manufactured in 3 weeks to meet the unexpected leap in demand? Microsoft doesn't seem to think so since they said they are doing their best to get units to Japan some time in September.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/900/900488p1.html

You need to understand, that there aren't very many systems in Japan right now, so they are hard to sell. I'm sure that if Microsoft could have willed enough systems onto shelves to meet demand in three days, or even three weeks, then they already would have already done so.