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Has The Xbox Failed In Japan?
Thanks to GameSpy for its article interviewing Microsoft executives about the Xbox's popularity in Japan. According to the article, 400,000 is the 'magic number': "...the number of Xbox consoles Microsoft has sold in Japan since launching the system in February, 2002. It is roughly the number of copies of Grand Theft Auto that Capcom has sold into the Japanese market. And, historically speaking, it is the approximate number of 3DO consoles in Japan as well." Apparently, "'That is the yogei-acceptable number in Japan'. [The term "yogei" refers to foreign or Western.]" However, Mike Fischer of Microsoft suggests that "game developers are tired of Sony's dominance in the market, and that that more Japanese-appropriate hardware will lead to better sales in Japan which will lead support from companies like Square/Enix which will then lead even greater acceptance in Japan."
If I'm not mistaken aren't RPG games huge in Japan? The X-Box is pretty lacking on this genre at the moment. That was the same reason I held off on buying an X-Box (except I had to get Ninja Gaiden.) I don't think they researched the Japanese market as well as they should have (controllers, game genre's, etc.) Plus they are taking on the two most popular console makers still around that are both based in Japan. Get Sqare/Enix to develop an RPG (good luck) on your console and you got it made in Japan. Maybe Fable will help turn things around a little. I know I'm looking forward to that one.
My guess is the problem isn't as much a problem with Xbox hardware specs as much as two things.
The first is quite frankly a cultural rejection of a product made in the USA which is admittedly similar in nature to the kinds of autos the US would have a problem selling in Japan and which sort of defines us to them: big, bulky, and power-consuming. This is of course in sharp contrast to the culture and of course their subsequent designs for the Gamecube and PS2, which both have fairly eloquent designs.
If anyone would understand the other reason their product doesn't sell so well, it'd be Microsoft. Software. The hardware is fairly good, but their most popular-selling titles are Western titles like Halo, KOTOR and Morrowind. While RPGs are very popular in Japan, Morrowind and KOTOR definently don't fit their archetype.
I just don't think Microsoft is going anywhere in that market, because I don't think their market is nearly as open as a US market.
Wow. What a bunch of crap.
Have you ever visited Japan? You know who the two biggest commercial draws in Japan were in 2002? Bob Sapp (a washed-up NFL player, turned K-1 "fighter".) and David Beckham.
Japanese markets eat stuff that's huge in the States and Europe up BIG TIME.
The XBox is failing on many reasons. It's HUGE, the average Japanese house has very small living room space, and it's common space. It's also commonly used for sleeping. Kind of hard to do that with a huge-ass console plus controllers there.
Second, the XBox commercials SUCK. The XBox Live commercials in Japan were easily the worst video game commercials. One had this scantily cald woman, who looked like she was on drugs, creeping along a wall that's littered with pie remnants. She slinks up to one of them, and tastes the pie. That's it.
In version 2, a man is in an elevator. A demon pops out from the ceiling. Man's elevator falls through the floor. This makes me interested in a system's online capabilities, how?
What are the biggest console game sellers in Japan the last 3-5 years? RPGs. By far. Pokemon, FF, Dragon Quest. If you ain't selling them, you ain't selling consoles.
What does the XBox not have? An RPG.
Why is the average Japanese RPG fan going to buy and XBox and Live when a PS2 and FFXI is going to take up all his time?
Figure out the answer to that question, and then go apply for a high paying job at Microsoft. Until then, the system fails not out of jingoism, it fails because of Microsoft's failure.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
game developers are tired of Sony's dominance in the market
I didn't know that developers would get tired of developing games on the most ubiquitous home videogame system. It's usually the best way to make a profit.
Because if they get tired of Sony's dominance, clearly they have no one else to turn to besides Micorosoft, right?
If they want someone other than Sony but who has more "Japanese-appropriate hardware," there are good odds that they'll flock back to Nintendo long before they consider you.
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The Yet Another Uninformed, "Japanese Hate American Products" That's Why The XBox Failed Rant.
The truth is, the X-Box failed in Japan because of Microsoft's failure to sufficiently respect the Japanese market, not because of some supposed contempt for all things American on Japan's part.
Think about it: Microsoft was launching a product (whose internal codename was Project Midway, for christ sakes. PR mistake Numero Uno, when that leaked) that was much larger than was convienient for your average Japanese living room, where horizontal space is at a premium vs vertical space (you didn't thing the small horizontal foot prints of the Cube and PS2 (when standing on its side) were an accident, did you?). On top of that, they launched with a very mediocre line up of games that largely didn't appeal to the Japanese market (after all, for a long time Halo was the only bright spot in their US line-up, and First Person Shooters aren't even remotely as popular in Japan as they are here).
These problems probably would have been recoverable by Microsoft, were it not for their fatal mistake: The XBox, on launch in Japan, turned out to have severe problems with its drive; it was scratching the hell out of game discs only days after purchase. Microsoft's response? An imediate recall on first learning of the problem? An immediate apology on the part of MS Japan for the damage done by the machine (the traditional response by a Japanese company in such a situation, and one the public would expect)?
Nope. Just a shitty press release stating "It is up to customers to mail their consoles back to us for repair. The scratch does not affect game playing.", and when the media began reporting this recall they followed it up four days later with the anouncement that "An apparent misinterpretation of information on a Microsoft Japan Web site resulted today in a media report of a recall of Microsoft's Xbox game console in Japan. This report is incorrect. There is no recall of Xbox in Japan or any other market". Fuck you, Japanese consumer.
Selling (what was percieved as) a low quality, defective product to the public and then showing an enormous amount of disrespect for them by failing to own up to and apologize for their mistakes did a hell of a lot more damage to XBox sales than anti-Americanism ever did. Indeed, blaming it on such smacks of the same cultural contempt that led Detroit to attempt to sell cars in Japan in the 80's with the steering wheel on the wrong (left) side of the vehicle, and then blame their lack of success on Japanese people hating American products. The lesson, therefore, isn't the ignorant and trite canard that "Japanese hate American products" but rather the same as the lesson of failing products everywhere: Know your market, and respect what they prefer rather than expecting them to want what you tell them to want.
I know it's not a lot, but at least this kind of humility is a start. While there is still arrogance throughout that interview, I think Microsoft is finally getting the picture that you have to earn respect in Japan before anything else, and the same blitzkrieg marketting tactics don't work their like they do here.
Jingoism aside, the XBOX is a very American-centric system. It's big, bad, and proud of it, pretty much why everyone hates all things American at the moment. It's hard to buy loyalism this way.
As a counter example, I present Apple. Apple takes up a significant computer market share in Japan, despite being an American company. The Japanese love Apple products because they're simple and elegantly designed. As a corollary, this is also why they like laptops.
All things aside, the XBOX is a great console. From a developer side, it's a godsend. It unfortunately has the problem of being a Microsoft product being marketted by idiots. It is also so American it might as well bleed red white and blue.
If MS would just drop the arrogance and American pride for some humility, as well as hire a competent marketing team with global marketing experience, and finally hire some hardware designers with some modicum of zen aesthetic design, Microsoft would be a force to be reckoned with.
--jedi\/\/.
In a Japanese game shop, you see racks and racks of attractive PS2 games with a wide variety of genres from war-simulation to dating (sometimes both in the same game), GameCube and GBA titles galore, shelves and shelves of used PS and DC (and even Saturn games). The packages are very attractively illustrated in a Japanese aesthetic, and then... In the corner, this radioactive-green glow emanates from the XBox shelf, an ugly contrast to the pastels and rich colors of the other games. The games themselves are FPSes, sports, a platformer here and there. It's simply not attractive compared to the competition, in a country where such a thing really matters.
The last time I was in Japan (last summer), there were more new Dreamcast games coming out than XBox games. That's encouraging to a DC fanboy like me, and indicative of the XBox's acceptance there.
Tecmo is arguably the only important Japanese developer that takes the XBox very seriously. Everyone else ports to it or releases a game or two just to cover their bases.
The Xbox did not fail because it was American. It failed because it has no games that appeal to anyone outside of the US.
To all of the clueless idiots talking about 'pride': this is a system that only sold in any numbers near release, to Tecmo completists who wanted to play DOA3. The Xbox no longer registers as a going concern in Japan (or most other Asian markets). It's not just 'underperforming', it's dead. And yet MS still try to put a brave face on it. Just as they do with the (moderately successful among US teenagers, utterly rejected by gamers and developers worldwide) Xbox Live system.
MS have subscribed to the belief that hardware brute force, suffocating software conservatism, spiralling production costs and infintely deep pockets can overcome the need for support and cooperation from the rest of the industry. Obviously, they think, the consumer is expected to buy what they are told is cool. This is why they have failed to make much of a dent in Sony's dominance of the sector (the sole objective of the Xbox's existence in the first place). And they still can't figure out why.
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Only one of the listed games was released into the Japanese Xbox market; Phantasy Star Online (Ep I and II).
That's right. The Japanese have no Morrowind, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, or any other RPG that some westerners find so entertaining.
Even Sega developed Shenmue II didn't come out there. Why? Probably because it wasn't much different than the Dreamcast version which came out years before. We should also note that while the updated PSO came out for both GC and Xbox, it's "Episode III" sequel is only on the cube.
Microsoft is banking on True Fantasy Live Online to sell systems/Live subscriptions to the Japanese, but it's really too late. Microsoft just needs to have a presence in the market until the Xbox Next comes out at which point they can try again.
For now though, they must just accept that the Xbox has failed.