Survey Sees Tough Times for 360 in Japan

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that a survey recently conducted by Japanese news agency C-News would tend to suggest that the Xbox 360 will encounter consumer resistance when it is launched in Japan. From the article: "The poor showing for the Revolution is perhaps understandable, given that Nintendo has released only sketchy outline details regarding the console so far - but the figure for the Xbox 360 will come as a disappointment to Microsoft, which has focused heavily on the Japanese market in recent months." GameDailyBiz has a look at the survey as well, concentrating on the PS3's popularity.

Comments

C stands for Captain obvious?

[Fr05t]

"C-News would tend to suggest that the Xbox 360 will encounter consumer resistance when it is launched in Japan."

No tell me it ain't so! I really expected the Xbox 360 to do so well in the Asian markets!

Oh crap I forgot to open my tag.

Protectionism?

[UberChuckie]

Is protectionism a factor in the same people many people would only buy domestic cars?

Re:Protectionism?

[badasscat]

Is protectionism a factor in the same people many people would only buy domestic cars?

(I'm guessing your first "people" should be "way")

Some people (or as I like to call them, "idiots") suggested when the Xbox first bombed in Japan that it was because of some sort of "racism" or xenophobia against westerners. You don't seem to be going that far, which is good, but I should probably try to head this off before it goes down that road...

The Japanese have no xenophobia towards westerners. In fact, just the opposite - American and European products are "in" in Japan and have been for some time now. Levi's, McDonald's, Starbucks, Gucci, Prada, all incredibly powerful and popular brands in Japan. Western-style clothing has completely replaced Japanese-style clothing, western-style weddings are now standard (even if the participants are not Christian), and for a while the #1 film of all time there was Titanic. Even Pearl Harbor did pretty good box office, considering!

So to even suggest there's protectionism, xenophobia or worse, "racism" going on is at best ignorant.

The fact is MS just got it so completely wrong with the original Xbox that they will probably never recover there. They paid absolutely no attention to the wants of Japanese gamers at first - they do have different tastes, and they have different wants and needs as far as the design of the console itself goes. The system was not what they wanted, the games were not what they wanted.

One thing about Japan is there is a lot of brand loyalty, and conversely a lot of brand avoidance. If a company gets a reputation, it is very hard to shake that reputation. The Xbox pretty quickly got a reputation as being big, ugly, unreliable (the scratched disc issue was a big story there), with bad games that nobody wanted to play. Despite the marketing for the 360, that reputation is going to be a very tough thing to overcome there. If you ask a gamer in Japan what they think of when they hear "Xbox", the most likely answer is going to be "kusoge" (I'll leave you to look that up).

Even ignoring that, though, I'm not convinced the Xbox 360 has overcome all of the original Xbox's issues. It is still big. It is still not styled the way the Japanese expect a console to be styled. (Painting the thing white does not automatically make it look like a Japanese product.) The PS3 has some issues too, but Sony's brand loyalty can overcome that. MS is not operating from that position of strength there so they really had to nail the design of the system, and they didn't. At least not for Japan, despite all their best efforts (including consulting with a Japanese design studio - who they seem to have totally ignored).

I have a feeling MS will get more than 2% of the market when all is said and done, as they really are making a push with developers there this time. But they will still be a very distant third, and I'm not sure the ROI is going to justify the effort and expense.

Re:Protectionism?

[badasscat]

May I enquire if you have been there?

Only about a hundred times, both as part of my former job in the video game industry and for pleasure.

Since all of us have AIDS and enjoy raping japanese youths, you won't live long enough to enjoy the close company of many Japanese.

You'd probably want to inform my wife of that. She was born and raised in Ryu-Gasaki. How do you think I know about western Japanese weddings?

btw, you are one of the "people" I was referring to in my original post. If this is your idea of what Japanese people think of us, then you are at best misinformed.

Look at the current titles

[Iriel]

Just a glance at the games available for the Xbox and another look at some of the most popular games and genres in Japan should shed some light on this big mystery that Microsoft can't figure out.

While not all, most of the Xbox games are pretty geared towards American pop-gaming trends, and you can't expect to market to another country when you don't speak their language (figuratively, of course). You have to know your audience.

Doesn't surprise me

[alvinrod]

Given how the Xbox sold so poorly in Japan, I'm not surprised that the Xbox 360 is expected to. To get an idea of just how much the Japanese seem to dislike the Xbox take a look at this article from GameSpot about sales in Japan for various games/consoles.

The Xbox sales for the first half of this year are 9,000 some units. Well that's to be expected from old hardware right? Wrong, the PS2 sold over one million units in the same time frame, and it's older than the Xbox. Additionally the top selling Xbox game in the period was Fable, selling 12,000 units. A re-released PS game sold more copies than it.

I'm not sure what it is about Japanese consumers that turns them away from the Xbox. Maybe it's the fact that both Sony and Nintendo are Japanese companies whereas Microsoft is from the US. Even with games like FFXI slated to come out for the Xbox 360, I don't think it's going to do much for it in the Japanese market. I firmly believe it will be #1 in America, but in Japan it might as well not even try.

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[thesandtiger]

I think it is largely a cultural difference, not a nationalistic difference.

Look at the styles of the games that do well in the larger markets in Japan and the US. For the most part, the Japanese mainstream just doesn't get into the same stuff that makes the USians buy games, and for the most part the reverse is true in the US.

If Microsoft wants the 360 to do well in Japan, they're going to need to make a huge investment in getting a large library of games that the average Japanese person will want to play. Sony did it right with the PS and PS2 - they have a huge library of games for Japanese gamers, and another huge library of games for USian gamers.

Now as to the FFXI game for the 360 - that's *one* game. And, there will be a few more that are *sort of* geared towards the Japanese market. But, unless Microsoft can come up with a must-have like Nintendogs, these few titles just aren't going to cut it.

To put it in reverse: Imagine if the PS2 library of "american" games numbered less than a dozen - no sports games, no beat-em-ups, no driving games, none of that stuff. How many USians do you think would buy a PS2 just so they could play Parappa the Rapper? My guess - about the same number proportionately as the number of Japanese who'll buy a 360 for FFXI.