Slashdot Mirror
The Week in Gaming in Japan
Next Generation has a piece up today examining recent events on the gaming scene in Japan. From the article: "Ninety-Nine Nights - April 1 Arrival. This week's short interview of Mr. Maruyama reveals -- in addition to his outright declaration that Blue Dragon will sell a million -- that 'The launch period will last through until March.' Why's that? What happens in March? I check my schedule: well, Final Fantasy XI (pre-loaded onto every [Japanese] Xbox 360 sold at launch) snaps out of its beta phase? Ninety-Nine Nights releases on April 1st, and let's hope the joke is that the little witch girl's face isn't as creepy in the actual game as it's been in every piece of press. If they're banking on Japanese guys wasting more than half their disposable income on plastic figurines of that witch girl, they've got some rethinking to do." Relatedly, Forbes is running an article positing that the 360 has its work cut out for it on the Japanese market.
Please translate this in english:
...and let's hope the joke is that the little witch girl's face isn't as creepy in the actual game as it's been in every piece of press
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Japanese buyers don't like a console not made in Japan.
Also, what's up with this? (from TFA):
"'Unless we achieve meaningful success here, we cannot say we are a winner in the next-generation console battle,' Maruyama told a news conference."
Only A winner? Aiming kind of low, aren't we? Shouldn't you want to be THE winner?
"Forbes is running an article positing that the 360 has its work cut out for it on the Japanese market."
I guess they needed to fill out a full article beyond:
"Dreamcast 360 dead in Japan"
Too much whitespace I guess...
This is Japan we're talking about. That kid is right up their alley.
I'd say the fact that it creeps westerners out shows that they did their market research. If you don't think Japanese soft-core tastes are creepy, take a look at the free pencil box art that shipped with the "R.O.D the TV" DVD's sometime. Particularilly the pin-up of Hisa.
Yeesh. I now need to somehow scrub my brain out after remembering the sight of it. Hello, beer!
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Apparently the Lawson's (like 7-11) outside my friends apt will have this for sale on Saturday. There have been no preorder takers so far.
He lives 2 hours north of Tokyo in a city with about a half million.
Why's that? What happens in March? I check my schedule: well, Final Fantasy XI (pre-loaded onto every [Japanese] Xbox 360 sold at launch) snaps out of its beta phase?
Right. Like anyone in Japan will care that they'll be able to get a FOUR YEAR OLD game on their brand new XBox 360. Anyone in Japan who wants to play that game will have almost certainly ALREADY gotten it for the PS2.
It's FOUR YEARS OLD in May of next year. I assume that's what the question mark is for. I can't believe either Microsoft or Square-Enix would be foolish enough to believe that a re-release of a FOUR YEAR OLD GAME would cause ANYONE to buy consoles.
As an added insult, the already dated graphics for FFXI aren't even being upgraded! The XBox 360 version supports HDTV resolutions (and who cares, so does the PC version, it just won't let you select them in the configuration tool, but you can edit the registry to choose them), but it uses the SAME GRAPHICS. Apparently the clipping plane is pushed further out - but again, who cares?! You'll just be able to see MORE low poly-count models (relatively, before anyone jumps on that) and MORE textures intended for the PS2. Yay.
The might sell a couple thousand for FFXI, but I doubt it. The only people I know excited about FFXI for the XBox 360 couldn't care less about FFXI but are instead excited about the possibility of OTHER MMORPGs on the XBox 360.
Oh, yeah, and FFXI doesn't support XBox Live's voice communication - arguably because it can't since it shares servers with non-XBox 360 clients - but still, they essentially ignore Live support.
It's hardly a showcase of anything other than FFXI is portable, which was already demonstrated by the PS2 and PC versions playing on the same servers. (And confirmed by the continued refusal to accept that there IS an MMORPG playing Mac market as Blizzard proved...)
Some how I can't imagine the XBox 360 will do any better in Japan than it did the first time around. I expect it to dominate this generation in the US, though.
If they're banking on Japanese guys wasting more than half their disposable income on plastic figurines of that witch girl, they've got some rethinking to do.
With ideas like that, sounds like they've been smoking too much Maruyama!
As I was talking to one of my friends today about Microsoft's japanese strategy we pretty much decided the whole thing is a joke. I don't see how having FFXI and Sakaguchi making games for your system gives you a sure-fire sale in Japan. They must think the Japanese gamers are dumber than American gamers.
Let's not forget how small the backwards compatibility list is for the system right now. I think there's no more than 20 titles on there. Oh wait, the first XBox barely sold 10k systems in Japan (i think, if this isn't right, the fact that they barely had any measure of market penetration isn't deniable), that must be all the titles they sold those 10,000 people.
Are there any titles in the Japanese launch that weren't available at the US launch? The launch line-up here was pretty pathetic, I don't expect to hear good news on this one. Note, I said news, not Redmond, WA issued propaganda.
Insert Sig Here
I'm not optimistic for this console rocking Japan's world.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.