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360 Launches In Japan
Gamespot reports that the 360 sold out ... at the Shibuya 'official' launch location. Sales from the rest of the country still have to come in, but given launch day experiences, I imagine the customer reaction wasn't as fierce as it was here. From the Kotaku on-hand piece: "A customer! I see a customer! It's a few minutes after seven, and somebody else has come to wait for the Xbox. I feel like a sailor who's been lost at sea and finally spots land. He stands in front of Sofmap for a moment, awkwardly, and he looks around. Nobody but him and me and the vending machine. I make a quick inventory: tall, painfully thin, wearing a brown coat, black and grey backpack, looks like Ichabod Crane."
That picture he takes makes the area look pretty empty. I would actually be scared of another person being around while getting something that expensive from a vending machine. It doesn't take long to hold a knife on someone and grab it. Guess Japan is not like NYC.
There is only one way to win the average Japanese Gamer's heart and that is through an RPG. Sure, games like Dead or Alive 4 will have good sales and will motivate the average gamer to purchase a console, but it is through RPG's alone that console sales will flourish. Lacking a mascot flagship character is another fault since possibly the second biggest genre (adventure) is being represented only through Kameo. It seems to me that a company like Square-Enix will play a very large role in deciding the 360's success oversees. If they release all of their major franchises for the 360 I can see the Xbox being a success in Japan and overall finishing with a close second place. If however, the only title being "developed" is Final Fantasy 11, I can expect only the adventurous Japanese gamer biting the bait and another generation of Sony dominating.
Interesting, most accounts of Japan show most Japanese as being America-obsessed--I think I'll trust the guy who puts his identity up.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I doubt that the 360 will do much better than the original xbox in japan, because it seems to have the same problem as it's predecessor, which is to say that the box is about a quarter the size of the average living room in japan.
In a country where melons are grown inside glass boxes so they are rectangular so they can more efficiently fit into the average apartment, and combining a TV with a fridge is a reasonable space-saving appliance, how can the large and unwieldy 360 appeal to consumers there?
I don't think a lot of the games will do it, AFAIK first person shooters are not very popular in japan.
In fact, I think the biggest obstacle is that japanese games are more popular in the west than western games are popular in japan.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
I was in Tokyo over Thanksgiving. I saw several 360 displays, all of them were completely empty. My daughter was frustrated that she couldn't play with the DS, but she had to console herself with playing with the vacant 360 display.
I was in Toys R Us in Nagasaki yesterday and there were probably a half dozen of the empty boxes you take up to the register in order to get your gear.
Nobody is talking about the 360 outside of a few neighborhoods in Tokyo -- and those seem to care only after 3pm until midnight (which gives us a clue about the very small demographic they have attracted).
Japanese couldn't care less about what country a purchase benefits. They stick to products manufactured by Japanese companies (even if the manufacturing is done overseas) because overseas companies often have shitty quality control, and thus tend to break. Sure, some Japanese companies also produce defective products, but the ratio is way, way lower than for American companies.
If a product has a good quality record, Japanese will buy it, regardless of the fact that it benefits other countries. Leica cameras, Harley Davidson bikes, Bose speakers, Apple iPods, BMW cars.
So, yeah, Japanese take business very seriously. And they take quality control very seriously. But they don't take deciding what country their purchases benefit very seriously. They leave that to Americans waving flags and holding placards saying "Buy American!".
The only selling poing for the Xbox 360: Christmas release date. Christmas: an uncelebrated holiday an Japan therefore rendering a Christmas release date irrelevant. In other words, if it wern't for Holiday melee and artificial shortages, would Xbox 360 be flying of the shelves with PS3 a couple of months away? The Japanese reaction proves that the answer is no. Plus the Japanese have the advantage of having proof that the Xbox 360 sucks with all the crashing that has been going on in US 'boxes All this asside from the fact that the Japanese are serious technophiles and have a chauvanist culture to put it lightly.
This explains why the iTunes Music Store Japan is trouncing Sony: the Japanese are trying to fool us into thinking they've let their guard down. Clever. All too clever.
Ah, we talk about the Japanese market, and Slashdot's Japan patrol comes out. Most of them haven't been to Japan and are talking about Japanese culture from what they've learned from TV, anime, and porn.
Most Japanese love American stuff, especially in terms of creative stuff: books and music, for example (in fact a lot of my friends listen exclusively to English music, American and/or British). I was at Tsutaya last night and there were a ton of American/English books in Japanese. Da Vinchi Code, Harry Potter, and Memoirs of A Geisha come to mind.
Having said that, the Xbox360's a failure here. No one cares that the machine is out. I didn't even know it was released (I knew it was soon, as I commented on a story before, but I didn't know the exact day). I'm outside Osaka, the second biggest city in Japan, and nothing is happening outside of Tokyo. It's nuts. Microsoft really doesn't care about getting the machine popular. Armchair American pundits say that its because the Japanese are racist against Americans. The truth is Microsoft is making zero effort to be popular in the U.S., and the normal xenophobic American response is to say its the Japanese fault.
I was in Lawson's (a convince store) this morning and there were a couple of Xbox magazines out on the shelf. I picked one up and the only games in it were games that aren't out: DoA, Mist Walker's RPG, games Japanese people are interested in, but they are not even avaliable!
And Christmas is celebrated here. Not only are there many Christians (one of my good friends is Japanese Christian, not to mention Koreans and other foreigners), but as a secular holiday, its huge. There are Christmas decorations everywhere (my favorite is the huge light up Santa near Kobe Harbor, but even in my little town there are decorations).
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
The ultimate reason to wait for the PS3 http://www.allhardporn.com/galleries/tgp_submits/0 43004/006.jpg
3D Hentai games in 1080p - The real reason the Japanese are waiting for the PS3! (Hey it's mine)
Japan got the Nintendo DS second, and also Nintendo Wifi network after the American and European release. I am now wondering if Nintendo will release the Revolution in the US first as well.
Last I checked, the Xbox was far more durable than the PS2, and the GC's nearly indestructible. So how can the Japanese value quality when the PS2 outsold the others by such a huge margin?
"This is considered plagiarism."
For what it's worth I saw an actual Japanese person picking up a 360 at the same time I did - in Yokohama Yodobashi. There were stacks of them behind the counter... Oh - and to counter the "it's only being advertised in Shibuya" brigade - There've been plenty of adverts, the Japanese are far more aware of the 360 than they were the original XBox. It's just that none of the launch games appeal to them. Hell, even DOA4 has been pushed back again.
Shibuya Tsutaya may have "sold out" in the morning, but when I went back there at around 5pm they had XB360s in stock.
You had to go throw in Bose, didn't you? If what you say is true, then quality has nothing to do with it. Even Sony's crap-ass speakers sound better than Bose, and cost less too. But then you probably have a Bose system, don't you? I'm sorry. I take it back. Bose is the best in the world, and you sure got a deal buying that $3000 satellite system that sounds just like my own $500 Definitive system [1]. Kudos to you!
Not that everything Bose does is bad. They used to make bookshelf and floor speakers a couple decades ago that weren't so bad. Of course, even those cost 2 to 3 times as much as competitive models from other brands.
[1] Yes, I have a crappy satellite speakers + powered sub home theater system. Yes, I know satellite speakers suck. However, I didn't pay $3000 for the system, either. Speakers + receiver (supporting both DD5.1 and DTS) + progressive scan DVD player cost me less than $900 (because the DVD player was bought years ago when progressive scan players still went for $400-$500). Compared to the cheapest 5.1 DVD system from Bose, that's a $1400 savings. And my system is upgradeable. I can replace my DVD player any time I like without having to also replace my receiver. Vice versa, I can replace my receiver without replacing my DVD player. And of course I can change out my speakers any time I like.
Hey,no kidding... oh, Korean? well,Korean people likes to insult to japan very much. For example... they often burn the national flag(japan) as if it is natural. I'm Japanese, so I can't put up with their action any more. At first,I would like to tell you that this oppinion is False. perhaps an EXTEREMELY racist society is Korea, not Japan. because, There are many "No negro allowed" shops there. This korean knows if this information is true or not. To be sure,XBOX360 didn't well in Japan. but the japanese society isn't racist society,either. The soft in XBOX360 is not attractive for japanese. Japanese choose game platform by softs. Maybe Game boy is a good example. After Pokemon was saled, Game boy sold like hot cakes. Next, XBOX360 is too expensive for children. In japan, Adults don't play video game and children have few money. Maybe they will buy Revolution. I hope that microsoft gets many attractive game soft and challenges Japan's market again.
unless you are a 6-12 year old girl. Three were murdered in very short time now. Sad thing.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
Since the X-Box announcement. I saw _ONE_ X-Box add in the Train. And not even in the more main line, but in the side line to my appartment. I haven't seen a big add in Shibuya Station, like normal Tech products do (mobile phones, iTunes/iPod, etc). and TV adds are anway outrun 50:1 in favour of the PS2. Actually 90% the game adds are PS2 & PSP. The rest is the rest. And I saw now 1 X-box only add and 2 Perfect Zero adds.
Seriously, fact is, japanese nerds love role playing games, with perfect zero they might catch the 5 foreigners who live here, but not the rest of the japanese guys. I have to say that the add in the train was about FF. But the only thing it states, that now you can see all in HDTV... well, FF sales went down very rapid. Actually the whole Game Console business goes down, because more and more are just playing keitai (mobile) games, and with the latest keitais the games are really good looking already.
Well, thats just my two Yen here. I don't even have an HDTV TV and therefore X-Box is out of interest, plus I have a PS2 and I almost never play with it (time). So I'll watch and see.
Last words, I doubt the PS3 will sell like hot cakes either. That time is long over I think.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
but its not a fake festival like in the rest of the world. Here its true christmas. About giving expensive presents to other people you don't care all year long.
Long live christmas and funky one-melody-blinking-christmas trees in front of Convenience Stores somewhere in deepest japanese only neighbourhoods.
Rock on japanese christmas!
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
"because overseas companies often have shitty quality control, and thus tend to break."
You mean like Sony stuff?
PS2 - drive problems at launch. There's even a class action lawsuit ongoing against the company over the problems.
PSP - the screen problems are/were legendary. Is "8 burned out pixels is normal", the new Japanese mantra of quality?
What you're trying to say is the Japanese love quality products, but they tend to give local companies the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, Sony would be out of business.
Like I said, you're funny.
Well, 2 things:
1) The trend I'm talking about is a general trend. I don't mean to indicate that Japanese base all individual purchases at all based on durability tests, just that their general purchasing decisions are based on general product durability, which is why they tend to go with Japanese products. It isn't xenophobia, but bad experience in the past.
2) When the XBox came out, there was a big hubbub about disc scratching, and XBox Japan's initial response was "It's no big deal, just ignore it". That really really damaged the reputation of XBox right at the start, when it was most crucial.
Again, what I'm talking about isn't written in stone. The PSP had problems when it was released, yet is selling OK (not as well as it would have otherwise, but still well). I just meant to point out that Japanese folks will tend to avoid Product A if from overseas, not because they are concerned about making sure their money goes into Japanese pockets and stays away from Japanese devils, but because overseas products break a lot more. An overseas product with a proven track record doesn't get that stigma.
You had to go throw in Bose, didn't you? If what you say is true, then quality has nothing to do with it. Even Sony's crap-ass speakers sound better than Bose, and cost less too. But then you probably have a Bose system, don't you?
When I say "quality", I really mean "freedom from product failures". I.e. products not breaking.
Regarding Bose: yes, I know, "If it has no highs and has no lows, it must be Bose". And, no, I don't have a Bose system, never have, and have heard enough bad stuff about their audio quality that I never plan to. So your guess was a bit off base. But, regardless, when I say "Japanese consumers care more about quality than nationality", I should have phrased it "Japanese consumers care more about their products not breaking on them than nationality".
Sorry, "goes into Japanese pockets and stays away from Japanese devils" should be "goes into Japanese pockets and stays away from Foreign devils". It's early in the morning here, I need my coffee.
Well, if you wanted me to go really in depth, what I would have said was "Japanese love quality products, and tend to give companies the benefit of the doubt if they have good track records, even if the good part of the track record is so old that it should probably be ignored by now". Sony made great stuff a decade or more ago. They still do, in some fields. In other fields, they make products that break annoyingly all the damn time (PS2 launch probs, PSP, Vaio computers, etc). If they were a new Japanese company, they'd never take off. But they have their old track record to rely on.
So, no, I don't think it's that people give them the benefit of the doubt because they're local, but because they used to not make shitty products. It's a lousy reason to give the benefit of the doubt (after all, they do make lousy products now), but it isn't about keeping consumer money out of foreign pockets, from what I can see.
Whether or not the stigma of American products is because of product quality, it's still there. MS really did a lot of things right with the Xbox (again, only to screw up with the 360) and got hardly any love at all from Japan. It sucks and saying "it's only because products from overseas are generally lower quality" doesn't justify anything, really...
But that's not to say I'm implying that you tried to justify it. Just making a point.
"This is considered plagiarism."
Apple has a very good rap in Japan, because they appeal to the Japanese perfectionist "must-be-absolutely-faultless-and-aesthetically-pl easing" mindset.
Something which you can't say about Microsoft. MS could elarn something from Apple about how to do business in Japan.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Not that it's worth much, but I lived in Japan through the release of the PS2, original Xbox, and GC. I'm no marketing expert, but even I can see Microsoft setting itself up to repeat the orginal Xbox's failure.
The Name:
Did Nintendo release the NES as the cryptic "famicom" to the US market? No, and for good reason. The Dreamcast, Gamecube, and Playstation have much more English-friendly names which were obviously intended for the world market. While the exbox has the simple repetitive gruntability to appeal to beer-slamming frat boys in the US, it certainly doesn't have the elegance or foreign mystique that the Japanese expect of even domestic products. After the total failure of the first XBox in Japan, they should have taken the chance to drop the name rebuild their image.
Promotion:
The Christmas release was a bad idea. I think that the 360 has been lost in the storm of new promotions going around. While there is a lot of disposable consumer money this time of year, Microsoft will have to be a lot more aggressive both on TV and at the electronics stores. I was through three major electronics stores in Sapporo on Friday. I didn't venture inside the games sections, but I still should have seen something, if even a few posters, for the 360. If it was there, it was completely lost in the storm of Christmas promotions. Yes, they pulled of their big "official release", but their penetration in the rest of the country seemed dismally poor.
The bland TV ads are poorly styled. Japanese TVs are often left running as background noise during mealtimes and evenings, getting very little concentrated attention. That's why Japanese game commericals have the very distinctive "audio logo" at the beginning (e.g. Nintendo's coin sound) to make the target audience actually look at the screen. Most of the 360 ads simply fade into generic american rock music, with no voiceover to make it clear what the ad is for. The complete dependence on a video message is simply not done in Japan.
The commericals also don't show gameplay that looks any different from current generation Japanese console games, so what exactly are they trying to sell?
And where is online play in Microsoft's ad spots? This was supposed to be THE major selling point of both 'boxes, but remains invisible to the average Japanese consumer. Last week, Nintendo quietly rolled out cute ads featuring immediately recognizable Mario characters playing Mariokart against each other from around the globe. How did the DS, which had internetability added on completely post-release, beat the Xbox to the punch here?
They also should have made use a mascot character, bought some Japanese pop idols or variety TV star
Xbox has a history of having generally boring-ass games. FPSs and driving games and more FPSs and driving games. And when you think about the themes, they're mostly american or european. No japanese rpgs or other genres thought as a minority here but ones that are seriously popular over there.
On FPSs, a bit offtopic: A friend once told me that the japanese don't generally play fps-games because they get headaches from them.. Is this just another urban legend or something real?
Your point is well taken.
the xbox is equally as prone to issues as the ps2. they both suffer from the same problems. faulty dvd drives, bad power cords... etc. no big deal. the xbox userbase is much smaller, so if the percentages are kept the same, you have a closely equivilent number of problems.
with the playstation you have a name that people have come to rely on for gaming. same with nintendo. even if their system was inferior, people will still purchase it because inferior software or not, they know that with the nintendo name attached, they will get a certain level of entertainment, quality and enjoyment out of it. xbox was the new player in town. people didnt know what to expect from the system. unfortunately, they didnt cater well to the market. therefore its not a surprise that people arent looking forward to the second iteration of a system that did not have very many games that japanese players enjoyed.
I was specifically refering to durabilty.
Yes, the Playstation brand played a very large roll in the PS2's success, but what's this comment about the GC being inferior? Also, the software library is mostly out of the console manufacturer's hands (unless it's something like Nintendo was back with the NES-N64), so it really says nothing about the quality of the hardware. Anyway, I mostly just wanted to post the link.
"This is considered plagiarism."
just a reference to the commonly held believe that the GC's software library [in US eyes] is inferior in comparison to the xbox and ps2. their firsty party titles are generally excellent, but there were relatively few and far in between. there wasnt as much diversity in their genres and age ranges. there were few third party titles and a large portion of those were not exclusive.
I know what you mean. When PS2 lanches, It was bought by adults. They use it as DVD player, not game platform. Today PS2 is popular among the young people in Japan, not because it isn't made in Japan, but because PS2 isn't very expensive now.(19,800yen) Indeed we(I'm 16 years old) can get much money as otoshidama, but their parents(my parents) don't want children to play video games. so we can hardly spend money for video games.
Just came across this article in Famitsuu Online. It has the sales figures for the first three days after the Xbox 360 release. The article is based on data gathered across the nation by Famitsuu's marketing arm. Here's a quick summary of the numbers:
360 Sales: (initial three days)
Original Xbox Sales: (initial three days following 2002/11/22 launch)
Top 360 Software Sales:
Software Sale Ratio: (first three days, software sales / game unit sales)
The article goes on with some commentary about how the delayed release of Dead or Alive 4 will affect the system's sales. It was originally slated as a release title, and expected to be their "killer title". It was first delayed one week to 12/17, then pushed back to the end of the month for 12/29. The editor surmises that 12/29 should be considered the "true" sale date for the 360, and postulates that many of the people buying the system with no games are in fact waiting for DOA4.
My half-baked conclusions:
It looks like there are a lot of unsold units in stores, and despite the claims that the official launch was a "success", they have barely reached half of the original Xbox's opening three day figures. (Remember that the original Xbox went on to take less than 5% of the share). If these initial numbers are any indication, the Xbox 360 is off to a very poor start in Japan.
It's probably no surprise to the readers here that the Japanese-made RR6 is handily outselling Need for Speed Wanted. What's more of a surprise is that the average consumer seems to be buying the Xbox 360 with just one game, or in some cases, none at all! That has got to hurt short-term profits for Microsoft, who is taking a loss on the hardware and hoping to recover on software and online licenses.
I think that if anything, the delay of DOA4 probably pushed up sales of the other titles. Many purchasers had pre-reserved a system, and it would suck to have nothing but a beta of FFXI to play on the system you lined up for.
Oops, since the article was published on the 13th, and the Xbox 360 was released on the 10th, it only reflects the first TWO days of 360 sales. (The title of the article also clarifies that the 360 sales figures refer to the first two days.) Apologies.
The sales figures quoted for the original Xbox are for its first three days. I guess that's because it went on sale on a Friday, whereas the 360 debuted on a Saturday. It's also worth noting that I somehow interchanged the Dreamcast and Xbox in my head by saying that it went on sale in November instead of February... the correct release date of the original Xbox in Japan was 2002/2/22.