Slow Start For the 360 in Japan

psycln writes "Microsoft may have to try a little harder in marketing the Xbox 360 to Japanese consumers if initial reports coming out of the country Saturday are correct. Several news reports indicate a slow reaction to the new console from Japanese customers. Apparently next day delivery is still an option to the Japanese consumer!" From the BBC article: "One senior store official said the customer reaction had been somewhat "subdued", with fewer than 50 consoles sold in the first two hours. However, Mr Moore said that several hundred units appeared to have been sold at the store he was at within the first three hours. Takeshi Tajima, a BNP Paribas analyst, told Reuters news agency that serious game fans would rush to buy the new console but 'most people are going to wait and see'. "

Comments

Want to know why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the reason:

The Xbox 360's launch in Japan, in an attempt to buck this trend, features six titles (Perfect Dark Zero, Ridge Racer 6, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Every Party, FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup and Tetris: The Grandmaster Ace), including three Japanese-created titles, but key Japanese launch game Dead or Alive 4 is now not due until at least the end of the month.

There are no killer titles for this console yet. And not many third-party developers want to develop a game for a sparsely available platform when they can develop for three well-established platforms that have 140 million units combined.

Maybe Microsoft was a bit too eager to get out of the gates.

Re:Great Stocking Decisions, Guys

[Is0m0rph]

I agree. I was at Target today playing the 360's Call of Duty. Pretty cool actually, great graphics (though my PC can look just as nice). No way to buy a 360 though so they are losing my money. Walked into EB after that, bought a used Gamecube for my son for Xmas for $59.99. Since all those games and accessories can be used on the Revolution that will now be the console I buy.

They should have changed the name

[Kuukai]

In Japan, O is synonymous with "correct", and X is synonymous with "wrong" (they flipped the PS controls in America, in Japanese games "O" is almost always accept, and "X" is cancel). Instead of just meaning "beyond" or whatever it means here, X has the added connotation of failure. So "Xbox" can be translated as "failure box". One poster on /.J pointed out that if you "translate" "Xbox360", you get "failure box", with a hastily appended circle to make it succeed.