The Xbox 360 and Japanese Nationalism

Ant writes "4 Color Rebellion has a transcript of a segment included with its recent Podcast. The piece concerns the launch of the Xbox 360 in Japan, a launch that's amounting to one of the weakest in Japanese gaming history. The authors look into the reasons behind the failure, and try to dissuade gamers from some poorly thought-out rationalizations for the console's lack of success." From the article: "McDonalds knew that some of its tastes would not appeal to the Japanese so they changed their menus. Along with the standard Big Macs and fries they also have Teriyaki burgers, fried shrimp burgers, and other things for the Japanese pallet. They didn't force the American tastes on the Japanese and thus, they thrived. Now look at the Japanese Xbox 360 launch lineup. First person Shooters, sports and car games. Games that sell really well in America but other than the car games are not to the Japanese taste. Had they launched with RPGs, simulation games, party games, gambling games and fighters, they might have done a whole lot better. McDonalds changed their company for the Japanese taste. Microsoft tried to change the Japanese taste for their company."

Comments

Author missed important point

[Pluvius]

While it's true that the XBox 360 launch has been dismal in Japan, the idea that Microsoft has not been trying to cater to Japanese tastes is totally false. In fact, MS has been trying to do just that ever since the original XBox came out, and they're finally beginning to succeed. There are finally going to be exclusive Eastern RPGs from a noted developer. There's a port of Final Fantasy XI coming out. There is significantly greater Japanese third-party support in general than there was before.

Now will the XBox 360 be a huge success in Japan when these games come out? Probably not. But what's going on right now has nothing to do with not following Japanese trends and everything to do with these games not being published in time for launch.

Rob