Slashdot Mirror
360 To Be Relaunched In Japan
GamesIndustry.biz reports that Microsoft is planning to relaunch their next-gen console in Japan ... now that there are some games to offer players. The event is scheduled to happen in June, to coincide with that country's launch of Ghost Recon, among other titles. From the article: "It's not yet clear what form the relaunch might take - whether it will see the console's pricing or bundles being changed, or if it will simply be a new marketing campaign focused on the locally relevant software available for the system. Japan was the only territory where the Xbox 360 did not sell out at launch, despite having a smaller allocation than any other market, and in fact the launch underperformed by comparison with the launch of the original Xbox - itself hardly a stellar success story in the region."
Microsoft is never going to get it. They just don't have what it takes, and even worse, they think that they do. They sent that company-killing fool Peter Moore out and he talked about superior cultural dominance during the Japanese 360 launch event, for FUCK'S sake. And now they want do-overs.
They're finished as far as Japan is concerned. To paraphrase a post I made elsewhere, Microsoft Japan under Maruyama was trying to sell yellow ice to eskimos. Microsoft "fixed" the problem by replacing Maruyama with Sensui, and Sensui thinks a relaunch will do the trick. But the ice is still yellow. Boo.
And of course, this is all such a non-issue in Japan. Nobody is crying emo tears over there. Nobody cares at all, actually. Revolution is set to WIPE JAPAN OUT, and PS3 is in fair position to take the rest of the world who still aren't sick of same old same old yet.