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."

Comments

I guess this is what they mean by 500lb gorilla?

[Frag-A-Muffin]

I guess this is what mean when they call Microsoft a 500lb gorilla bullying their way into whatever market they feel like dominating? I don't know any company that has deep enough pockets to go through this much effort to gain foothold in a particular region. (Albeit, a very important region). I would really like to know how much money they've spent in the Japanese marketon marketing and development. I heard they really beefed it up for the original 360 launch because of the dismal failure the original xbox was in Japan. Only to see it fail even worse. Hmm .. maybe you can't just through money at 'culture' and expect to win them over after all?

Final Fantasy XI on 360

[TheZorch]

Final Fantasy XI is slated to be released next month on the Xbox 360 along with the release of the Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion. I've heard rumors that MS plans to ship 360s in Japan with FFXI already installed on the hard drives to boost sales. PS2 and PC users (I use the PC version) will need to get the expansion while the 360 version will already include it.

FFXI on the 360 looks just like FFXI on a high-end PC with high-res textures and bumpmapping. The overall artwork won't look that different than the PS2 version but it will not be quite as fuzzy and will look better. Its expected that there will a PS3 version since its inconceivable that SquareEnix would abandon their VAST army of current PS2 users.

FFXI: Treasures of Aht Urhgan for the PC and PS2 is coming out April 30th similtaneously in Japan and the US.