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The New Japan 360 Plan
Gamespot lays out Microsoft's new plan for the 360 in Japan. They're not taking the initial cool reception for their console lying down. Initiatives include new games, an emphasis on the Live system, and updates on ongoing projects that appeal to Japanese gamers. From the article: "Taking time out from development work on a clutch of Xbox 360-exclusive RPGs, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi gave a progress report on a number of projects underway at his Mistwalker development company. His first game, Blue Dragon, is on track for a 2006 release. Sakaguchi says the game is playable and his team is currently focused on game balance and presentation. Sakaguchi's second game, Lost Odyssey, is slated for a 2007 launch."
Why does it seem like both Sony and MS are trying to play catch up with each other? At this rate, they will be running in circles while Nintendo walks right on by.
How exactly is this different than their old plan? These games have been in development for a while, and they've been "planning to succeed in Japan" since Xbox 1...
Sendou Wave Kick!!
I saw the headlines and clicked the link.
"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
"Nice plan!" I thought and then I spontaneously got the joke (albeit unintended) and burst out laughing in a rather crowded office.
Somehow this twist of fate with the server made my day... And got a few odd stares from coworkers.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
From: Bill Gates
To: employee-list@microsoft.com
Re: New Japan 360 Plan
1. ???
2. Profit!
MS originally wanted to just blow off Japan. They scrapped every possible resource into hyping the U.S Launch - Japan didn't even get a single commercial or print ad.
Now with Sony's timelines pushed even further back then expected, MS is hoping to catch them with their pants down. This is the real Japanese launch.
I was pretty skeptical about the potential for this thing - in Japan, the US, elsewhere - because it had a really sucky launch lineup.
But since I got mine on April 2, despite buying three games (COD2, Oblivion, GRAW), I have spent most of my time downloading and playing the demos that are FREE. I'm also a Natasha Beddingfield fan and appreciated the video download of her singing two songs.
If MS can start distributing Movies and TV shows through this thing, that will be HUGE. And it seems like it's just a matter of them negotiating it.
It's nice to see them step it up, so we can really lay it on when they fail this time. It's like when some big-city hotshot comes to a cowtown and tries to start a business thinking he will just bowl over everyone... then he realizes, the cowtown thing isn't an act. Japan isn't going to just go, "Oh, yeah, now I see! The 360 is way better than our Japanese awesome stuff." Just like how Anime isn't going to bump the Dukes of Hazzard from reruns in B.F.Egypt, USA, where half the population still drives orange '69 GTO's.
stuff |
I know and talk with a number of folks in Japan quite often, and most of them are tied to the videogame industry in one way or another or at least very hardcore gamers... their response... ::Cue Crickets::
Blue Dragon is not the great savior MS keeps claiming it is. Public opinion and interest is non-existent. It is too expensive, too large, and offers no real compelling reasons to buy one especially with the force fed "Japanese" games Microsoft paid big bucks to churn out purely to pander to the Japanese. The game has been in development too long, and with too many problems along the way for it to be worthy of relaunching the system based on it. The lines of *three* people in some places will repeat themselves and life will continue.
One of the best stories was from a friend of mine who was being bargained with by a store owner to purchase a 360 at below retail on launch day just so they could move them... he was trying to buy a new video camera.
Good luck with this one MS.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
It will be interesting to see what happens with the XBox 360 and the PS3 over the next 18 months. Lets face it, the XBox 360 is still-born in Japan and will likely never recover (regardless of how much money Microsoft throws at it); at the same time Sony may alienate 3/4 of gamers with the massive expense of the PS3 (assuming the price rumors are true). If this continues I can't see either console becoming nearly as dominant as the PS2, Playstation, SNES, NES or Atari were.
I'm not going to bet money on it, but it seems like both Sony and MS have burned their chance in Japan; at the same time Microsoft hasn't had all that much success in Europe or North-America with the XBox 360 (and again at the rumored price point I can't see the PS3 being successful). It reminds me of the SNES-to-N64 transition, most people discounted Sony because everyone wanted a Nintendo or Sega System; it was only through the mistakes of Nintendo and Sega with their consoles that opened up the door for the PS2. Maybe I'm being optimistic but it seems that if Nintendo can provide unique, inovative, game-play at a reasonable price then they have an opportunity to 'win' the console wars by default.
Plan A: Sell video game console with games nobody in market is interested in.
Plan B: Sell video game console with games people in market are interested in.
Plan B+: Sell video game console featuring the game all the kids are playing, Galaga!
The real problem with the original XBOX was very simple - Japanese consumers preferred giving their money to Japanese companies (Sony & Nintendo). I think MS is gonna have a really hard time breaking that adoption barrier in Japan.
The Raven
It seems like the XBox 360's plan all along, for as long as I've been paying attention to the thing, has been, at some point Mistwalker will release some games, and suddenly ill will and failure will become success and happiness and light, and Japan will love the XBox 360.
I mean, Mistwalker's games will be coming out at about the same time as the PS3 and Nintendo Revolution, and will have to compete for hype time with Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (coming soon for the Revolution) and Final Fantasy 13 (coming later for the PS3). But, hey, Blue Dragon is made by a Japanese person! The fact that it was made by a Japanese person means Japanese people will suddenly, instantly love it, right? It must be so!
It kind of honestly seems to me like even now, Microsoft's plans aren't about succeeding in Japan. I mean, I'm sure they'd love to succeed in Japan. But that's not what their main goal is. Their main goal is about projecting the image, in the west, that they're succeeding or about to succeed in Japan. They don't care if it succeeds in Japan, but it is very very important to them that Americans think it's succeeding in Japan. This is just speculation, maybe Microsoft isn't really intending it this way, maybe they really just do believe that two JRPGs, by themselves, are enough to break into a Japanese market that otherwise has shown zero interest in the thing.
But in effect, it looks to me like the chief beneficiary of the XBox Japan strategy isn't Japanese consumers, or even the Japanese XBox sales team. It's just a bone tossed to the Microsoft faithful in english-speaking countries, who can go on message boards and brag, see? See what a big impressive deal the XBox 360 is! It's taking over the markets! It's unstoppable! Even Japanese people love it! Well, OK. They're going to love it. Start loving it. Soon. Soon as that Mistwalker title comes out, they'll instantly go nuts for it. Just trust me.
Only thing I care about is Project Gotham. That alone makes me want to get a 360 but because of the price of the system that wont happen until it comes down into the $150 - $200 range. I never liked Halo and thought it was just a bore.
..Then why is the Ipod so successful there, when surrounded by plenty of other asian made Mp3 players?
So far the next generation console war reminds me a bit of the best of seven playoffs and a few World Series years. Just as one team is on the verge of elimination, the team on top makes some colossal blunder allowing the team on the ropes to steal a win. Often the team that's let back into the game this way, goes on to win the whole thing. Sony's delays may well have let Microsoft back into the game in the Japanese market. The Japanese still have a reputation for looking askance at foreign imports, but like everyone, they like making money and they like having fun. If good games come out for the 360 in Japan, people will buy them and if Japanese developers start making money on 360 games, then they will make more. There is now more time to not only get more games out, but to relaunch the 360 in Japan. In the Sony vs Microsoft matchup, Sony is letting Microsoft back into the game. The Japanese are big fans of baseball, so I don't think this analogy will be lost on anyone at Sony.
As I've said before, if MS can get the RPGs and the "wacky" Japanese staples out on the 360 plus something truly innovative, they've got a shot. And also keep in mind that a good portion of the games developed in Japan will also see life in other global regions. So if the 360 ever gets any traction in Japan, a real fight will be on fo sho!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Japanese aren't exactly racist about what they buy (not to say they aren't racist in general, there are a lot of problems in that department), but many US products have managed to do EXTREMELY well over in Japan, becoming so immersed in their culture that most Americans can't really comprehend it. McDonald's, Coka Cola, the iPod, if you think they're big here, they're almost like a religion over in Japan. But the difference is that these companese were smart enough to specialize their marketting strategy to fit the Japanese cultural paradigm. The same marketting stratagies that work really well in the US will fail MISSERABLY in Japan. McDonald's positioned itself first as an exotic foreign experience (then sold sushi) and then as a centerpiece of the fast-paced, modernized Japanese business world. The idea of "fast food" was both unheard of, and because of the pacing of the business world, greatly appreciated. Then there's Apple... maybe having a highly-philosophical Buddhist genious (Steve Jobs) as their CEO helped a bit. The bottom line is, Jobs is a fairly worldy individual who is willing to listen and learn about the cultures he's marketing toward. If anything, he's more out of touch with the US than with most of the world. Even his American iPod campaign had a Zen-like quality to it. Japan isn't Buddhist, but their culture has grown around a lot of similar basic values (neo-confusionism)... add to that that Japan has always been obsessed with simplicity and function in their aesthetics, and the iPod is almost a perfect product. Owning one has huge cultural significance like no-other we see in the states. Consumerism is practically Japan's national religion: the products you buy, and their presentation have a deep significiance in how you are percieved as an individual. And no, we're not simply talking, "I'm a Ford kinda guy" like we have over here.
MS has no Japanese marketting campaign. And their American campaign is so ungodly removed from the values of Japanese culture that they're going to have a hard time changing that around. The XBox is an SUV... plain and simple: it's big, it's powerful, and it's sold as a way to flex your muscles. Now, Chevy could possibly run a Japanese marketting campaign on their biggest SUV attempt to highlight it's functionality, aesthetic simplicity, and it's overall addition to cultural statis... but you still have to take into account that Chevy's SUVs aren't very functional (terrible reliability, a burdon to drive around Tokyos streets, low gas millage, etc.), they're a slap in the face to classical aesthetic values, aiming for a brainless, "muscley" look, which is laughable to most Japanese, and thus, is going to be impossible to convince Japanese culture, as a whole, that the image of having one is a positive one. MS is dealing with the same problem, XBoxs are big (especially the first), have terrible reliability, and their games commonly go against common Japanese aesthetic principals and basic values (modern Japan is EXTREMELY pacifistic).
So yes, some Gundam and Naruto tie-ins would help, but it's more than that, the XBox's basic image is riding on the "xXx-TREME!" fad—hell, even it's name is "XBox"—which is dieing out in the US and never happened over in Japan. "Game Cube", "Play Station" "Game Boy", "Entertainment System", all names that reflect the product's ability to entertain. "N64" is probably the most xXxtreme name that came out of Nintendo, and look how well that worked for them. "Revolution" is a different naming tactic altogether, neither xXxtreme nor playful but more along the lines of Apple's current marketting strategy, one that may translate very well over in Europe and Japan, and probably fairly well in the US.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
The iPod only became so successful once it became a fashion icon, then it wouldn't have mattered if it was the WORST thing on the market. To succeed, the XBox 360 has to be stylish to them; that will trump the "Made in the USA" tag.
that the iPod had no real competitor. I didn't say "Japanese consumers don't buy foreign stuff" but that, given the choice of comparable products (PS2 and XBOX are clearly in the same category), they will pick the Japanese one.
The Raven
Yeah, the 360 technically "outsold" the GC for this sales period. But the GC has sold about 33% more than the 360 this year (total).
...that Microsoft's next-gen wonder is having to play catch-up with all the last-gen machines?
It really doesn't matter what they do at this point, because unless they can magically convert half the country in another seven or eight months, the Revolution and PS3 are going to absolutely blow the 360 out of the country for good.
Honestly, if the 360 can't beat the GAMECUBE, what hope does it stand against the PS3 and Revolution? Answer: None.
Go read this before you display your ignorance. And for god's sake, please don't mod "The Japanese won't buy the 360 because they hate Americans" posts "insightful".
3 /the-xbox-360-and-japanese-nationalism/
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2006/01/0
Ipod is another story, but Ipod is another story the world over. Ipod was in the right place at the right time with the right design, and even a people heavily immersed in their own culture have to come up for air from time to time.
Btw, there's been all this talk about how Japan is more and more embracing American culture and shit, but obsessing over one or two bands doesn't really count. Everyone in the country knows the Backstreet Boys, but nobody here knows any of the other boy bands. And just because some people where the Misfits shirts, it doesn't mean they know who they are. (I also saw a Rival Schools shirt, which nobody in the states has even heard of outside of the video game, so I thought the guy was wearing it because of the videogame, but then I realized the videogame is called "Moero! Justice Gakuen", so how the hell did he get a Rival Schools shirt in Japan when I went to their show and didn't even have one in the states?!)
If Microsoft can somehow coerce/bribe Square/Enix into making the next Dragon Quest game an Xbox 360 exclusive, that'd lock the Japanese market. Even the mere announcement would move units.
Even MS might not be able to pull that one off, though.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I used to think this too. But now that I've had some time with the system , I have to say this shouldn't be an issue.
If you're downloading something, you're probably going to take a network hit. But the 360 could easily prioritize gaming packets over download packets, and even if you're losing 10% of your network capacity it should still fall within operating parameters.
In terms of processor speeds, these things should degrade elegantly. Assuming the app is terribly written and takes up one-and-a-half processors, that should still leave 30 FPS to the game. You already have the dashboard and music playback being given roughly 5% of system resources, so you know it can handle background processes. And games fluctuate pretty widely in FPS currently without major issue.
And if necessary, they could just leave the game paused and let you navigate the dashboard and Xbox Live while you download stuff.
The real issue is not one of usability or system resources, but of time. They just ran out of time to get that working. Hopefully a future update will fix it.
And if Microsoft really wants the japanese market, they should release an X360 controller that doubles as a cell-phone.
The ______ Agenda
OK, I live in Japan, and have seen how things work here.
Firstly, the Japanese are very collectivist. I don't mean to sound insulting or anything - they just are. They care about what everyone else does and thinks, and very often you see these kind of "collective decisions" being made, seemingly spontaneously across a huge market. That's why marketing is so incredibly important here - to try to influence this silent "decision". You can see it in the very, very high quality of japanese commercials compared to, well, anywhere else. It's really, really important.
Now sometimes this behaviour is good, and sometimes it's bad. It's wonderful when some hot technology comes along and is just adopted by EVERYONE just like *that*. The right people saw it, they bought it, they told some more people, and like a chain reaction everyone loves that new thing. It just happens and it's amazing. The DS is like that. You can't buy one for love or money here in Tokyo.
What you don't want to be is on the flip side of that coin, when your product is rejected by the group. A product at debut, especially a high-status/visibility item like the 360, has maybe 2 weeks to get that snowball rolling after launch. After that, the same effect can be seen, in the negative. The product becomes unpopular BECAUSE it is unpopular. And before you know it, everyone has just invisibly decided your product is a turkey and you know what? It is.
That's what has now happened to the 360, just as it happened with the original. It is a LEPER in japan, there are piles of them sitting in every electronics store. I do not know a single person who has even mentioned them, and I hang around techie types. It is a leper, it will never sell, it has failed, game over, good luck next time.
I should add that the marketing for the 360 was very poor. Seemed cheap and tacky, and the very colours of the 360 seem calculated to annoy japanese - americans might think the "alien green" is cool and x-treme but the japanese just think it's ugly and tacky, and that was yet another blow to the 360's chances right at the critical moment.
Dead. Deceased. Pushing up the daisies. Nothing more you can say.
thanks,
Sho
In Japanese atleast. I'm sure it has been mentioned before. In Asian culture, the character X is synonymous with all sorts of badness and is used by teachers to grade really bad papers and has connotations of death and whatnot.
Another words, how about changing the name.
Selling the X-box in Asia is like trying to sella a console for the American market named the "Suxbox", "Shitinabox" or "Crapconsoloe 360" or something to that effect.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
Just once...would it be possible for a Slashdot post to NOT contain either the classic "Underpants Gnomes - 1.??? 2.Profit!" or "Super Happy Fun Ball" references? Surely, nobody is STILL laughing at them after the four hundredth viewing...
My Mind Is Rewired. Is Yours?
This is like when you say something you think is hilarious, but nobody laughs, so you think they just didn't hear you right, so you say it again. Turns out no-one was laughing because they didn't think it was funny in the first place.
Not really... what are you supposed to do, transfer it to your MCE PC and then burn it to DVD? I don't think they would even let you do that unless there was some sort of DRM they could write to the DVD, but I don't think that's possible without a DVD mastering device. Are you just going to watch them until you sell your XBox 360 in 5 years (or 4, MS is trying to shorten the cycle) when the new consoles come out? Are you going to lose all those videos because they're tied to the 360? OK, even if they can transfer it to the next console, in the meantime, if you want to lend your movie to your 360-less friends or take it with you to play it on your laptop, how would you do that? It's just not useful for the XBox 360 to do this.
Twinstiq, game news
Why do people keep mentioning the iPod as the ultimate example that Japanese don't have nationalistic tendencies? I guess it's hard for Americans to understand that people can have these sentiments because American nationalism is frowned upon.
The popularity of one product does not negate the fact that Japanese do tend to avoid foreign products. The few exceptions tend to be luxury items. One thing Japanese love is European clothing, european handbags, etc. However, I think that's primarily because it's been established the world over that if you want to be seen as fashionable these are the kinds of things you want.
Some foregin automobiles have seen success in Japan, but again, only those in the luxury space, specifically Mercedes and BMW. But even then, they'll have shows where they compare cars and bias the comparisons to favor Japanese cars. Like this one time they compared the Nissan Z to a BMW M3, Porsche Boxster and something else. It was supposed to be a stock cars, but the Nissan had its passenger seat removed and an oil cooler installed in it's place. And on top of that they had another Nissan serving as the camera car. The camera car kept getting in between the Z and the other cars, blocking any chance of them passing. Then there was the one where they compared an Acura NSX to foreign sports cars and it broke down before the race was over but they still considered it the best of the cars they had driven. I drive a Japanese car myself, but the bias is painfully obvious.
Elements of American hip hop culture have found their way to Japan, but not directly. It's all been localized, they've got their own fashions and their own artists. How little they really understood of the hip hop culture they were mimicking was demonstrated by those stupid girls who would practically cover their faces in makeup and get insanely dark tans.
As far as electronics are concerned its pretty much guaranteed that any foreign product will fail. Apple has done well for a long time in Japan. Macs have always been popular because they're generally easier to use than PCs and they have a more appealing design. It was only inevitable that the iPod was in a good position to do well. Of course it helped that the iPod is immensely easy to use, far easier than the overwrought products Sony tends to produce. What really drove things home in the end for Apple was that the iPod looks damn cool. It certainly is striking, not like the overly generic silver-frosted crap we tend to see here. Japanese products tend to look nice and unique, so you really need to stand out if you want to be noticed.
The only way to succeed is to either produce a product that strongly appeals to Japanese fashion sense or create something that does something truly unique. Needless to say, the Xbox 360 fails on both these counts which is why it will never succeed in Japan. I don't even understand how the people at Microsoft can't see this. They'd be better off pulling out of Japan completely and investing all that money here.
I don't think Microsoft is capable of doing what is necessary to succeed in Japan.
The latest 360 television spots show you nothing new. They spotlight games which were released 4-5 months ago at launch (PGR3, PDZ, et al). I haven't seen anything about new 360 games in several months.
"Japan isn't Buddhist, but their culture has grown around a lot of similar basic values..."
/ ja.html#People
Such as Buddhism:
"Religions: observe both Shinto and Buddhist 84%, other 16% (including Christian 0.7%)"
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos
find . -name "noobs" -print | xargs rm -rf && echo "pwnd."
Forget the games, just bundle a Japanese model with each XBox360.
r ls-on-xbox-live-no-really-164852.php
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/xbox-360/japanese-gi
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.