Slashdot Mirror
Japanese Gamers' Post-E3 Reversal
Castar writes "Prior to E3, Famitsu readers were interested in the PS3, and Final Fantasy. Post E3, while there's still some excitement over Final Fantasy, they seem to be very interested in the Wii, and concerned about the PS3's high price. It certainly seems that in Japan, at least, Nintendo and Sony's fortunes have reversed. Will this hold through the launch and the succeeding years?" From the article: "Nearly 70% of readers said they are most looking forward to Wii. 21% voted for PlayStation 3, while the others voted for systems already released. 88.4% of readers believe PlayStation 3 is too expensive, while 10% believe it's 'about right'."
Uh, neither product has shipped.
Besides, I think Sony has other irons in the fire.
The opposite of progress is congress
88.4% of readers believe PlayStation 3 is too expensive, while 10% believe it's 'about right'. and 1.6% of the readers think that Sony should sell the PS3 for $1200?
-Dipster
I'd say retarded, but I guess they just weren't creative enough.
If they really wanted to capitalize on making a splash, they should have announced that retail prices were going to be marginally higher than the 360, but they could have said that they were going to use eBay for charity auctions on the initial runs, donating half of the money towards a charity of winner's designation, etc. eBay would have paid them big money for this and Sony would have made huge gains in publicity and a feeding frenzy would make the retail price look absolutely cheap in comparison.
Just my 2 cents.
Yes but I remember someone mentioning on Slashdot that a poll just like this was conducted before the PS3 price announce in Japan and the Playstation 3 came out on top. Now the polls say something else differnt.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
As of yet, the 360 isn't selling that well in Japan, and there's little in the future that indicates that will change (regardless of "Dead or Alive Extra Booby Breast Physics), though it probably won't be a total wash as the Xbox was in Japan.
However, the 360 continues to do well in United States, though my friends in Europe seem to think that it's doing "OK, but not great" out there.
So I wonder if world wide domination will go to the Wii by default. Take the recent "The Wii is a great secondary system" by both Sony and Microsoft execs, and the recent polls that show that most console gamers are planning on buying the Wii.
Now, look at how Japan versus US versus Europe may go. I imagine the PS3 will still do well in Japan (though not as stellar as the PS2) because of the "big names" like "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest". But if the DS versus PSP is any indication with recent polls, Japanese consumers are more willing to give Nintendo another shot at life. So final console sales in Japan (barring handhelds) may be for "first console sales" (aka - the first "next gen" console people buy):
PS3: 50%
Wii: 40%
360: 10%
Granted - the 360 sales maybe be high. Not trying to be mean here - just going by history.
Then the US and Europe may split into this for initial console sales:
360: 40%
PS3: 30%
Wii: 30%
So just off of initial console sales alone, the Wii could win. The situation drastically changes when you consider Wii sales as a secondary console - ie: if a majority of homes with a PS3 buy a second console, it may be a Wii, and the same with the 360.
There are several things that may throw this off, of course - perhaps the majority of 360 owners don't want to buy a Wii because "I'm a 1337 gamer no doesn't like kids games n00b!" or something, but so far, Nintendo has to feel pretty good. As long as they don't screw it up in the next six months, and as long as (unlike Microsoft's launch) they have plenty of units at launch (if anything, they should *overproduce* as much as they can to make sure that everybody who wants a Wii can get one). If the number pan out, then developers might find themselves looking at the Wii for sheer number of sales alone, let alone the unique controller.
Then again, these numbers are all pulled out of my ass anyway, so who knows? The next year should be rather interesting for gamers.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
When 88.4% of the polled market says the price is too high maybe you should listen. This is extremely true in Japan, where while the younger generation still has money to burn, they aren't going out and buying things that cost $600 not while they are paying sometimes almost $1000/month for that one bedroom appartment.
Hell, when I went in March to see my girlfriend, the only person I ever saw with a PSP was her brother. His friends said they wanted to get one, but that it was too expensive.
One of the main reasons I own a PS2 is for Japanese RPGs - plain and simple, it is where most of the developers are. The primary reason? The prolific amount of PS2s in the wild in Japan.
Fast forward to 2007/2008. IF the price of the PS3 negatively impacts its adoption rate in Japan, and IF the price and novelty of the Wii positively impacts its adoption rate in Japan, suddenly I could see a lot of development houses making the following chocies - ignore the PS3 and continue working on PS2 titles (systems seem to last longer in terms of game releases in Japan than they do in the US), or develop Wii titles. The Wii control scheme would likely work well with menu driven (point-and-click) interfaces.
Of course, there are some big ifs there, and of course big dev houses like Square-Enix will likely stick with the PS3 for their primary platform, but polls like the one for this article do lead me to believe such a shift is not all together impossible.
I would bet that a good number of 360 and PS3 owners will also get a Wii in the US.
I think that in total numbers sold the Wii could end up being the most popular console.
But only time will tell.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If they really wanted to capitalize on making a splash, they should have announced that retail prices were going to be marginally higher than the 360
We're talking about Japan. Microsoft has already excluded themselves from Japan by totally neglecting that market except as a PR tool.
The Wii costs about 1/2 what the 360 does and will cost about 1/3 what the PS3 does. The 360 might as well not exist in Japan. So if Sony's problem is that they cost 3 times as much as the only competition, then why would stepping forward and saying "We'll only cost twice as much as the only competition!" be a big pr coup?
So final console sales in Japan (barring handhelds) may be for "first console sales" (aka - the first "next gen" console people buy):
PS3: 50%
Wii: 40%
360: 10%
Granted - the 360 sales maybe be high. Not trying to be mean here - just going by history.
Hmmm, I think you're overestimating the PS3 portion in Japan, my guess (like yours, which you admitted was also pulled out of your ass) would be more like:
PS3: 35%
Wii: 55%
360: 10%
Then the US and Europe may split into this for initial console sales:
360: 40%
PS3: 30%
Wii: 30%
This I think will be:
US:
360: 40% (cheaper)
PS3: 20% (not cheaper)
Wii: 40%
Europe:
360: 30%
PS3: 20%
Wii: 50%
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
What's Halo 3 doing on the list of anticipated games?! It's a genre that Japanese gamers in general don't give a shit about, on a console that's not proved popular there at all. The prequels didn't move many xbox 1s there, so why do they care all of a sudden?
n/t
the japanese consumer is also well known for not liking large consoles - space is limited so their consoles gotta be smaller in nature.
the ps3 is pretty damn big, like xbox size, be interesting to see when the console is more visible if that'll deter the market even more.
i don't believe the wii is enough for a lot of gamers out there so they will end up choosing a 360 or a ps3. once ms gets their RPGs out (and there are more than a few lined up - all geared for that japanese market) - you might see the 360 market gain some movement in the far east. especially if the ps3 is a bit pricey, and in japan being viewed as pricey means your product is extremely pricey...
I dont have any links myself, but I myself have seen one or two "post E3 reports" that revealed that Japanese gamers arnt all that concerned over the price of the PS3, or atleast unconcerned because the PS3 will be the system that their games will be on.
I really should get some links, but its nice to see such positive reflection on the Wii in Famitsu.
---space.is.the.place---
Na, 1.6% of readers were just dicking with the poll.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
In the article, notice how far down Halo 3 is rated for Anticipated Games - it's number 10 out of 10.
This bodes not well, since most of the games listed are Wii or cross-platform, meaning Nintend can pick up most of those players, or Sony, but the xBox will only sell to hentai fanboys looking for certain dimensional aspects of mammary gland physics (or lack thereof).
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Here is my take:
:)
Japan:
PS3 74%
Wii 25%
360 1%
USA:
360 50%
PS3 25%
Wii 25%
Europe:
PS3 74%
360 25%
Wii 1%
Market tastes are different
What if both the PS3 and 360 markets take this whole "Wii is a secondary console" thing to heart? Lets say that 25% of all 360 owners, and 25% of all PS3 owners decide to opt for the Wii as well as their console of choice?
Thats a pretty decent strategy. I dont know which console people own, but from my own experience it has been just one. Usually someone owns only an Xbox, PS2, or Gamecube, or if they own two it is the Xbox and the PS2.
Now if Nintendo has all of its fanboys buy the Wii, AND manage to get many more 360/PS3 adopters to buy it as well...
Looks pretty good to me.
earlymorningpost:-(
---space.is.the.place---
You say it's number 10 of 10 of anticipated games, but you have to take into account that it's so far off. Look at the games that are coming out soon, in the very near future, and you see that the levels of anticipation are much higher. As the launch of Halo 3 nears, and more games that people are drooling over are released (gears of war, too human, etc.), you'll see it climb again. Personally, my most anticipated games are Too Human and The Darkness...
As a long time gamer I have never owned a console. I have always followed the matra: "Anything your console can do, my PC can do better". So, yet again, my PC is already out-performing the Xbox and Sony offers nothing but more beef -- and my PC will just pack on a few more pounds itself. But the Wii... wow. This thing touches on something that the new Hollywood-like gaming industry has fogotten. Hardware specs and graphics do not make a game... any more than a pile of icing makes a cake. The Wii, imho, is tapping back into the idea of "gaming" and then taking it in its logical direction (which is not better rendering speeds). For the first time ever, I will be buying a console system. I finally see a system that says "I am a gamer" and is backed by a company which, in taking such a risk, is making obvious its understanding of gaming. The view from here is that the Wii will be a helluvalotta fun. Sony and Microsoft, well you can kiss my PC's shiny metal ass.
When 88.4% of the polled market says the price is too high maybe you should listen
Okay, but here's the thing. If you can only sell to 10% of the market anyway, then does it really matter?
What I mean is this. Sony was facing certain shortages on the PS3 until this price thing was announced. They can really only manufacture enough PS3s this winter to satisfy 5%ish of the potential market. If 10% of the market thinks the PS3 is at a good price... well assuming half of those people buy PS3s, I'd say Sony is exactly where they want to be. They have reduced demand to fit supply, they get no shortages and more money than they deserve.
I dunno, I just for whatever reason don't see Sony's big price tag screwup as a big deal because I see it as at most a temporary thing. The price is the one thing Sony can change at any time, and I think they will-- it's possible they're crazy enough to honestly think $600 is a reasonable price, but they'll be cured of that notion real quick when february or so comes and nobody's buying PS3s anymore.
Sony consoles are never worth buying in the first year anyway, what matters is the price when MGS4 comes out.
They really expect to pay a large premium for products they believe are high quality. Thats why games can cost up to twice as much in japan.
Hmmm... Pie...
good point, but then, remember this is Japan, so I doubt there are quite so many waiting with baited breath for Halo 3, and from what I've seen, the list looks pretty close to what I'd expect if people have already made a mental shift towards the Wii, with some Japanese interest in the local Sony PS3.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'd say Halo 3 being #10 on the list is rather impressive. Japanese gamers don't like FPS games in general, and they don't like the Xbox.
We own all of the last two generations of consoles, and so far have the X-Box 360 for this generation. Prior to E3 I was most interested in the PS3 out of all this generations consoles, after E3 I believe the Nintendo Wii is the console to watch. It's the console that parents will be most likely to buy thier kids for christmas, and the PS3 is the least likely. I'd like a PS3, but can't justify $600.
So far both bombed.
Did anyone think that Sony when it went into the console business had a change against the mighty nintendo?
No and they were very wrong.
People just don't seem to be very good at predicting what will happen with consoles.
The more predictions I see for the Wii being a smashhit the more I am feeling that Wii is building up a hype that it can't deliver. Those launch titles better be really good.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If the past few months have shown us anything about Japan, it's that they dig innovation. Do you know what the recently surpassed #2 selling video game of all time for the first day is in Japan? Brain Age. That's right, the simple, yet highly addictive game that could have been done by one programmer in a few months sold 415,000 copies in Japan on the first day.
What's this tell us? That the Japanese are ready for innovations in games. And honestly, the only system so far to show any innovation is the Wii. The 360 is going to flop in Japan. The PS3 in my opinion is just offering the same games that only look prettier.
Microsoft knows they can't beat Sony, so what they're hoping is that Nintendo will take out Sony for them and then leave MS to mop up all the market segments (like "i told u i was hardcore" american gamers) that Nintendo doesn't strive for.
This is why Peter Moore and the army of XBox fanboys (like Zonk) that hang on his every word have suddenly acquired such a love affair with Nintendo in the weeks since E3.
Not if there were only 10 choices on the survey to choose from.....
No doubt Sony's got other fish to fry. That's the whole point. They tried to "leverage" their PS2 market dominance into a win for Blu-Ray in that standards war, and the resulting price of their new console is very likely going to damage them in both markets.
(Sony? Overextend itself in an aggressive attempt to impose a proprietary standard on the marketplace? The heck you say.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Apologies for seemingly lame question, but:
How many Japanese players are out there and why is it so important for a company to "win" that market? US/Europe have a lot more potential customers than Japan - yet everything is judged by "Japanese" standards.
Cheerios!
It's no surprise that Halo would end up last on that list for Japanese gamers. FPS titles are not nearly as popular there as it is here. It's like expressing shock that Mobile Suit Gundam ZZAlpha-Beta-Google is not a top 10 anticipated title in the US, or that the latest date simulator isn't in the top 5. Different cultures means different tastes in games and genres.
What is interesting is that an FPS game made the list at all, and that it's Halo 3. As one other poster mentioned, it depends on whether or not this was just a list of 10 games and Halo made last, or it was an open-ended list. Looking at the titles that did make the list, I have a feeling it's the latter. For example, why Bioshock (Wii) on that list, when it was the 360 version that was shown all over the place?
The thing that would be most interesting is to see what the Japanese think of the upcoming 360-exclusive RPGs coming to the system. Blue Dragon and Lost Oddyssey, in particular, come to mind. Those games will be the true test of how the platform succeeds in the Japanese market.
-- jchenx
You think that Microsoft chose how many 360s to manufacture for the launch and that once that number was reached, factory floors went quiet? Console shortages are caused by the manufacturer not being able to get them out the door fast enough, not manufacturers trying to hedge their bets and only producing a limited number.
No, I think they have a parts shortage, as has been extensively covered in the print edition of the Wall Street Journal.
Why? What have you heard?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The survey didn't provide a list to choose from, it was fill in the blank.
I've always been an XBox naysayer, but as for the Japanese market, there are two titles that very well may be the 360s Halo of Japan: Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon. I can't stress the importance of these titles enough. Lost Odyssey is a project headed up by the former Final Fantasy mastermind, and at his side is the world's most famous video game composer, Nobuo Uematsu (saying that he has "rock star" status in Japan is a very large understatement). From the looks of it, it's going to be a HUGE game, with a focus on a lot of things that Japanese gamers want, it may very well be the spiritual "equal" to FF13. Blue Dragon, while not having the star status of the former, still is going to be a huge release. Many people, myself possibly included, might very well buy a 360 for these games alone. MS could put itself on the Japanese map virtually overnight. Currently, I see about a 3-way split in titles aimed at the Japanese market... and seeing the PS3s price point, that is not good news for Sony. If these two titles are as big as I think they might be, Sony can kiss it's local market dominance goodbye, and we'll soon see Square jump ship completely (remember, they're not a Sony exclusive). Whether developers jump ship for the Wii or the 360 is another issue entirely, and I think we'll see some really interesting developement in the "rivalry" between those two systems.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
(And in another survey, grannies have the highest ownership percentage of DSes.)
Japanese gamers don't dig innovation. They dig the familiar.
Look at that. Final Fantasy still at the top. Dragon Quest Sword?! Square-Enix didn't reveal anything about it but the title! Do you know what Dragon Quest is? It's an 8-bit era dungeon crawl is what it is. It's also insanely popular among Japanese gamers. And Final Fantasy III? WTF is the n-th re-release of a game from the 8-bit Famicom doing on a "most anticipated" list if Japanese are interested in innovation. Even if they're dressing it up and adding a couple inevitably frustrating mini games. The rest, I don't need to point out, are sequels that have changed little with each iteration. No Wii Sports. No WarioWare Smooth Moves. Spore? None of that shit. Where are all of the truly innovative titles from E3? And why are all of these titles from series that change very little? Zelda doesn't even really count.
See that. The Japanese were ready to buy Twilight Princess when it was on the Cube and it was called "Ocarina of Time++". They just need to make sure it's still the same game they would have bought last year.
While I'm being a little cynical, do you know what the Japanese are secretly most interested in about the Wii? The Virtual Console. They are tired of repairing their Famicom Disk Systems and are salivating to buy all of those old games again . After they already bought them all again as Famicom Mini rereleases. And don't think they aren't still repairing those old things. Nintendo tried to stop selling the Famicom at the 20th anniversary, but they were stopped by an outcry from the Japanese gamers!
Sorry, but Japanese gamers don't reward innovation. That's all of those other people living in Japan that do.
I'd like to say "Famitsu has more advanced sampling techniques" but I can't read Japanese.
That survey isnt very accurate. The name Wii hasnt been out that long and most people in the survey probably still know it as the Revolution.
Just a couple of notes.
1) This survey was published the 25th, which means it was conducted in less than a span of two weeks following E3. Not everyone, even avid game players, goes crazy refreshmonkeying websites reporting on it. As such, there is a certain amount of diffusion that has to take place before this group of gamers learns about what happened at E3.
2) It's hard to argue too much with Famitsu, because it's the single largest video game related publication in Japan. In a nation where renting video games is outlawed, they need a source to trust for which games are worth buying. Famitsu is where most gamers look to. At the very least, Famitsu readers make up the "hardcore" crowd in Japan. If the very crowd Sony can be said to be targeting isn't putting their faith in Sony...
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Japanese gamers do buy innovative games, they just also buy tried and true games. And to be fair everyone in Japan buys Dragon Quest games, not just gamers, so that makes two weaknesses in your argument.
The Wii then, is the perfect system for Japan. It overs innovation and newness, as well as a catalog of nostalgia, the two things that are most likely to sell in the Japanese market.
just some guy
There are two obvious problems here. First of all There is a huge difference between wanting something and being able to actually buy it. What this survey is saying is that most people will settle for the Wii even though they'd prefer the Playstation 3. Secondly there are more older people buying the ds for brain training, but I don't think 900,000 copies in the first 4 days of Super Mario Bros where purchased by the older generation.
I'm looking forward to the fruits of labor by those intrepid hackers who want to hook up the WiiMote to a PC via Bluetooh
http://liquidben.com - Aspiring to an 'under construction' gif