Slashdot Mirror
The 360 - Online, Japan, HD-DVD
Lots of tidbits about Microsoft's next-gen console floating around this week. On Monday, the company revealed that almost 60% of 360 owners are now using Xbox Live. GameDaily discusses what is making their setup so dang popular. Major Nelson's Sunday podcast included a lot of details on the 360's approach to HD-DVD. HD Beat has the rundown on what was said, including the inevitable Sony smack-talk. Finally, Gamasutra has a feature on the 360's position in Japan. A group of analysts debate whether or not the system even needs Japan in order to be a success. From this last article: "I don't think that American gamers are enamored [with] Japanese product because it comes from Japan; rather, I think Americans like good games, regardless of the country of origin. Microsoft doesn't need Japanese development to succeed in the U.S.; it needs good games, period."
Yeah americans do like good games as opposed to games from a particular country. But you'd be foolish to think that a game developer familiarity with their countrymen's likes and dislikes doesn't help sell games in that country. US games developers are generally more in tune to the US game market, and Japanese Game developers are generally more in tune with the Japanese game market. Microsoft might not need Japanese developers to sell more consoles in the US but it's pretty clear that they'll need them to sell more consoles in... Japan.
Collector's Edition
I am totally with the "good games". Now, I don't games as much as I used to, mostly because of the lack of time I have in my life now. But the little time I do have, I find myself trying to decide which game sucks the least. I'm not going to get into details about liking game X or thinking its better than Y. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I'm finding quite a few games that are hardly entertaining anymore. On the other hand, I've been playing the crap out of my NES/SNES rom stash. I think its time for a GPX2.
Can all fish swim?
There have been some extremely weird games to come out of Japan (I mean some games you just sit in awe of how completely odd they are...), but in all honestly, they love them there. It's undeniable that there is a big gap in gaming tastes between the two countries, and Microsoft would be extremely foolish not to acknowledge that.
FUD here, FUD there... Slashfud everywhere...
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
- Lots of XBox 360 news this week. Microsoft boasts high adoption rates for their online games. Microsoft's marketing blogger has news about Microsoft's HD-DVD strategy. Microsoft doesn't need Japan anyway, Japan are poopyheads.
- Awesome new PC game coming.
- Super Nintendo game coming out fifteen years ago
- ZOMG PS3 SUX PS3 SUX
- Microsoft's Peter Molyneux making awesome new game for the XBox 360
- Microsoft's Vista team making awesome new gaming technology
- PC gaming peripheral available soon.
- Playstation 3 going into production. Look how slow their production is.
XBox XBox XBox XBoxIt's interesting how of the three big consoles plus the PC, apparently the XBox 360 and PC are the only ones with upcoming games. At least that's all I hear about on Slashdot. The Wii mostly only gets stories posted here when there are big news events, and the PS3 always only gets a story when something embrassing happens or an analyst thinks they're going to fail. The DS and PSP apparently don't exist at all, we occasionally get a DS-related article but usually we only hear about handheld video games on slashdot when Microsoft is planning on releasing a handheld system which may or may not be a game system. Is it really the case that nobody is submitting stories about tidbits related to upcoming Wii, PS2, PS3, DS or PSP games? Obviously the news about the unreleased systems is slower, but I watch other news sites and I see lots of little bits of information about the PS3 and Wii at least as interesting as "Here's an interview about Fable 2, a long-ago announced game".
Actually, never mind that. Can we just get it over with already and rename games.slashdot.org to xbox360.slashdot.org?
I agree... doesn't *everyone* have Silver by default? This just means that 60% of 360 owners have it hooked up to the internet, right? I wouldn't mind knowing how many are putting down money for it. Either way, Gold is a good bargain if you want to play online. MS just needs more Co-op / MP games worth the $5/month.
Lets not forget while American gamers are less discriminating, Europe has clearly shown it is.
European gamers don't play Madden, MLB, or NBA. And they aren't nearly as enamored with hamstrung console first person shooters as Americans inexplicably are. They play Winning Eleven (a Sony exclusive) made by Konami. They like rally racing and F1. Not Nascar and pimpin' street racing. European gamers do not have American taste. And the Xbox's struggles in the region reflect that.
If Microsoft want's Xbox to be a global brand, it needs Japan to fill that gap because Europe's own development community is not as strong and organized. Most of Ubisoft's good studios are in North America.
So yeah, if Microsoft just wants to win the United States, they don't need Japan. If they want to dominate all markets, they need to stop ignoring what gamers want in different regions. American Football makes lots of money in the USA. It's a JOKE everywhere else. I mean, if Microsoft just wants to concede foreign markets because it's just too hard, fine. But don't go crying when they don't buy your products in Japan or Spain. Basically anywhere else than the United States, Australia, and the UK.
Yeah, Japanese developers will definitely be needed to move consoles in Japan. But it is likely that some of those games developed for the Japanese market while not finding success in Japan, might find it in the U.S.. So Japanese development could potentially be of more benefit in the U.S. than in Japan. This may especially be the case, if the PS3 does ridiculously well in Japan despite the very high price. But what I am I saying? Wii will absolutely pwn everything on both sides of the Pacific, right?
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
I even spell-checked... guess what, Zonk was on the job and it was rejected meer seconds
Mere seconds. I'm not a grammar nazi but since you said you took the time to spell check and all...
What the other game companies do right is have localized divisions so that content developed for one region, like Japan, can be adapted for another region, like the United States. Even if the appropriate translations could be done properly back home, having that separate division is a show of respect for the market the company is competing in. Conversely, not having it shows an arrogance that only serves to drive customers away. Microsoft has set up an image of not really caring about the Japanese gamer, and it will take much, much more than a few Japanese game designers to change that image.
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
On each one of these stories that is not really a story, apply the "zonked" tag (click on the little triangle next to tags). At the end of the year we can all search for "zonked" stories and have a good laugh.
On this story, my main beef would be the HD-DVD link doesn't really talk about the 360 HD-DVD support at all, it's just general information about the HD-DVD format.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The 360 may not need Japanese developers.
I as a game buyer certainly do, as without games like Ico or Katmari Damacy I'd hardly want to own a console.
So while at the same time as the 360 is proclaiming it only needs American ports of PC WWII games to survive, I am hoping the previous news I have read about PS3 region coding for games is true and America and the US are in the same region, so we can import some japanese games directly without modding the console.
In fact, is not Team Ninja from Japan? Who could honsetly say the 360 would be as popular as it is without games from them (like DOA)?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why ask American analysts about the Xbox in Japan when you could ask some actual Japanese people? They have games journalists over there, how about getting their opinions?
I quit!
I am glad you are able to understand what I meant. Though purely for language translation reasons, they may wish to divide the north and the Deep South. :-)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Never invest with Wedbush Morgan Securities. Michael Pachter is a jackass!
I kept hoping (and still do to some extent) that as the game industry grew, the percentage of games offered in both Japan and the US (among other regions) would increase. This seemed to be true for a while when more and more games had simultaneous releases in different regions and when I started to see more random Japanese games on the market. For MS to think that it doesn't need a Japanese market seems like the start of a slippery slope to me. What if Sony starts to think that they don't need the American market much anymore? That seems ridiculous, but if US$600 isn't too much for most of Japan so the PS3 sells well there while it fails to sell in the US, it becomes more plausible.
As someone who loves RPGs, that thought is as scary to me as MS giving up on the Japanese market is to avid Japanese 360 owners.
I know that I'm being pessimistic and at the moment, most of this isn't true anyway, but its still a little disappointing to hear.
I picked up a xbox360 shortly after launch, of which I was excited about the aspects of XBox Live. I signed up for the free 30 day trial, which converted into a full account after the 30 days if it's not canceled.
I plugged in my credit card and my xbox live gold account was activated. About 2 months later I started getting errors on my login when I would turn on my xbox360. I remembered my wife having lost her debit card, the bank re-issued new cards to us and that the information on the card was changed and I need to go back and re-activate my account with my new card. I tried through the xbox360 interface and kept getting an error message, but I was told by a friend that I would probably need to just do it from online.
So I went to xbox-live and signed in, and added in my new credit card and immediately (without asking), I was charged $15 for 2 months of service that was missed (Fair enough), my balance was $0 though and I still couldn't login to my xbox-live account. If I used a service, I don't have a problem paying for it. This wasn't Microsoft's fault my debit card was reported stolen.
It took a lot of searching, but eventually I found the 800 number and called customer service. I was promptly in touch with a live person after a few menu choices, with almost no wait. Now at this point, I was starting to get a little annoyed as the whole thing seemed like a strange run-around for what I would perceive as a common problem. The person on the phone immediately told me that my account was cancelled due to non-payment, and even after explaining the situation he told me that though my account is in good standing that they where not able to re-activate my account and if I wanted to have an xbox-live account I would need to create a brand new account. I had started to get frustrated at the situation and articulated to the customer service rep how I felt about the policy of perma-locking an account after a default on payment. Despite the non-malitious nature of the situation, I was shocked that they would refuse to re-activate the account. The person on the phone kept repeating "Sir, you have to see this from Microsofts point of view.. you missed 2 paymenhts", which only upset me more.
This was INCREDIBLY frustrating as anyone who has a xbox-live account would understand that there is a potentially large time investment and how frustrating this situation would be. I have many friends that have my old xbox live account added, all my 'accomplishments and gamerpoints' (the way xbox tracks your success as a gamer) would be gone. It would be similar to having a World of Warcraft account that after a lapsed payment is locked or deleted, never letting you back in unless you bought a new account and gave up all your progress in the game.
After this experience, I refuse to pay for xbox-gold membership (Silver is free, and this would of never happened had I started with a silver membership). And I would STRONGLY warn anyone who is considering either upgrading to a gold account, or buying a new xbox 360 and getting a new xbox live account to consider that it's very possible and likely that you will have your account locked and be forced to start over with a new xbox membership.
BUYER BEWARE
Did the GPX2 guys finally come into GPL compliance? If not, please don't buy one. It may not be their fault, but it is their responsibility.
Personally, I play old school games on my Xbox - my excuse was that buying it cost Microsoft money. But anyway... :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
From TFA:
"I don't think that this is [Microsoft's] fault. They have tried as hard as they can to succeed, but cultural bias has precluded success."
Now, I'm not saying that it's easy to make a name for yourself in the Japanese market. However, it's hardly impossible. One need only look at the success of Disney and the iPod in Japan to see that foreign companies can do well. It takes more than "trying hard", it takes trying right. If a brick wall only 3 feet across were laid in Microsoft's path, they'd bang their head into it until it crumbled rather than walk around it like sanity dictates. Microsoft may have touched on things they need to do to capture the hearts of Japanese gamers, but they certainly haven't shown they understand well what they should be doing.
The unfortunate truth these analysts dance around is the long term problems Microsoft faces if they can't make inroads into Japan. If Nintendo and Sony are allowed to repeatedly capture the Japanese market with no contest but each other, they will both have an unchallenged supply of resources to combat Microsoft with on American and European soil. If Microsoft can only fight on the defensive their only hope is for the Japanese market to dry up, leaving Nintendo and Sony without their reserves. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Nintendo has done a decent job of revitalizing the Japanese market. With both Sony and Nintendo having records of previous US market dominance, Microsoft NEEDS to be able to take a significant portion of Japanese marketshare or they will eventually lose by attrition.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
What the hell are you talking about?
Where to go to apply a tag to a story - other people seem to have figured it out OK.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That seems ridiculous, but if US$600 isn't too much for most of Japan so the PS3 sells well there while it fails to sell in the US, it becomes more plausible.
The question is more along the lines of, is $500 too much for most japanese gamers? For that's how much the base unit is. And despite the japanese prediliction for technology there is not much about the $600 PS3 model that is $100 more compelling, especially so since $500 is still rather expensive and I'd rather have that $100 go towards games than a media card reader for my camera (which I would never use on a console).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And we often love them here too.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
"When was the last US-based Anime convention this guy went to? "
Just the act of asking this question puts you into a category where it is unlikely you'll mate and produce offspring.