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Was Blue Dragon What X360 Needed In Japan?

Posted by Zonk on from the blue-dragon-rising dept.

simoniker writes "Have major RPG Blue Dragon and other Microsoft efforts paved the way for Japanese Xbox 360 success? 8-4 Ltd's John Ricciardi and Kotaku's Japanese correspondent Brian Ashcraft have been talking about the issue, with Ricciardi commenting on Gears Of War's recent appearance in the Japanese Top 10 game chart, with 33,000 units sold in one week: 'I mean, granted, everything is relative — so yes, in a market where the average 360 game sells around 5,000 copies, 30,000 or so may seem like a big deal, but at the end of the day, their userbase is not expanding. The week Gears came out they only sold a little over 7,000 pieces of hardware. It's not enough.'"

19 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. the next Xbox 360 by User+956 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    'I mean, granted, everything is relative -- so yes, in a market where the average 360 game sells around 5,000 copies, 30,000 or so may seem like a big deal, but at the end of the day, their userbase is not expanding. The week Gears came out they only sold a little over 7,000 pieces of hardware. It's not enough.'

    Microsoft needs to get on the ball and release their Zephyr hardware revision, with HDMI, 120GB drive, and integrated HD-DVD. People know it's coming, and so they're probably waiting for it.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
    1. Re:the next Xbox 360 by sl3xd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      These supposed 'Upgrades' are laregly fanboy dreams. There is no *need* for HDMI -- at all, ever, period.

      The Component video the 360 uses is quite capable of full 1080p @60 Hz. The Optical out can handle the 5.1 surround the 360 cranks out.

      There simply is no reason that HDMI is a 'must-have'; those who believe otherwise have been drinking too much of Sony's HD kool-aid. Adding HDMI will add absolutely nothing to the consumer experience, but will add quite a bit to the cost of the unit.

      The 120 GB drive is, quite frankly, overkill. Some fanboy must've decided that twice what Sony is offering is worth bragging rights. If you want more space, get another drive. You can swap drives in a few seconds flat -- try that with a PS3. Moreover, I've got some-odd 20 games, played all of 'em. I've downloaded movies from Xbox live, as well as demos. I've only used about 70% of the current drive -- and most of that is the movie rental I downloaded and haven't watched. Drive space is a non-issue with the 360, as you can replace the hard drive almost as easily as swapping a memory unit.

      Last, HD-DVD. I never watched DVD's on my original Xbox. I never knew anybody who watched them on a Playstation. It's not because they weren't capable players: It's that stand-alone DVD players were already plentiful and cheap.

      The HD DVD drive is probably the most successful add-on drive on any console. I bought one, and I can't complain abot it. The HD DVD drive lets Xbox owners get a high definition player at a modest price.

      But with the cost of stand-alone HD DVD players dropping rapidly (Down to about $300 now, IIRC), the real advantage of having HD DVD on the 360 just isn't going to be there for much longer. You're never going to see games that use the HD DVD disc-- it would be suicide, as you'd piss off legions of customers who don't have an HD DVD drive. There's also the false belief that you can actually play games from the HD DVD Drive-- the truth is, when you put a game into the HD DVD drive, the result is exactly the same as if you put the game in a standalone DVD player (try it sometime).

      In every one of these three cases, you're adding a substantial amount of cost that does nothing to benefit the customer; HDMI is marketing puffery, with no real benefit to consumers (unless, that is, you see DRM as a good thing). More hard disc space would be useless to most users (I didn't even get *close* to filling my original Xbox's drive, and the 360 isn't faring much worse). HD DVD players are dropping in price rapidly enough that six months from now, it will be cheaper to just get a standalone HD DVD player. Forcing an HD DVD drive on the consumer will drive up the cost of the 360, and make it less able to compete with the PS3 and Wii. History tells us that people don't use game consoles to play movies; and adding a substantial amount to the price for a feature that few will really use is insane. Like I said earlier -- a very small fraction of console owners used their Xbox or PS2 to play DVD's; there's no reason to expect some magical change this time around.

      Stop buying into the Playstation marketing madness; Sony threw Blu-ray into the PS3 to try to tilt the 'format war' in its favor, and it added a couple hundred bucks to the console's price. The PS3 needs more hard disk space, as the games install substantial amounts of code to the hard drive-- something the 360 doesn't to. They made design decisions that are a gamble, and may well backfire on Sony quite thoroughly. Where there's opprotunity, there's also risk.

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    2. Re:the next Xbox 360 by twistedsymphony · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's BS, of course there's a need for that. Most HDTV sets, the true 1080 ones, comes with at least 2 HDMI ports, but only one component entry. HDMI will give you the best quality at 1080p, unless you buy ungodly priced component cables with enough bandwidth from the connectors to the cable.

      HDMI delivering the best quality is debatable. Having delivered the Pepsi Challenge to close to 50 or so people who've visited my home theater over the last year I haven't found a single solitary person who could tell the difference. besides DLPs are the only true digital display format available today (LCDs and Plasmas are still technically analog) and most scaler chips in TVs are analog as well meaning the whole keeping the signal digital is crap, not to mention decoding DRM adds a few milliseconds to the signal processing which is bad for any hardcore gaming. And if you really need more inputs buy a switcher. It will probably cost less then the costs added to the console for an HDMI out, not to mention you can use it for other things as well.

      Yes, theoretically. Now, we don't even know if the games can be output at true 1080p on the 360. This information seems very hard to get. Is the 1080p games from XB360 true 1080p, or just 720p scaled up to 1080p ?

      Have you tried... reading the box? most will have the natively supported resolutions printed right on it. Even still does it matter? They all support at least 720p and the ones that don't can scale (and scale very well) to whatever you want. I suppose it matters on the PS3 but not on the 360.

      Like saying 1080p will add nothing to the consumer experience. Accept it or not, but HDMI seems to have won the connectors' war. Unless the PC HD connectors (UDI, DisplayPort) can make a come back, but I highly doubt it, given who is behind HDMI (mainly HDTV display makers).

      1080p doesn't add much to the consumer experience in gaming... actually I'd argue that on a console it can actually take away from it... significantly. Why? Because it's being used as a marketing buzzword. If a game has trouble rendering in 1080p they drop FSAA, drop the poly count on the 3D models, go with lower resolutions textures, drop the FPS, etc etc etc. IMO those do a whole lot more for the image quality then 1080p over 720p. All things equal of course I'd prefer 1080p over 720p but when you're pushing these consoles to their limits... you can rarely get 1080p without something else suffering significantly for it.

      First time I heard any of that. Every time I discussed with XB360 owners, it was the other way around : the current size of XB360 HDD is not enough, and that's on PS3 you can swap drives in a few seconds, not on XB360. Do you have a source for what you're saying ?

      I'd appreciate some more space or the ability to use my own drive, but at the same time I've never hit the limit of my drive, nor do I know anyone who has. I've currently got about 5 or 6 demos, 10 or so game trailers, 20 or so XBLA games, an HD movie, install files for the FFXI beta as well as game saves and updates for over 50 titles. AFAIK there are only 2 games that install data on the HDD on the Xbox 360 and quite a few PS3 titles that do already to keep loading times at a reasonable speed. The PS3 has a screw to remove a door then the drive can be pulled out and there are 4 more screws to remove the drive from the caddy (which you'll need to do because you can't get extra caddys), if you stand it vertically then you have to put the console back horizontally to get the drive out (and if you're storing it vertically it's probably because you don't have the space for that) the 360's HDD can be removed with the push of 1 button, it has no screws or extra parts and requires no tools at all. You don't need a reference link there at some 10 million people that own them.. ask any one of them. But just incase you still need instruction:

      --
      Collector's Edition
    3. Re:the next Xbox 360 by sl3xd · · Score: 2, Informative

      You're right about conversions-- at least where it applies. On paper, with perfect electronics (which don't exist), a CD is enough to satisfy the most sensitive ears. But because we don't have perfect electronics, we've moved to 96 kHz/24 bit audio -- able to reproduce frequencies dogs can't hear at volumes that virtually no audio equipment can reach (and certainly not with any level of fidelity) The same can apply to video.

      Quantization error (technical jargon for conversion problems) can arise if you have cheap hardware (by which I don't refer to price...) Some TV's won't be noticible at all, others might be very apparent. Which is why it's important to get a good TV first.

      I've got an 1080p LCD HDTV; it has to digitize any analog signal it gets for display.

      My brother, OTOH, has a 1080i CRT HDTV.

      Both have Component and HDMI. Interesingly enough, HDMI looks slightly worse on my brother's CRT. (A CRT's 'native' signal is the component video... in fact, component video's signal describes what the TV has to do to aim and fire the electron beam that makes a CRT work. When HDMI is used, the signal has to be converted to analog first.) On my LCD, they're not distinguishable.

      As far as why you get a bad picture at 1600x1200 on your PC: There are a number of possible reasons. Your video card is one of them, the monitor itself is another. If you are using one of those DVI->VGA adapters to connect the monitor, that is a pretty big red flag.

      If you're using a DVI->VGA adapter, it's going to look bad; I've had more than a few video cards that had both DVI and VGA outputs, and I've tried the quality of the adapters. My advice-- use the native VGA output; the adapters just plain suck.

      I used to have my Mac Mini hooked to a KVM (sharing the monitor with a PC), the Mac Mini had noticible 'banding' scrolling up the screen constantly. At 1600x1280, it was intolerable; at 1280x1024, it was at least livable. When I switched the KVM to display from the PC, the picture was gorgeous with the same settings. Swapping the KVM cable around didn't do anything, nor did removing it entirely-- the Mini just couldn't output a VGA signal that looked as good as the video card in my PC (no suprise considering the only choice I had was to use one of those lame DVI->VGA adapters)

      Last but not least is the cable. VGA cables differ quite a bit from TV cables-- much thinner wire, much smaller surface area on the connector. A Component cable has the ability to push a far more powerful signal; this also means that you can get a higher quality signal.

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
  2. Short answer No, long answer no with a but ... by HappySqurriel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The obvious answer is no, Blue-Dragon was not what the XBox 360 needed in japan being that the XBox 360 is still the worst selling videogame system in the country ...

    At the same time it should be noted that there are more pieces of XBox 360 software being sold than PS3 software which implies the PS3 "aint doin so hot" ...

    1. Re:Short answer No, long answer no with a but ... by Mark+Maughan · · Score: 2, Informative

      Right now the PS3 console is outselling the XBox360 console at about a 3:1 ratio in Japan. Gears of War is not something to extrapolate from. Right before it, I don't think there was a single XBox360 game in the top 30 in Japan.

    2. Re:Short answer No, long answer no with a but ... by Rycross · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They aren't jRPGs. jRPGs are what sell systems in Japan. Well, those and dating games.

      Dead Rising and Lost Planet are much more American style than Japanese anyway. Just because they have Japanese developers, doesn't necessarily mean they cater to Japanese tastes. That being said, I am severely tempted to get a 360 for those two games, plus GoW and XNA, so I agree with you that they are system sellers.

  3. Is Blue Dragon what they needed? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, a high-quality exclusive game that appeals to the Japanese market was what they needed, and desperately.

    Was Blue Dragon sufficient?

    No, obviously not. One game is never going to turn a console from an abject failure into a success all by itself. Few people will buy a console when only one game out of the entire library interests them, and so it is with the 360.

    Blue dragon is what MS needed, past tense, to show they had a chance at all in Japan. What they need, present tense, is another Blue Dragon, and another, so that people will have multiple reasons to want one, and to hope that more games they'll like will come out. Even still MS being successfull in Japan is very iffy, but without this, failure is guaranteed. Sort of like when a paramedic needs a defribulator, even though it may not save the patient -- their other option is to sit by and note the time of death.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
    1. Re:Is Blue Dragon what they needed? by Mark+Maughan · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's pretty much sums it up. Look at the 20 most anticipated games in Japan.

      http://the-magicbox.com/topten3.htm

      6 DS games
      3 Wii games

      6 PS3 games
      3 PS2 games
      1 PSP game

      1 360 game

      Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey simply aren't enough. They need 3-6 times this many Blue Dragon's and Lost Odyssey's.

    2. Re:Is Blue Dragon what they needed? by Rycross · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And even with Blue Dragon, you have a console chart that looks like this: http://the-magicbox.com/toptenlast.htm/. You're not going to a lot of growth in Japan unless you have a sizable cache of jRPGs.

    3. Re:Is Blue Dragon what they needed? by ProppaT · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "One game is never going to turn a console from an abject failure into a success all by itself."

      Halo. It saved the original X-Box from failure in the US.

      --
      Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
    4. Re:Is Blue Dragon what they needed? by Babbster · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You mean like Mistwalker?

      No, what Microsoft needs is for companies like Konami and Square to say something like this: "Yes, we are going to put [Metal Gear Solid 4|Final Fantasy XIII] on the Xbox 360 because so many people [outside Japan] own that console." There have already been indications from both those companies of interest in the 360 (and both companies already have titles available for the console), but if they made a real commitment to developing their top titles for the 360, then both other developers and the Japanese gamers would follow.

    5. Re:Is Blue Dragon what they needed? by The-Bus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'll have to mostly agree with you. When Halo and its sequel are the top two selling games on the console, it's hard to argue that they were central to the success. But: look a bit further. The rest of the Top 20 Xbox Games list shares a lot of entries with the Top 20 PS2 Games list: a racing game, Madden, some EA games, Tony Hawk, etc.

      And here's where the differences appear. There's a lot more overlap in software in the US and Europe. Don't have a PS2? Don't worry, the Xbox has some stuff that might be as good or slightly worse/better. This is true again this generation with the PS3. The most overlap between consoles is between the PS3 and the 360. Here, in the US.

      In Japan? Not as much. Their equivalents of the GTA series, Madden and the like are not out on both consoles.

      So that has something to do with it. The Xbox had more equivalents (or like substitutions) for the North American and European markets.

      --

      Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

    6. Re:Is Blue Dragon what they needed? by PixelScuba · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Someone answer me, I'm not trolling here I want some sort of answer that makes sense to me... Why the fuck AREN'T these companies doing that?!? The Playstation 3 has been selling abysmally in the States and from the sound of other articles, not so well in Japan either. The 360 has positioned itself as a huge demographic outside Japan, and any company looking to make serious money on a product is going to have to release software for this platform. We know that Square has a raging hard on for the most sophisticated and gaudy visuals possible, and only the 360 and PS3 can offer that capability this generation. Is Square intentionally trying to sell very few games outside of Japan? What possible reasoning could the company have for being so foolish as to pass on releasing their product for the 360? Same goes for Metal Gear Solid 4... but that's more likely since, I believe, in the past all the MGS games came out for the XBOX... just later (I could be mistaken).

  4. MS and Japan by Turn-X+Alphonse · · Score: 4, Insightful

    MS just doesn't get that they just don't get Japan. The Xbox games are all very Western and Japan just doesn't enjoy them. I mean look at where 90% of FPS games come from, then look where 90% of RPGs come from, there is a very clear difference between the two markets and MS need to understand this.

    --
    I like muppets.
    1. Re:MS and Japan by Babbster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh, get off it. It's not a question of MS "understanding" Japanese gamers, unless you really think that you're more capable of understanding the gaming business better than the professionals in the field. It's a question of getting Japanese developers to make their games for the 360, and right now the chicken is waiting for the egg: Developers want to make games for hardware accepted by gamers and gamers want hardware for which developers are making games. Believe me, if the companies developing the big franchises (such as MGS, FF and DQ) announced that they were making those franchises available on the 360, that console would get a lot more interest from both Japanese gamers and other Japanese game developers. Unfortunately for MS, the success of the PS2 made the PS3 look extremely desirable to game developers and some assumed that the PS3 would be a similar crazy success.

  5. Re:Games aside, the console is awfully bulky by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Informative

    The 360 has about the same footprint as the PS3. Especially since the lastest craze is to flip the consoles on their sides.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  6. Re:Proof that "free trade" is overrated by HappySqurriel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Xbox 360 is a high quality game system at least on par with the PS3. The fact that the Japanese public won't buy it is basically proof in my eyes that they won't buy ANY American products. There's always some excuse about how the product isn't marketed right or built to their tastes, but the bottom line is they are biased against American products at the same time they are killing many of our industries.

    How many Americans spend a lot of money buying Japaneese Music, Movies, or Books?

    There are some, but they are a pretty small minority of the population. Do most American's ignore it because these Music, Movies and Books are poor quality? No! American culture is drastically different than Japaneese culture and they have completely different views on what makes good entertainment and what doesn't.

    The XBox has never taken off largely because it lacks the type of games Japaneese gamers like ...

  7. Re:American gaming market has the momentum by realityfighter · · Score: 2, Informative

    Japan's population is roughly equal to half that of the United States. Last year, Japanese consumers bought almost twice as many DS units (the best-selling handheld on the market) as American consumers did. And when I say American consumers, I mean the US and Canada. So your answer would be, no.

    --
    A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.