The X1's reception in Japan

  • Thread starter Thread starter Speedster911
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The article already tells you why. Japan is PlayStation's and Nintendo's turf. Not surprised at all at a poor reception.

Also isn't there low XBox support over there? Someone else will have to confirm that.
 
There is. Mainly because most of the games that are put out for the console are done by Western developers with the US in their target audience. To put it into perspective on how badly the XBO did in Japan, here is a list of console launches in Japan with sales figures of their launch week (from release date to that Sunday) (H/T: AlphaOmegaSin):

11/27/1998 Sega Dreamcast moved 101,490 units in three days.
03/04/2000 Sony Playstation 2 sold 630,552 units in just two days.
09/14/2001 Nintendo Gamecube moved 133,719 units in 3 days.
02/22/2002 Microsoft Xbox went through 123,929 units in 3 days.
12/10/2005 Microsoft Xbox 360 sold 62,135 units in 2 days.
11/11/2006 Sony Playstation 3 moved 88,443 units in 2 days.
12/02/2006 Nintendo Wii moved 371,936 units in 2 days.
12/08/2012 Nintendo WiiU sold 308,570 units in 2 days.
02/22/2014 Sony Playstation 4 moved 322,083 units in 2 days.
09/04/2014 Microsoft Xbox One sold a measly 23,562 units in 4 days.

If we add portable consoles, for which data is available to the Gameboy Color, only the NeoGeo Pocket and the NeoGeo Pocket Color by SNK did worse than the Xbox One, with 21,471 and and 18,809 units sold respectively during their first week, while the definitely unsuccessful PSP Go managed to sell more, with 28,275 units sold in just one day.
 
The only reason Xbox is in Japan is because of the presence of the US military in the country.

If there were no presence I'm sure Microsoft won't even bother with Japan. It's not like Japan is the most important market anyway when it comes to consoles.
 
Portables rule the gaming industry over in Japan. Consoles dont tend to do well because most of the Japanese play 'on the move' or more socially than your average western gamer.
 
Lets remember, Japan is the place where Arcade gaming is still alive and well (so much so that a certain Japanese developer uses it to develop its games before they go to consoles) so that very likely factors in quite abit as well.
 
RACECAR
Lets remember, Japan is the place where Arcade gaming is still alive and well (so much so that a certain Japanese developer uses it to develop its games before they go to consoles) so that very likely factors in quite abit as well.
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It's amazing how true that is. I spent 2 weeks in Tokyo last year and the arcades there (of which there are a ridiculous number of) were completely packed with people and there were dozens of people queued up in line waiting to play.
 
Speedster911
Why are Japanese gamers so reluctant to get Microsoft consoles?
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Domestic option seems to be as good or even better this time :) And what is the greatest xbox game? Halo, a FPS game. Japanese are not very much interested in that genre.
 
I also read that, the Xbox was released last into japan so by the time the Japanese got it, Sony and Nintendo had been in the market for a few months.
 
Downhill Dino
Japan is PlayStation's and Nintendo's turf. Not surprised at all at a poor reception.
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Sanji Himura
There is. Mainly because most of the games that are put out for the console are done by Western developers with the US in their target audience.
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I would have thought this is the answer. Which makes me laugh in turn at the popularity of some Japanese video games series which are incredibly popular outside of Japan.

Also gives a little bit of perspective on GT fans who complain about the car selection in GT; Japanese manufacturers, publishers and developers still aim primarily at the Japanese market.
 
I'm not entirely sure about that, @Liquid. There has been a recent uptick in Japanese-developed games that are targeted to Western audiences. Granted, some of them haven't been up to par, however, the few games that have attempted to breach this barrier, Kingdom Hearts series, Bladestorm (Koei), Dynasty Warriors (also done by Koei), have very few things in common with what Western developers have done in order to be successful, but on the other hand, they also have markers that let anyone who only played Western developed games know that this was a Japanese developed game.
 
Either that or they saw the sales figures and decided not to throw money away on a system that only has acceptable sales figures in the USA.

That's acceptable if still losing out to PS4 on sales in their home market can somehow count as acceptable.
 

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