Home Gaming Japan hasn’t worked out for the Xbox 360 – How about sending that money this way?

Japan hasn’t worked out for the Xbox 360 – How about sending that money this way?

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10

FatNinja

It’s not like Microsoft hasn’t tried really hard to fit in with Japan but in the end if you are a fat white dude you are going to stand out pretty badly in Japan and people aren’t going to be your friend.

Despite Microsoft spending a ton of money on their Xbox 360 marketing campaign the sales in the land of the rising sun are nothing short of abysmal and what’s even worse are the sales figures of those wonderful Xbox 360 exclusives that Microsoft paid through the nose for.

Star Ocean (208k), Blue Dragon (203k), Tales of Vesperia (194k) and Last Remnant (154k) have all failed to break into the mainstream market in Japan and justify the millions that were pumped into their development.

Tales of Vesperia was recently ported to the PS3 and sold over 140k in it’s first day.

I’m not saying Microsoft should just give up on the Japanese market but I think they should relook at how important it is compared to how important they believe it is.

Japan used to be the centre of the gaming world but that is no longer the case and I for one would rather see Microsoft spending some of their warchest in developing countries like South Africa and the Middle East.

The cost of just a single one of those exclusives would have netted us official Xbox Live status and more income for Microsoft than they made out of those games.

But I think we may be flogging a dead horse on this one, Microsoft will continue to pump gazillions into Japan as they see Japan as more important to their global corporate structure than any developing country.

Source: GamesThirst

Last Updated: September 22, 2009

10 Comments

  1. fallen_angel

    September 22, 2009 at 09:26

    I have to agree Microsoft needs to spread the love around to this side of the ocean. Its going to take something really special for M$ to make a significant dent in the Japenese market. The sad thing is I only see this happen if one of the other two players goes under which won’t happen this generation.

    Reply

  2. easy

    September 22, 2009 at 09:40

    japan has an unemployment figure of around 4%, and a gdp of $4 trillion.
    south africa’s unemployment rate hovers around 25%, and its gdp is $280 billion.

    can any one do the maths here? :face:

    Reply

  3. Darkling

    September 22, 2009 at 09:52

    Sad,but true..

    Reply

  4. LazySAGamer

    September 22, 2009 at 09:54

    Yeah we only want 10% of the money they have spent in Japan and we will give them a greater ROI on that.

    I am sure Dubai, Brazil, Greece and Bulgaria feel the same.

    Give us 4 Live for 40% of Japan’s Xbox budget and they will see an improvement on their bottom line

    Reply

  5. LazySAGamer

    September 22, 2009 at 10:16

    er us 5 and yes I know Dubai is a city and the rest are countries

    Reply

  6. eXp

    September 22, 2009 at 10:23

    I wonder… if MS actually made XBL available here in sa, who would give up their old account + tag and move over? I wouldn’t, I’ve worked hard for my GS!

    Reply

  7. fallen_angel

    September 22, 2009 at 10:43

    I think it’s the principle that they spending oodles of resources on a market that clearly don’t give a hoot. If they truly want to grow their brand they need to support the other regions as well and look beyond just NA/EU/Japan.

    A lot of people get frustated that they being denied a service with no clear reason. If they actually came out and said that they not suppporting Live here because the market is not big enough then fine, instead of the usual we’ll inform you on a later date.

    Most people don’t have the inclination to go the extra mile and basically commit credit card fraud nor should anyone be put in that situation.

    Reply

  8. janrik

    September 22, 2009 at 10:48

    Yeah mate, even if lige became local, my primary account will remain my UK one.

    That 70k GS did not come cheap or easy!

    Reply

  9. krYtHan

    September 22, 2009 at 12:22

    If Microsoft got one of the heavy hitter RPG’s as an exclusive, then Japan would most definitely buy the console.

    Reply

  10. werewolf

    September 22, 2009 at 15:41

    To the Japanese, owning an xbox 360 is “unpatriotic”.

    Seriously, M$ needs to rethink its obsessive need make a dent in Japan when there are so many countries (including SA) where they could make more money combined.

    Reply

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