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Japan Dumps The 360 After One Night Stand
Recently, the Xbox 360 division of IGN wrote an article about the system’s failed launch in Japan. After listing off a litany of reasons why the 360 has become an unmitigated flop in Japan, however, IGN goes on to state that the 360’s future looks bright in Japan. IGN then proceeds to list a small hand full of games each of which IGN believes has the potential to “kick-start Xbox 360 sales in Japan.”
To which Pink Godzilla responds,
“Hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… Hold on, hold on let me catch me breath. Okay… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha… hahahahahahaha…”
The Xbox 360 was DOA in Japan. And no I’m not talkin’ polygon-breastesses -and-bikinis DOA; I’m talkin’ DEAD ON ARRIVAL. Pink Godzilla was in Tokyo just months after the “big” launch to witness the carnage first hand. Every store that we visited (in our failed attempt to find a DS Lite) had stacks of used 360’s literally piled to the ceiling. We’re talking USED systems, people. Which, contrary to IGN's hypothesis, means that Japanese consumers are not waiting for Microsoft to develop the killer-ap.
Rather, the Japanese gamer treated the 360 like some ko-garu that they regrettably nanpa-ed the night before. “Wham, bam – no thank you Bill Gates,” was the response as Japanese gamers dumped the system (in many instances the day after purchase) receiving only a fraction of what they paid. So if nobody owns the system, how are publishers supposed to sell their high-budget games? In short, they can’t and they're not. And if you’re thinking Halo 3 will fix this mess, think again because the Japanese don’t care about first-person shooters.
Pink Godzilla’s advice to Xbox Japan: “Place a call to Dr. Kevorkian, and put an end to the misery.” The Xbox 360 is selling quite well in North America and Europe with its decent line-up of decidedly Western games. Microsoft should circle the wagons and focus its efforts and money in these markets that embrace the hypnotic green swirl.
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Comments
I bought a "video card" that snaps onto the back of my PS1, with the silly belief it would play VCD's. It DIDN'T. It did, however, have graphics implying that this would be possible.
I thought it was defective, so I bought another brand off of e-bay. Barring that they are "defective", do I need to mod my ps1 for them to work? (yes, it's an American PS1, the video cards are not).
Posted by: Chris Northcross | July 3, 2006 07:28 PM
i hate X-box, next...
Posted by: FEAR206 | July 3, 2006 10:40 PM
Grow up guys, Japan is a smaller market than both NA and Europe.
Posted by: some guy | July 4, 2006 11:03 PM
It's not THAT small. If you look at the sales figures in Japan, the 360 is essentially dead to them...
Posted by: schadarapa![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.pinkgodzillagames.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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July 5, 2006 09:23 AM
Grow up guys... What kind of comment is that? This article is just stating what is known, the 360 is a piece of sh*t. There are numbers that support this FACT. The NDS sold 3.5 million this year in Japan, where as the 360 sold an astounding 55,000. So really, the Japan market is not that small. They just recognize what is a good or a not so good system when they see it.
Posted by: Pixel![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.pinkgodzillagames.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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July 5, 2006 01:35 PM
Japan does not soley produce or success, in fact NA & Europe do. They both are larger markets than Japan. Just because you guys have a "thing" for Japan doesn't mean you can deny the real economics. PG is losing major points in my book.
Posted by: some guy | July 5, 2006 09:46 PM
And Pixel, how does poor sales in Japan indicate if something is ****? I guess I should only buy Japanese products from now on because I can't trust *anything* made in the US, Europe, China, etc.
Posted by: some guy | July 5, 2006 09:51 PM
Dumping on Japan because of it's supposed small market is a really stupid idea considering that the modern electronic gaming industry was essentially built in Japan.
Ever since the crash of the mid-80's every dominant console company in America has been Japanese. Nintendo, Sega, and Sony are all Japanese companies. Also, nearly every noteworthy game in the past 20 years has come from Japanese developers.
The failure of the X-Box in Japan has nothing to do with the size of their market. It has to do with the inability of Microsoft to understand the unique tastes of Japanese gamers and develop games that will appeal to them.
If you look at Famitsu's year-to-date console sales and break the numbers down you'll see that the DS Lite alone has sold 45 times more units than the X-Box 360. If you count all Nintendo consoles against the X-Box than Nintendo is outselling Microsoft 67-1. And even if you take out the portable systems the X-Box 360 is just barely outselling the earlier generation GameCube.
Posted by: Number Johnny Five![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.pinkgodzillagames.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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July 6, 2006 08:51 AM
And if you look at the global market, the Xbox outsold the gamecube.
Posted by: some guy | July 6, 2006 09:38 AM
bottom line line is that the industry looks to japan for alot. the fact the the 360 is flop over there says alot... and i would not call a market that bought almost 4 million ds lites small in any words. the 360 has power but not the games to back it up. facts people.
Posted by: Fenix | July 6, 2006 10:22 AM
The market maybe smaller in terms of numbers, but historically Japan is the mother (father?) of console gaming.
The bottom line is that there has never been a console that has been number 1 on a world wide scale but not number 1 in Japan. In other words, if you aren't number 1 in Japan then you aren't number 1 in the world.
This may change in the future at some point, but it is likely it will stay that way for a while.
Posted by: David | July 10, 2006 09:37 AM
Spending a lot of time in Japan I would like to say that, almost to all the ppl in the "otaku" industry I know, the problem with 306 is pretty simple: why ppl should buy it? The problem is not that it's made in USA, the problem with all PS2, NDS, and all the retro game to be played why pp should get a new, but not so great console? I mean, try to play DOA4 in akihabara on a normal TV (not HD) and then you will understand why japanese gamers dont like it! Why selling an HD console in a country where gamers still use little normal catodic TVs and where FPS got 3% of PC gaming market?!
The big issue is not that if you dont sell in Japan your console is doomed, the big issue is that games market is saturated and ppl will choose what to buy and this REALLY scares SONY and Microsoft... while Nintendo is selling millions of DS(lite) considere d, by many so called experts, a doomed system created only to fight the ovehelming PSP...
ALL the peopel I know in the inustry in Japan say: who will spend 60.000 yen for PS3?!
Posted by: Frankie | July 23, 2006 12:54 PM
Wow... after 12 months seems that I was right about the future of PS3 and Japan... ^_^ Yokatta!
Posted by: Frankie | June 23, 2007 02:21 PM