Tuesday, November 21st 2017
Microsoft Xbox One X Falls Short of Expectations in Japan - Again
Cracking Japan's console market has always been a tough - read: almost impossible - feat for Microsoft. For generations now, Microsoft has failed to achieve any kind of market penetration in that country. To put things in perspective, Xbox One's sales in japan have been so low that retailers in Japan started marketing and selling the consoles as Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray readers, not as gaming consoles. For Microsoft, that would have been fine - a sale is a sale is a sale, and the Xbox One never was sold at a loss like previous hardware generations - but it just goes to show that the Japanese market doesn't really care much for the typical games Microsoft offers with its console. The relative abundance of JRPGs and other typical games for which the Japanese crowds usually lean towards the most are relatively absent from Microsoft's staples of exclusives, which probably justifies this cold stance towards Microsoft's console. But to be fair, japan is one of the foremost mobile gaming countries in the world, so that definitely has something to do with it as well.
According to Japanese Famitsu, the Xbox One X managed to move... 1,639 units at launch. This means that the Xbox One X was outsold by virtually all consoles - The PS4 (23,613 units), PS4 Pro (6,028 units), Nintendo Switch (84,593 units), and was even outsold by the PS Vita, 3DS, and 2DS XL. It only snagged wins against previous-generation hardware (like the PS3 and Wii U) or Microsoft's own other console - The Xbox One S. A bittersweet victory, to say the least. The fact that the Xbox One X did get sold-out in Japan is telling - but that did happen because of the low orders Japanese retailers put in for the new console. Some 4 consoles later, they know that barring a black swan, Microsoft isn't setting a foothold in Japanese gamers' living rooms.
Sources:
Famitsu, via PCMag
According to Japanese Famitsu, the Xbox One X managed to move... 1,639 units at launch. This means that the Xbox One X was outsold by virtually all consoles - The PS4 (23,613 units), PS4 Pro (6,028 units), Nintendo Switch (84,593 units), and was even outsold by the PS Vita, 3DS, and 2DS XL. It only snagged wins against previous-generation hardware (like the PS3 and Wii U) or Microsoft's own other console - The Xbox One S. A bittersweet victory, to say the least. The fact that the Xbox One X did get sold-out in Japan is telling - but that did happen because of the low orders Japanese retailers put in for the new console. Some 4 consoles later, they know that barring a black swan, Microsoft isn't setting a foothold in Japanese gamers' living rooms.
32 Comments on Microsoft Xbox One X Falls Short of Expectations in Japan - Again
Japan ain't ignoring Hugo Boss and co either.
Japan is not interested in the Xbox because the Xbox does not provide games that they care about, Nintendo and Sony do so obviously they go for those.
Obviously Japan does not purchase a lot of outside Japan electronics because Japan makes the best electronics... that is just a fact.
Its not for nothing people speak of for example "japanese capacitors" in power supplies as a means to mention that its a quality product.what? not up to us to say if they embrace a product?
you act like its some opinion when we are talking cold hard low volume sales here... we are just looking at the numbers and by that we can tell they are not embracing the new Xbox.
A friend studying in japan said he was surprised to see many people having a nintendo ds or psp with them.
Most foreign game developers either pass or don't expect getting into the japanese market much. Blizzard does whatever it takes to appeal chinese and korean customers but only support hots and ow in japanese.
Apart from that it's not even just the lack of JRPGs, it's a lack of exclusives overall on XB1/S/X. Honestly the US sales for XB1X seem more out of Xbox nostalgia and hope that Microsoft will get their act together finally on decent XB1 exclusives. But when all they have coming is Crackdown 3 (delayed and does not look great), and Sea of Thieves (looks good but too early to say if it will have depth or be challenging enough to be a hit), it's hard to be very optimistic. Microsoft has just completely dropped the ball on games this gen.
It's bad enough that I have both XB1 and a PS4, and I use my XB1 for Netflix just to put some hours on it to get some use out of it and save hours on my PS4. Not exactly a resounding endorsement.
Fixed. Pc is for a different target. Look at its most sucessful games and figure it out.
I'd be more interested to see how sales end up in Europe since there isn't a major console hardware company there and its tastes differ from both Japan and the US. Asia excluding Japan is the other interesting place for the same reasons though their tastes tend to have more in common with Japan than the US.
As a side note, Microsoft actually tried to get some support to appeal to the Japanese market way back when the original Xbox (HUEG) launched. They paid a bunch of Japanese devs to develop games for their console. They didn't get a lot of devs and it didn't take off. Microsoft hasn't tried since and can't seem to attract Japanese devs for their consoles. Cave (shump maker) and Experience (DRPG maker) are the only two Japanese devs I can think of that really made games for a Microsoft console, and those were ports (Arcade and PC, respectively). As of now, Microsoft's Japanese market is basically the Japanese-equivalent of weeaboos.That's due to a glut of similar types of games that haven't changed much. They end up re-using the same tropes in the same way for so long that audiences find them less endearing than they used to. Nintendo has always managed to do their own thing and they don't spam releases now: more or less it's been that each platform only gets one franchise entry; one Super Mario, one Mario Kart, one Zelda, one Smash Bros., etc.
But at least the Japanese companies are aware themselves. Some have done better than others. Square Enix's new IP I Am Setsuna did well. Meanwhile, Sega still can't make a good Sonic game. That mobile platform is also very tempting and not helping things. Amusingly, SNK got out of the pachislot business and back into video games only under the direction of their new Chinese overlords (and being profitable again!).
This is one of the reason sony won over xbox in japan. They have more Japanese titles then xbox.