Hikari On The Subject

XFlop 360: Japan Launch Bombed Away

The XBox 360 Launched in Japan and guess what? Nobody cared! Funny that...! MS actually thought that if they get a head start worldwide they could put a dent in Sony's onslaught that will be the Playstation 3. Little problem; if noone's lining up to buy your goods, a headstart? Meaningless!

The problem is worsened by the fact, that some Japanese retailers, who on average started out selling the 360, for around $350 American, are now running the system out for the equalvalent of $150 bucks. And this system just launched a couple of days ago. This means MS probably has less than a year to pull a killer app out of the hat; a univerally appealing game that will blow everyone away the worldwide, if they want to sell 360 units in the land o' the rising sun. The need to do this and they need to do it quickly.

I've said before, letting the rest of the world wait a few months and letting the US have the 360 first and spread the word all over the internet would have been a better course of action; they could've built up their list of games and given them more varity, gotten more systems out to the US gamers, and they could've released in the other countries with a lot more weight than they have.

One thing Sony had over Mircosoft is that MS didn't have a lot of the Japanese companies backing them like Sony. This is one of things that kept them from reaching number one. MS seriously needs to win over the Japanese developers if they want to hook the Japanese public. They need the RPGs; the Final Fantasies, Dragon Quests, Kingdom Hearts. The need stuff like Katamari Damacy, and Devil May Cry.

They need to soak the XBox 360 in wasabai, wrap it in seaweed, and call it sushi! They need to to make the XBox 360 attractive and sexy to Japanese Gamers, but as of right now, they still aren't buying what MS is selling.

posted by Teksuo Hikari @ 8:16 PM