August 2009

Present Situation of Xbox 360 in Japan

Present Situation of Xbox 360 in Japan
Xbox 360 is difficult in Japan.
It is the Second in terms of world's share. However here in Japan, Wii's console sale is top, then comes PS3 and Xbox 360 is the last. Though Xbox 360 launched one year before PS3, it was a hard fight for it to hit 1 million.
This was accomplished on March, 2009. It launched in Japan on December, 2005, so took 4 years for that.
By the way, PS3 hits 3 millions.
And there is another factor affecting the actual sales of Xbox 360 in Japan right?
That's true. You know Xbox 360 can be malfunction easily, and the same user is buying a few Xbox 360s to replace, so the actual number of users should be less but that is not the point. The specific problem in Japan is...
Is?
Most of the sales is for further export towards Asia market.
You mean for illegal customize in order to play pirate software.
We will talk about that later. But you should note that the so-called 1 million sales in Japan actually included the amount for further export and those for replacing malfunction consoles.
Got it.
By the way, my Xbox 360 failed to work and I bought a new one. So I have contributed 2 for the 1 million figure.
There is nothing proud for that...
As for software, the best sales figure is 0.2 million. As the actual number of users is less than 1 million, this mean that 1 out of 4 Xbox 360 users bought the same software.
And the titles are Star Ocean: The Last Hope (Star Ocean 4), Tales of Vesperia and Blue Dragon.
They all sold 0.2 million. On the contrary, famous foreign title like Halo 3 only sold 80 thousand.
But it sold 10 million worldwide.
By the way, 1 out of that 80 thousand figure is contributed by me.
No one care about that...
So from the point of view of foreigners, situation of Xbox 360 in Japan is unbelievable. We will talk about the reasons for that another time. Let's grasp the difficult situation of Xbox 360 here in Japan first.

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Japanese Female Gamers

Japanese Female Gamers
So today is about Japanese female gamers.
Though some countries maybe different, I think the image of gaming is basically "For Men".
But we've got NDS and Wii now, and girls playing games are no longer odd.
Of course we had many female gamers before now too. But here in Japan, guys playing games are said to be one of the most dislikeful types of men, young women hate gamers. So female gamers were unlikely to admit their gaming life in the past.
Women hate guys watching anime and manga too.
They simply hate OTAKU. As we said many times, female OTAKU exist. But questionnaire from ladies' magzines still get a result showing "Women hate OTAKU".
And nowadays, Nintendo changes this situation.
The Big N is not the only factor, but its role is great.
As for female gamers, what type of games they play?
They love those games which are female-targeted, easy to understand huh. Games with beautiful girl characters are loved by male gamers, and female gamers just play games which have handsome guy characters.
I play that frequently too.
No one care about you...
But the share of that is not big.
Female also love those games which can connect with friends, such as NDS' "Animal Crossing", which hits overseas. Recently Big N's "Tomodachi Collection (Friends Collection)" is hot. Male users exist, but mainly for female I suppose.
Animal Crossing hits 5 millions sales in Japan alone. With overseas' stats, it hits 10 millions. So you can figure it out how hot it is in Japan. And the reason of the boom is the expanding female gamers population.
Complete stats of Tomodachi Collection is still not available, but it sold 0.1 million per week for more than 2 months. Sales still increasing. 1 million is a must, we should look forward to 2 million.
In that sense, games connecting people is hot among female gamers. Communication tools such as mail through SNS and mobile phone are mainly used by female too.
And we can find many playing Dragon Quest 9 now. You can see many women holding their NDS in train or tram. If you look into the screen most are playing Dragon Quest 9.
Dragon Quest is the hottest RPG in Japan. We've got many female users in the past, and this time just increasing.
As they play with NDS outdoor, the boom is clear to grasp this time.
And I feel that nowadays female have a bigger chance to touch gaming.
But the fact is they won't play PS3 and Xbox 360. How to increase the female users population will be the key for PS3 and Xbox 360 to expand their market share in Japan.
PS3 and Xbox 360 have many interesting games too. I hope more people can try it out.

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