Has microsoft dropped interest in the Japanese Market?
- Thread starter PseudoKirby
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Aquamarine
Member
Numbers aren't public for NPD / Chart Track. You need to buy the data (and be put under an NDA) for that.
The 360 still has a reasonable foothold in most videogame stores here, which tells me that MS is continuing to support it to at least have a chance with retailers with the 720.
Kinect would always be a tough sell in Japan because of the space requirements, but Konami's Kinect-powered, and Kinect-labeled arcade machine Dance Evolution is in almost every arcade.
They are definitely stocking 360s still. The latest bundle released here came out in October and included the 250gb console and a couple of games for 20,000yen.
As for the iPhone, it is by far the most popular cellphone in Japan. However, there is a lot of domestic product that is very popular as well. Regza, Aquos, and Xperia phones are quite common and they/we have some crazy flip phones. A friend has a flip phone that is waterproof and has a solar charger on the outside. It also has things like an altimeter, barometer, TV antenna, and a built in DVR. Plus, I think the camera is 15mp!
Kinect would always be a tough sell in Japan because of the space requirements, but Konami's Kinect-powered, and Kinect-labeled arcade machine Dance Evolution is in almost every arcade.
They are definitely stocking 360s still. The latest bundle released here came out in October and included the 250gb console and a couple of games for 20,000yen.
As for the iPhone, it is by far the most popular cellphone in Japan. However, there is a lot of domestic product that is very popular as well. Regza, Aquos, and Xperia phones are quite common and they/we have some crazy flip phones. A friend has a flip phone that is waterproof and has a solar charger on the outside. It also has things like an altimeter, barometer, TV antenna, and a built in DVR. Plus, I think the camera is 15mp!
Japaneese gamers knew what they could expect from the west, it's not like they've not gotten western titles before... They knew about Xbox and Halo from before..
But imagine you're a japaneese consumer, wich mainly like games typical for the Japaneese.
You buy a Xbox 360 at November 20, 2005.
then you wait one year, and a month for:
Blue Dragon - December 7, 2006 - a new IP.
and another year later you get:
Lost Odyssey - December 6, 2007 - a new IP.
and the next year you get two big games,
Tales of Vesperia - August 7, 2008 - a really well known franchise, wich is extremely popular in Japan.
Infinite Undiscovery - September 11, 2008 - a new IP.
and the next year you get:
Star Ocean - February 19, 2009 - a really well known franchise.
and 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 - nothing on the horizon.
I think that if MS wants to succeed in Japan, I think they will need to get some studios wich can provide steady support for their own platform there, and show the gamers and japaneese studios that they're there to stay. Not just buy one game each fall.
It might not be a huge success in the start, but if first party don't believe enough in their ability to break into the market, why should third party do that?
go dig through the old npd threads and look for the leak posts.
no ones going to do it for you
Anecdotal but I've been living here almost 3 years? Hmm Japanese people love iPhones that's very very clear. They put their "pride" away for it. I think that's a little exaggerated anyway
Last Remnant? Dark Souls? Eternal Sonata? Resonance of Fate? Phantasy Star Universe (though I know PS is more popular in the west, generally)?
And then all the Idea Factory crap, the Success RPG, and Enchanted Arms, which are the dregs.
Not fantastic, but still a much longer list of RPGs than you mentioned.
gutter_trash
Banned
the Japanese market never cared about outside games, so let's stop caring about them
robertlebrone
Member
Me either.
Could have sworn the last survey I've seen has 4 US brands in the top 10. specifically: Apple, Google, Youtube and Disney.
I think the quoted member was definitely exaggerating for effect. I took it as that and don't really see how it's offensive. Then again, I'm not Japanese.
I think their "xenophobia" does however, have bearing on the discussion. I personally think that their high resistance to non-Japanese brands is the major reason the 360 failed to sell well in Japan.
Isn't Europe like 23:30 (million) 360
S3, the U.S is 40:26 and Japan like 1.5:9. That ratio suggests a bias to me, especially considering the 1 year head start and effort MS put into winning over the Japanese consumer (not saying that they spent their money well, of course, their marketing in Japan may well be crappy).StreetsAhead
Member
"Let's prove them wrong by doing exactly what they're doing" is such an immature response.
Not a fair comparison, really. It's also not much of a choice, considering each one of these brands have a monopoly on what they do. Want a good phone? Apple. Want to search the internet? Well, there's Google, you know. Everyone on earth has always accepted Disney and Youtube is pretty much a global phenomenon for videos.
There's not many Japanese alternatives to any of these, so they accept them by default of not having an alternative.
Apples and oranges here, sorry. No pun intended.
Related anecdote.
Was talking to a grade 10 the other day. We were discussing the top brands around the world. He thought that Japanese brands were still as dominant as 5 or 10 years ago. Was surprised to hear that Samsung was bigger than Sony or Panasonic with many products.
At one point he lamented Sony's decline like they were his favorite soccer team or something. You'd think that the actual quality, price, etc of the product had no relation to its success.
Was talking to a grade 10 the other day. We were discussing the top brands around the world. He thought that Japanese brands were still as dominant as 5 or 10 years ago. Was surprised to hear that Samsung was bigger than Sony or Panasonic with many products.
At one point he lamented Sony's decline like they were his favorite soccer team or something. You'd think that the actual quality, price, etc of the product had no relation to its success.
citation needed
StreetsAhead
Member
Do you live in Japan?
It were just meant as an example of why I didn't believe it were such a tremendous effort effort to gain foothold in Japan, not a complete releaselist.
I didn't believe it were a complete release-list, but it were probably the biggest games you needed a 360 to play.
Dark Souls weren't available on 360 in Japan, From software published it themselves there, and it were PS3 only, until the PC-version came.
Most of the other games could usually be gotten on other Platforms aswell as 360.
If they wanted to make it big, they should have gone after studios like Game Republic, when they closed down. Or created some new ones, wich were supposed to make games geared mainly towards Asian consumers.
Crash Station
Member
I think the quoted member was definitely exaggerating for effect. I took it as that and don't really see how it's offensive. Then again, I'm not Japanese.
I think their "xenophobia" does however, have bearing on the discussion. I personally think that their high resistance to non-Japanese brands is the major reason the 360 failed to sell well in Japan.
Isn't Europe like 23:30 (million) 360
There's definitely a bias, but I don't necessarily think it's 100% related to xenophobia. I remember there was a survey a while ago where someone at MS asked 2ch or something why they didn't want a 360. This is a place known for its crazy, right-wing racism, yet a good chunk of the responses talked about advertising and the lack of appealing games. To me, that says a combination of a lack of research, shitty advertising, and little brand power was more the reason for the state of 360 in Japan than an unwillingness to buy foreign products.
This post begs to differ:
Chuck Norris
Banned
They caught the big fish, no need to keep throwing the net in for the small fries.
None of those brands are a monopoly.
exactly.
Japan has loads of their own smartphones, niconico and yahoo is the most popular search engine.
I don't get the lack of appealing games thing as a reason. It took the PS3 something like 2 or more years to come close to the 360 in terms of library in Japan and even with that 3 year head start the ratio is far more unbalanced than in Europe or the States.
As for people arguing over Youtube. Why the hell did Japan have to adopt Niconico Douga? What other countries have their own country specific Youtube replacement.
I don't like that shit and feels like it happens in Japan a bunch. I don't want to have to be a member of Mixi and Facebook just to be able to keep in touch with all my friends. At least Japanese people are finally starting to adopt Facebook to some degree. Who cares where it came from, the functionality and amount of people who use it should be the most important things.
China?
Which lends credence to the theory that Japan would rather create a totally new thing for themselves than adapt a little to the most popular/widespread option.
Remember how all those B shooters that Sony released (Resistance, Killzone, Socom) over here (in the US) helped the PS3 outsell the 360? Neither do I. It seems only natural that getting IU, LO and the LR aren't going to mean as much as MGS4 and FF13 (back when the brand was damaged) or even Sony's own Hot Shots Golf/Everybody's Golf.
Pretty sure China has Yooku, which is pretty blatant.
Sure. Look at the ratios though. I referred to it earlier. The major difference suggests more bias to me.
If you are referring to what I said then I'll point out that I never mentioned which was more popular. I agree that Youtube is probably the more popular service.
Lol? Because PS3 fans are more logical and reserved?
Wait how? Doesn't the fact other countries (pretty sure it's not just china btw) also have youtube clones basically refute your point?
Night_Trekker
Member
I just don't see how in the world MS could ever make real progress in the Japanese market.
That's not to say it isn't possible, but... plenty of things are technically "possible" which won't ever happen.
That's not to say it isn't possible, but... plenty of things are technically "possible" which won't ever happen.
Is it a black and white thing? I'm not suggesting that it is nor that any one thing proves that Japan is either black or white in the argument.
Surely (and this applies to Japan, China and any other country where it is true) the Youtube example does suggest that Japan is closer to the "xenophobic" end of the scale (probably somewhere in all the grey in the middle) than a country that doesn't need its own equivalent.
Darrcyphfeid
Neo Member
Of the ones Victor mentioned, The Last Remnant was announced as a multiplatform (PS3/X360) release from day one. The Xbox 360 version released worldwide on time, with the PS3 version never materializing. A significantly improved PC port was released a year later. Eternal Sonata was announced as an X360 exclusive, and remained so for exactly a year -- just as Tales of Vesperia and Star Ocean: The Last Hope did. ToV's release actually caused the X360 to outsell PS3 for something like 6 consecutive weeks; similarly the improved PS3 port announced later caused a ton of negative backlash for Namco. Phantasy Star Universe was also available on PS2 and PC; the X360 servers outlasted both by a year or two, shockingly.
There were other driving forces, though. If memory serves both Idolmaster and Dream Club were exclusive to X360 in Japan, and basically kept that thing alive by itself for years before the series migrated over to PS3. There was an exclusive Tenchu game, Ninja Blade (also by From Software), an exclusive Katamari Damacy, countless Cave shmup ports that never appeared on PS3, a handful of visual novels like Steins;Gate, super niche/indie RPG offerings like Students of Round, Gears of War had some pretty impressive penetration (and influence) as I recall, etc. Microsoft also worked hard to ensure that adopters of it consoles would miss as little as possible; Resident Evil 5, Devil May Cry 4, and Final Fantasy XIII among countless others went multiplatform. In fact, the only two that I remember not going multiplatform were Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy Versus XIII -- and the latter probably just because it's still yet to be properly displayed. They even broke some of their now seemingly non-negotiable policies to let Final Fantasy XI play on the same servers as PC and PS2 players.
Microsoft's dealings pre-Kinect, frankly, were as aggressive and impressive as what Nintendo is doing right now. Japan simply wasn't having any of it, even when PS3 was woefully overpriced and not getting any real traction. I honestly don't know if it was xenophobia or not, but I just can't see how Microsoft could have done (on the surface; those pricing issues are a concern, as well as the talk of needing to sign on for 3 games before being granted publishing rights) anything more than they did barring better app services, which it also needs for Canada and the UK. And I don't think that would have actually helped; even in the US that stuff is just a "bonus" if you're already playing for online multiplayer and cross-game party chat.
People knew the next potential big titles from Square and Level 5 were in the making for PS3, aswell as Sony have several first party studios making games for Japaneese gamers, and also hired third party studios to make games for them (like Demon's Souls).
It also took a while until PS3 outsold PS2, so it weren't automatically go to PS3 as soon as it released, most people didn't buy until there were enough games they wanted.
Nico Nico Douga's first version used youtube as videosource, before the traffic became to big and youtube blocked them. So it's not like they had any choice.
They started their own video-server sharing after a 2 week down-period.
Videosharing on phones have been used longer in Japan, since they've had much better phones and bandwith than us for a while, it's just now the last few years, after Smartphones came along we're getting the good stuff aswell, and have any use for services like youtube on phones.
And I think perhaps that's why they created niconico, to share videos on phones, and get local comments, rather than japaneese not wanting to use a American product.
StreetsAhead
Member
How exactly does having a domestic competitor to Youtube suggest that, at all?
Niconico does offer certain features Youtube does not, too, which may go toward explaining some of its popularity. Japanese Youtube was, until recently, poorly localised (like many Western sites).
Inconclusive. Heck, for all we know Microsoft came to the same conclusion that we did and stopped bothering.
I'm not sure the pc market is a viable market in that region. Everybody's Golf, GT, and Yakuza?
Nope.
Niconico popularity had a lot to do with comment culture--to the point where most Youtube reuploads of Niconico videos include them, even though it's more work than a straight-up video rip. This probably has something to do with the speed-readability of Japanese, and contributes to insularity because you need to be literate to get the point, but it could easily have happened on Youtube if they had implemented the idea.
As for the topic at hand, MS is a company of big pushes for big wins and cracking the shrinking Japanese console market is neither doable with a single big push nor a potential (short term) big win.
I assume you mean Japan..
I guess Gran Turismo, Hot Shots Golf, Yakuza, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid 4 were the biggest established franchises wich were exclusive to PS3, wich joe average in Japan would know about and be excited for in it's early life.
In addition there were new franchises like Valkyria Chronicles, White Knight Chronicles, and Demons Souls, wich might have been looking interesting.
If you mean the world there are abit more franchises, like God of War, MLB, Ratchet, etc.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
make the case that japan and j-rpgs matter
Not trying to be patronizing but have you lived in Japan?
My experience tells me that Japan is more resistant to outside influence than say Australia.
I feel like it is perfectly logical with it being an island country and having a long history of being culturally closed.
There are a million examples of it in daily life. Take Indian food, there are a million Indian restaurants and Japanese people love curry (again a bastardized version of it changed to their tastes as the authentic stuff would never take off) but every single one of them offers pretty much exactly the same dishes and it needs to be tailored to Japanese tastes to succeed. Italian is the same, the amount of restaurants is staggering but in hundreds of places next to none of them offer a staple like ravioli.
I'm not sure that xenophobia is the right term, it's just the one that was being thrown around. I do however think that, on a scale that measures how open a culture/country is to "stuff" from outside/other countries that Japan would be pretty low on that list due to a whole bunch of different factors.
And from some "experts" on the subject:
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
i just gave you the us number, and the citation is npd
the european numbers aren't public, but i can tell you that #100 on the german weekly charts isn't exactly a high hurdle to clear.
Counterpoint: General Tso.
Historical popularity and pop-culture embeddedness in the SEA market combined with huge potential market (~= all of PAL) when China liberalizes.
Is what?
Drawing the conclusion that Japan can't accept outside influence because their takeout Indian cuisine is bastardized and broadly uniform is about as sensical as walking into nearly any Chinese restaurant in the west and drawing the same conclusion.
Probably less so, I can't say I'm a huge hole-in-the-wall curry joint connoisseur but I don't believe they tend to use the same printed menus with the only the restaurant name changed.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Given that the case against Japan is "historical popularity is in decline, and other markets offer more effective investment opportunities given rapid expansion", I'm not sure "historical popularity" is a case for Japan.
1) Is there a particular reason to believe that Microsoft will be less able to break into China at some future point due to a weak position in Japan? IE that investing now is crucial, because investing later when China is a viable market won't work, and investments elsewhere now can't pay dividends in China later.
2) Although I know Sony does good SEA business and Nintendo has emphasized its Korean operations in recent years, it's not clear to me that either would consider "Asia outside Japan" as a bigger market than even the minor European markets. It seems to me like EMEA/Latin-South America investments are key to both Sony's firewall and Microsoft's upside growth more than SEA.
I mean, ideally every company wants to be #1 in every market. You can make the case that Nauru matters because 10 sales is better than 0 sales, but Nauru doesn't matter in the sense that no one would ever make Nauru an objective, right, so in terms of being on, say, the top 5-top 8 radar for Microsoft, does Japan make sense?