Microsoft’s Japanese Xbox woes discussed, dissected

With less than stellar numbers in Japan, the Xbox 360 isn’t exactly the biggest seller over there. Gamasutra recently had a talk with John Ricciardi of localization company 8-4, Ltd, and Brian Ashcraft, Kotaku’s Japanese correspondent, to help them figure out whether the Xbox 360 is really going anywhere in the region.

According to them, while Blue Dragon may have brought sales numbers into the five-digit range, it would take more than that to help Microsoft in the region. Ashcraft has mentioned that there are more Japan-centric titles such as The Idolm@sternow, which is helping the console to make up for the inability to take full advantage of its head-start. At the same time, the lack of support for Xbox Live’s Japanese online presence has also failed to better the 360’s position.

Perhaps Mr. Ricciardi best explained the problem as a matter of economics:

…There’s no market to work with in Japan, so unless you can get major backing from Microsoft or another publisher with a strong presence overseas, there’s no way to justify the risk involved to create a title that may wind up only selling to an audience of a couple hundred thousand.

We’d have to say, truer (and more sobering) words were never spoken.

With less than stellar numbers in Japan, the Xbox 360 isn’t exactly the biggest seller over there. Gamasutra recently had a talk with John Ricciardi of localization company 8-4, Ltd, and Brian Ashcraft, Kotaku’s Japanese correspondent, to help them figure out whether the Xbox 360 is really going anywhere in the region.

According to them, while Blue Dragon may have brought sales numbers into the five-digit range, it would take more than that to help Microsoft in the region. Ashcraft has mentioned that there are more Japan-centric titles such as The Idolm@sternow, which is helping the console to make up for the inability to take full advantage of its head-start. At the same time, the lack of support for Xbox Live’s Japanese online presence has also failed to better the 360’s position.

Perhaps Mr. Ricciardi best explained the problem as a matter of economics:

…There’s no market to work with in Japan, so unless you can get major backing from Microsoft or another publisher with a strong presence overseas, there’s no way to justify the risk involved to create a title that may wind up only selling to an audience of a couple hundred thousand.

We’d have to say, truer (and more sobering) words were never spoken.