Just when you think Microsoft could do no worse in Japan, the console proves that, yes, it can do even worse. Much worse.
After a dismal Japan launch and then horrible sales, the latest weekly Xbox One sales for Japan are, simply put, awful. During the week of June 8 to June 14, Microsoft sold a hundred Xbox One consoles in Japan. That’s right, one hundred.
Here’s how the sales hardware sales chart shapes up for that week:
[via 4Gamer]
This data is from Media Create, which tracks game software and hardware sales in Japan.
Yes, yes, I know that any of the home consoles aren’t exactly tearing up the sales charts, but compare the Xbox One numbers to the other consoles. Then, think about selling a hundred Xbox Ones in a week in a country of over 120 million people? Ouch.
You know, now might be a good time to seriously reconsider even selling the console in Japan.
Top photo: Kino_and_Hermes
Comments
33 responses to “Xbox One Reaches A New Low In Japan”
Sounds like a great idea of a TV series. We’ll could call it ‘The 100’.
I think everyone knew that The Xbone being released in Japan was more for keeping up appearances than anything else.
Not me! I had no idea there was no market for it in Japan, I’m not privy to the reasons why Japanese gamers refuse to by Xbox one products though.
Well Japanese buy consoles to play games, not for a tv box. Their free channels are excellent have enough shows on their own unlike our western market where pay tv dominate the market.
If you only choose to play games, would you choose the platform that have more games? There are tons of Japanese titles on PS4 that we don’t have and from the beginning the adoption rate of Xbox has been low that Japanese developers don’t want to invest on it.
Not to mention, Sony is their own company.
The only country I know have high sales of Xbox is America because most of their feature were built for America since launch and they buy it for the brand as shown in a survey quite awhile back.
This was exactly what I was hoping someone would explain to me, thank you! 🙂
Theres like one TV feature I doubt this would be the reason, I believe its the types of games found on the consoles them selves and the JP market are more into JRPGS but the xbox is more bro FPS.
Halo or GOW have never been big in Japan.
Which I mentioned, low adoption rate makes Japanese developers refuse to make games on Xbox. Would you make a game knowing you will have profit loss?
They did try to make japanese developers on Xbox, there are games like Chaos;Child but not helping sales at all. It is just completely dead.
I agree its the games and not because of some TV feature found on the xbox that no one even uses.
In Australia I chose the console i thought had better games I dont think anyone or country in this case is really that ignorant to think of the xbox as a TV box. I could be wrong.
Well you said it yourself, you don’t even use the tv feature, would you buy a weaker console with tv features that you wil not use?
It was a joke when it was released in Australia. Half functionality disabled and you can only play games on it and yet it still run worst than ps4. Regretting my purchase so much :p
Half? The TV feature is a drop in the ocean of features, especially love the snap feature and use it all the time…
I dont regret my purchase at all. I actually have two xbox one’s now doubling up on all my games from one purchase. Especially after watching this years E3 definitely made the right choice.
@nemalive good for you buddy. It’s never wrong which console your choose. Personally I get more out of my ps4 so that is my console of choice. More of a PlayStation title guy since I’m more familiar with them since psone.
I was going to get a PS4, but doubling up on the games from one purchase is a big deal for me seeing theres 6 gamers in my household and the wife n I I love playing all things co-op and last gen the PS3 hardly got touched probably due to the co-op reason and the fact i had 2 360’s ( i have 3 now ) and my kids love minecraft. ( i was also doubling up on games during 360 gen too)
I think its down to the games not hardware, dead rising 3 on launch made me decide to choose xbox over ps, to be honest i wasnt sure until i saw the launch titles. PS has a few exclusives i wouldn’t mind playing but don’t get into jrpg’s so the double games trumps this. each to their own 🙂
I do have some PS history, when i first met my wife she had monster rancher on PS1 and i would bring my music CD’s over to try and see what creature we would get…and well the rest is history 🙂
What about PlayStation TV or Playstation Vue?
You mean PlayTV from PS3 or the recent Playstation TV? Playstation TV is just to play Vita/psONE/any compatible games on bigger screen. Play TV…. well we all know how that went.
Vue is just Sony’s attempt to compete Xbox in the western market in terms of their TV stuff. Nothing earth breaking anyway I have netflix 😛
I’m gonna show some cultural ignorance here – Is Xbox’s suffering in Japan indicative of the greater fuck-up that Mattrick and Balmer did to the Xbox brand or is it just a combination of patriotism and familiarity with PlayStation? What were the 360 numbers like?
I think it’s Japanese brand loyalty. Xbox as a brand in Japan has always performed poorly.
To some extent could also be a case of Japanese companies (particularly Nintendo) pandering to the Japanese market.
There’s a reason Nintendo love region locking so much and it isn’t because they love all markets equally. I don’t know if anyone can tell me what Nintendo charges for games on the Japanese Nintendo Store, but last week the Australian Store went out of its way to advertise that they were selling Starfox 64, a 4 year old, digitally downloaded remake of a 17 year old game for ONLY $49, down from the standard price of $70!
I’m assuming that if their sales are that good, then Nintendo don’t treat their home market as badly as they treat Australians.
Prices are also high in japan.
I’m fairly sure its more the patriotism than anything else, but also a lot of Japanese style games are more prevaliant on the ps4 – ones that either never make it to the west, or moster westerners really dont care about. I’m sure the RRoD fiasco didnt help much either though.
That’s not patriotism, that’s just a tailored product 🙂 Patriotism would be buying the PS4 because Sony makes it, even though the Xbox had much better games and the like specifically made for the Japanese market. But it doesn’t.
Yeah I was saying it was mainly patriotism And maybe the other stuff.
Yeah, I’m almost 100% sure that it’s patriotism. Nationalism is massive in Japan and Sony has a really positive brand image there.
And yeah, there are a lot of Japanese games that never make it out of Japan and they are all for the PS4 because it’s way easier for Japanese developers to get their unique games approved for release on a Japanese console than some US-developed one.
So the 100 people who DID buy them I picture them as people from other countries living in Japan or there are some rebels who buy an XBOX and hide their shame and play it by themselves in their basement.
Or they prefer FPS games and arnt a sheep that follow popular trend.
gotta be carefull of those japanese hipsters who play cod and want to fudge everyones mothers Kappa
They could be people buying both consoles so they have access to all games
Why are you sheep to buy a console that has a truckload more games in your language and genres?
Time to stack those black monstrosities up and market them as a capsule hotel with free heating.
It’s simple really, Japanese people won’t buy garbage.
Or that they dont want a console that doesnt have any Japanese games released on it.
xbox is just not designed for the Eastern Market. Its all about AAA western games, and well they just dont sell in the east. Microsoft Designed something that sells well in America and thats well it.
Kind of like how Nintendo is kind of scoffed at for not being for real gamers in the west but well it dominates the Eastern Market. the only thing is Nintendo is a more recognized brand that makes it sell well even in the west. xbox doesnt have that.
‘Yes, yes, I know that any of the home consoles aren’t exactly tearing up the sales charts’
Er… isn’t that the direct competitors there in 2nd and 3rd?
It makes sense.
1. Consider the Japanese exclusive titles on each console + their release dates compared to western release dates.
2. Consider the small groups of propaganda/racism/group mentality that goes on in Japan, and how it sets off a chain reaction.
3. Consider the fact that you’d be left out (Multiplayer-wise) if you chose a different console.
4. I wouldn’t be suprised if someone has already figured out how to mod PS4’s over there.