In a nation of 127 million people, last week only ninety-nine of them wanted to buy an Xbox One. Ouch.
Double digits! In comparison, according to data tracking company Media Create (via 4Gamer), here’s how the other console sales looked for the week from January 11 to January 17:
1. New Nintendo 3DS XL: 30,172 units
2. PlayStation 4: 25,592
3. PlayStation Vita: 18,202
4. Wii U: 15,398
5. New Nintendo 3DS: 6241
6. Nintendo 3DS: 4797
7. PlayStation 3: 1939
8. Nintendo 3DS XL: 1162
Yikes! Selling 99 Xbox Ones is super grim. But seeing how the console’s launch was a disaster and how Microsoft has posted miserable Japan sales figures before, I can’t say I’m surprised. You probably aren’t, either.
Coming off Christmas and the New Year’s holidays, January is typically a slow period, so Microsoft can take solace in that, I guess. Also, while I’d say Media Create’s sales data is more widely circulated (and perhaps even respected), as of writing, Famitsu‘s sales tracking states that Microsoft sold 136 Xbox Ones during this same week.
More good news. Well, somewhat. The week before that, 293 Xbox Ones were sold, and before that, 490.
See? Maybe things aren’t that bad. No, actually, they are. But, I’ll tell you what: Let’s not do another depressing Xbox One Japanese sales story unless they tumble under fifty units in a week. Deal?
Top image: FMetroid
Comments
29 responses to “Last Week, Microsoft Reportedly Sold 99 Xbox Ones In Japan”
The weird thing is is that MS have made a lot of effort with the XB1 to be a more diverse platform. I could understand these sort of numbers with the 360 – it definitely earned its ” ‘Murrican dude-bro” reputation – but you’d think that a device that’s similar to the PS4 in its target audience would get similar sales? (or at least a similar ratio to global sales).
Maybe there’s a lot of Japanese PS4-exclusive content I’m not aware about.
There are a lot of games for the ps4 that only see the light of day in Japan, some very obscure anime games for example. Probably the reason the Vita is also still selling comparatively well over there, but 99 xbox ones is terrible, especially against nearly 26000 PS4’s,
Problem is, none of the Xbox One exclusive even famous in Japan. It’s either bro-shooter, murica games or racing game, games that only appeal to western gamers. Not to mention still an inferior console in terms of performance, low adoption rate due to people mostly invested more on their Nintendo/Sony ecosystem, it is simply outmatched to begin with.
Even now Xbox One is struggling and if this goes on, next console cycle it will die off.
Definitely true for the original and the 360 but that’s not really a fair call any more. They’ve made a concentrated effort to amp up the indies and more diverse fare this time around. The attitude at MS was improving enough that I actually considered buying an XB1 (before the whole DRM, Kinect, used game disasters at launch kept me with Sony). Things like Ori and the Blind Forest, Quantam Break and Scalebound seem to be breaking the MS mould. Does these kind of games not appeal to the Japanese? Or are they still too few and far between?
But the indie games exist on pc too. The pc market is growing considerably over the years in japan.
To me scale bound could potentially spark some interest but quantum break will not. Too American to be honest.
There is still not enough diversity in the exclusive games that could potentially break the barrier. I mean look at the range of games release for ps4 in japan. There are enough games to cater every single genre while there are nothing on Xbox one.
So, apparently 6-7 months is long enough to recycle an old news story, refresh the sales stats and have another bash at Xbox?
(See http://kotaku.com/xbox-one-reaches-a-new-low-in-japan-1713004688)
It’s to remind readers, I suppose.
It’s like how I often wonder why on earth there’s Coke Cola ads when the world should already know what Coke Cola is.
Perhaps, but seems like click bait and void-filling to me. I’m surprised the headline didn’t read: “You won’t believe how many Xbox’s sold in Japan this week!” I like a bit of journalistic minge in my articles.
I wait(!) with anticipation for the next sub-50 article…
Why are you feeling offended if Xbox get bashed? I mean it is true and it is happening in the whole world. It stops people from spreading false information that Xbox One is selling well when it is in fact doing very badly. No sugarcoating can hide that and certainly there is no need to be offended at actual statistics.
Japan is a loyal country. So be it. Xbox won’t die just because Japan isn’t buying it.
My concerns are that PlayStation has a better image, that I believe was created in the N64 Vs PS1 era, and an ever increasing stable of exclusives that Microsoft don’t seem to care about. History shows that a lot of better technologies have been defeated by better marketed products, or better backing. The Xbox 360 was hands down a better console than the PS3. I’ll understand different points of view but I just see most things done way better, and that includes the important “performance” factor. I believe, without checking facts, that history shows that the PS3 won a tight battle. This gen is different. Microsoft have the advantage in CPU intensive games, and developers believe DX12 will give the console a massive boost in an area that PS4 is already running to capacity, but the PS4 is holding the ace for now, at least. I bought all 3 current gen consoles at launch and I thought the PS4 was going to be my favourite. It took only a few days to realise that the Xbox is just done better, imo. As someone in my mid-30’s it blows my mind. I think it’s an injustice that the Xbox is being hammered so badly by the PS4, but I can find many injustices in life. That’s the beauty of opinion.
My comment may not be completely on topic, to this point, but basically I think Microsoft need to let Japan go. The Japanese don’t want it. Definitely attack Eastern games that Westerners want, but let Japan go as a focus.
Microsoft are in trouble unless they focus on the Sony strategy. Buy good developers that make great games. Make those games, and others, exclusive to your console. Stop releasing your “exclusives” on PC. Give people a reason to buy an Xbox One!
Off topic a little. When people ask me for a suggestion I NEVER tell them to go for what I like. I tell them to look at the exclusive games, the controllers, what their friends have, and basically what they like. My workplace was heavily PS4 and people started buying Xbox’s in sales so they could play with me, or play games I was talking about. Every single one is converted. They can’t believe they wrote off the Xbox before owning one. Marketing, image, what your friends talk about, it’s all major factors in what people want.
Conclusion: Sony is doing better at making their console appealing.
Here’s the thing; you can claim that the XBone has a better CPU, but the truth is that a lot of people just don’t care THAT much about the tech specs (if they did, everyone would be a PC gamer). It’s all about the games. It’s why the Gameboy destroyed all of its technologically superior competition. It’s why the PS2 was the best selling console of its generation, despite being the weaker of the lot. Even the Wii managed to move an incredible amount of units, and the DS absolutely flogged the Vita in sales, despite the DS having the processing power of a calculator taped to a cat.
Yeah it’s interesting, all my friends that were converted over to ps4 early this gen have also bought an x1 recently. That didn’t happen last gen. Now they are all so disappointed in “current gen” we are all talking about just going to pc. While I’m happy to play basically on any platform as long as I can use a controller (except wiiU, we had one and I hated the whole look-down-look-up-refocus-look-down-again and cheap tablet/controller so we got rid of it), I’m a little concerned about all the stuff that I already experience when I play pc games like cheaters (gta online, my most played game of the last 2 years) and bad pc ports, which I have to throw thousands of dollars of hardware (2x titans don’t even do the trick for some games) at to compensate for.
I’m not sure where @letrico is getting his numbers, but xbox is still doing better than it did last gen, so if they just keep offering better services than their main competitor (Live, backwards compatibility, working harder for our money) they should be able to comfortably ride this gen out. Sure in second place in hardware sales (and I’m sure most 3rd party software sales too), but profit is what they are really going after rather than winning some weird “console war” that means nothing to anyone except fanboys.
It was bad enough when you claimed that the 360 was more powerful than the PS3, but I could do nothing but laugh when you said the XB1 was on par with the PS4. They’re not even close, my delusional friend.
I also find the passion for the ps4 a little weird and misplaced. Maybe not misplaced becuase they are not bad. It just kind of feels like Microsoft made a few mistakes early (which they now have more than rectified) and Sony just did the basics well. Made a more powerful console and made their awful controller bearable. Having both consoels, the ps4 is pretty boring at the moment. Looking forward to good exclusives
I’m not offended, Not one bit, I’m the last person to defend Xbox for their string of monumental cock-ups.
My issue is less with the ‘Xbox bashing’, more with content creation. Lazy writing shouldn’t get a free pass.
“doing very badly” by the most narrow of definitions maybe. Around 15 million XBone’s have been sold to date. That’s about 50% more than the 360 sold for the equivalent period.
It’s about 50% behind the PS4 in sales at this point, but why should anyone who is not a Sony or MS investor care about the competition? It’s not being dumped by publishers, MS isn’t pulling support, and it’s objectively selling well, so I’d say that “doing very badly” is the worst kind of fanboy-ing.
Honest question: does the fact that the XB1 is outselling the 360 over the equivalent period of time prove anything? Are the profit margins comparable? Is that a fair benchmark for success?
IIRC both the 360 and the PS3 were sold at a loss, relying on software sales to make up for it. Does the market still operate this way?
In part, yes. Both Sony and Microsoft make most of their money through the publisher paying a licensing fee to them to launch on their console. I understand they’re both accepting a moderate loss on hardware again this generation – with (I think) the PS4 being closest to dollar parity. There were hardware breakdowns when it first launched to get a better idea, but I’d have to hunt back through YouTube.
I’m not sure if there is a sales volume attached to that though (ie. Does a publisher pay $200k per platform to license plus extra $$$ for each 10k units sold? For example).
This just demonstrates how racist Japanese culture is (and other Asian cultures for that matter), they alienate foreigners and foreign things so much it’s not funny any more.
Think of it like this. In Japan, gun culture is definitely *not* a thing. Gun control is very tight, and the rate of gun related violence in Japan is incredibly low, especially considering their high population. Their gun death rate is almost neglible.
Compare that to the US, where guns are accepted and to an extent actively encouraged in usage.
Here is a challenge for you. Go in to a computer game selling shop, and have a look at the range of games they are advertising. Now have a think about how many of them have guns as a big part of their game play or setting.
Now think about being in a country where guns are not a thing, and this country is not saturated with American media.
Why would you want a game with guns? These things are ranged killing devices. When you step back and think about it, it’s just not cool at all.
But look at the XB1. Guns, guns, guns. A few racing and sports games, but mainly it’s just gun games.
And people wonder why Japan does not care. :-S
That’s an amazingly astute analysis that I have not considered before. Bravo! Have an updoot.
Thanks! 😀
I dont know about the gun thing, i would say australia is far from america in gun usage but we love us some shooting here for example. I think its more that Japan is definitely more insular and self-reliant than most countries, and they have a strong sense of both cultural identiy and national.
In other words they know what they like when it comes to entertainment and embrace it without apology, not looking to outside sources too much for additional or different forms of it. For example, they dont neeed to make or watch comic book movies to justify the integrity of a graphic story or to make it palatable to adults,comic books are fully accepted within their society as a valuable story telling method already, and then they get adapted more into cartoons in the form of anime than they do live action.
They birthed the modern consoles with nintendo and sega and then went onto make games cool with the psx. What would they want or need with a machine that originated in the u.s.?
Also, their strong sense of national pride and identity means they would want to support a homegrown company like Sony too, especially as you say it provides them with the quirky games and genres they love so much in a volume that Microsoft could never hope to match.
What you said about the xbox poster games is bang on too, all genres which dont typically engage with their sensibilities.
And then Once you consider that the ps4 is quantifiably more powerful this generation and is harnessing that power right off the bat unlike the ps3s cell processors…well, its just no choice at all. In my opinion anyway!
I live in Australia, Australia is not a gun culture. I play mostly gun games, your argument isn’t very convincing. To further undermine your argument the top selling games this year in Japan for the PS4 were:
1. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Lots of guns, basically Japans take on “merica”)
2. Dragon Quest Heroes
3. Call of Duty Black Ops III (Herp… Merica…)
4. Bloodborne (It has guns in it btw)
5. Star Wars Battlefront (Oh boy…)
Looks like you need to do your research before you comment of the internet…
But mobile gaming is massive in Japan, and most of that is done via Apple or Google ie American companies.
Is there a Japanese competitor in the smartphone market?
I guess Japanese companies eg Sony make smartphones but running on Google’s ecosystem. But, like the gaming consoles, they’re all made in China anyway 😛
Another country doesn’t like what you like so they’re racist….. right.
Yeah those numbers are notably low, but when it comes down to it, should we care beyond it being a footnote on cultural differences? Japan hasn’t been a powerhouse of gaming culture for about a decade, and with good reason. If we’re talking outright sales (and why should we?) we might as well be discussing Brazil or South Africa for all the relevance it has to us.