Early yesterday morning, a sign went up in front of the Yodobashi Camera in Tokyo’s Akihabara. It read 完売 (kanbai), which means “sold out”. This is just one of several stores across Japan that have sold through their stock. There is a reason for that, and that reason is that they’re only selling preorders.
[Image: kaztsu]
As in the West, yesterday was the day that the Xbox One X went on sale in Japan, and the tweet below shows the Xbox One X listings for different stores with the words 在庫無し (zaiko nashi) or “out of stock” in black font.
XBOX ONE Xが発売日に手に入らないのはかなり残念。
あるとしてもAmazonの転売価格のやつだけこれみた転売屋の方!XBOXユーザーは絶対転売価格なんかで買いませんのでw pic.twitter.com/ZyXN4Y9SIq
— みっくん@暇人 (@kiha66_08) November 6, 2017
And yesterday morning, the Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara, one of the biggest in Japan, didn’t exactly draw waiting hopefuls trying to snag an Xbox One X.
ヨドバシAkiba、本日発売 Xbox One X 完売。最後尾みえません pic.twitter.com/BWYQPAymdS
— ツルミロボ (@kaztsu) November 6, 2017
Twitter user Kaztsu, who snapped these photos, joked, “I can’t see the end of the line.”
What gives?
According to Game Watch Impress, the reason is that major electronics retailers in Japan didn’t plan to offer the consoles in store on launch day. Instead, they’d only sell to customers who preordered. Thus, the Xbox One X sold out.
Which, I assume, also means embarrassing tableaus like this could possibly be avoided.
Bic Camera and Yamada Denki told Game Watch Impress that if a customer cancelled his or her preorder, then it’s possible that said console would be sold over the counter.
On Amazon Japan, there are a couple of Xbox One X consoles available for well above the hardware’s original price of ¥53,978 ($621). Prices start at ¥80,000 ($920) for the standard Xbox One X, while the Project Scorpio version is ¥147,000 ($1690) and up.
Japanese site GameBusiness is reporting a nationwide sellout for online retailers.
It is unclear how many preorders traditional retailers filled and how many consoles have been sold online.
In related news, here is a notice spotted on an electronics store that states the shop isn’t doing Xbox One X preorders and won’t be getting the console at launch or in the future.
[Image: 5ch]
Ouch.
It will be interesting to see what kind of sales figures emerge from the Xbox One X’s Japan launch.
Comments
5 responses to “The Reason Why The Xbox One X Is Selling Out In Japan ”
Doesn’t that make sense though? I though in Japan, Sony and Nintendo are preferred while XBox not as much.
Or have tastes there changed?
I guess it depends on the amount that were preorder.
Xbox always seemed to have a small core following in Japan so it could be them buying it up. Or it could be people wanting a cheap 4K blue ray player
I think it’s more to do with the retailers not wanting to carry Xbox stock that they’ll struggle to sell, so they only sell pre-orders. Ie they get 100 pre-orders so they get 100 units in to satisfy those orders and that’s it. If you’re an Xbox fan in Japan you’re probably better off just ordering it online.
I guess when only 2 people in the country preorder one yeah they would sell out.
Microsoft has always struggled to gain traction in Japan with the Xbox line of consoles and the X won’t change anything.
You know what? I see it this way. Far from dismissing Japan as a market that’s lost to Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft is affirming its support of the XBox fans it does have, by ensuring that they get to share in the launch of the XBox X One. Microsoft hasn’t said to the Japanese fans who wanted to get the console that your country doesn’t support the XBox, so you can wait to get the latest and greatest.