Sunday, December 11th, 2005, 5:51 pm
Xbox 360 Off to a Slow Start in Japan
Filed under:
The days of Sega and Sonic are sorely missed
and appear irreplaceable in its Japanese place of birth
BOX 360 is a gaming console from Microsoft, which has hit the streets just weeks ahead of Christmas. The Xbox 360 brought with it great anticipation among games enthusiasts, so sales were expected to be exceptionally high. Nonetheless, it has been revealed that Japan is reluctant to embrace the Xbox 360:
“It’s not going to be a big hit in Japan,” said 26-year-old Kentaro Okamoto, one of the first Xbox 360 buyers. “I buy every new game console… but normally Japanese customers only buy a machine when it’s made by Sony or Nintendo.”
In a similar article which comes from the BBC:
Microsoft has launched its Xbox 360 games console in Japan to what seems like a more subdued response than it received in Europe and North America.
[...]
Sales of the first Microsoft Xbox in Japan have always lagged behind Sony PlayStation 2, which was launched two years before it.
It sound as though this model will make a complete 360, having solved none of its previous shortcomings. As a publicity stunt perhaps, it is understocked on the shelves though.
On top of it all, we recently heard of some serious bugs and great trouble surrounding the Xbox 360, which perhaps was unready for prime time. Consequently, lawsuits begin to loom over, which put the product’s reputation in jeopardy.
Open Source enthusiasts might be happy to hear that a “Linux on Xbox 360″ project has already been initiated. Microsoft are actually losing money for every unit that they sell. Profit is expected to be made using games sales. Having said that, units that are sold in vain give game programmers the illusions that the Xbox is popular, which urges more involvement. It is a similar case to Windows workstations that are wiped clean to give way to Linux, yet are still counted as Windows sales.
Related item: Is Nintendo Dying?
