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We all know that the Xbox and now the xbox360 hasn’t sold much at all as far as units in Japan. That has always been something that was talked about and watched closely because it was once thought that to be successful in the console market, you must have some measure of success in Japan. Some would argue that this isn’t the case anymore, and to be honest, I think Microsoft has pretty much proved that it isn’t the case anymore.

The Xbox didn’t win last generations console war,  even if they would’ve ended up having some solid numbers in Japan, Sony would’ve still had the market lead with it’s Playstation 2 But that’s not to say the Xbox wasn’t successful. Not looking at profits, or all the rumors about this and that, if you just look at the infiltration Microsoft made in the market with the Xbox, it is clear that they did accomplish what they claimed they wanted to accomplish from the very first announcement of the Xbox. That accomplishment was that they have put their foot in the door and established a good foundation in the game console business.

Now I think Japan is very important to gaming, but I think that other than numbers (units sold), the biggest importance the Japanese market brings is not the gamers or the people buying the consoles, but it’s the few Japanese game developers that make popular games.   And as it is right now, these game developers are slow to support the Xbox platform. But me personally, I say forget catering to the Japanese market, if they decide to sway the way of the Xbox, they will, but I just think going out of their way trying to create a separate recruitment effort for Japanese gamers is a waist and These are a few reasons why I think so.

5. Microsoft just isn’t Sony or Nintendo….They aren’t even Japanese.

The Japanese market when it comes to gaming, like Japanese companies. They are loyal to themselves, They have a lot of Japanese pride, and they consider themselves the epitome of gaming and what can a non Japanese company offer that Nintendo and Sony doesn’t already. It would be the same as someone from South Dakota moving to Philadelphia to open a Philly cheese steak restaurant. So all the money spent to appeal to Japanese audiences for the most part could be better used elsewhere. To put is bluntly, they just don’t like Microsoft over there.

4. Japanese gamers are just….different

The types of games that are popular in Japan are just different than the rest of the world. Yea each area of the world has games differences, like in the US the NFL is popular, in Europe, you have rally racing and there are probably different examples of the like for just about any country. But where it all comes together is that, even thought there are specific differences, there are still the general popularities, good games are usually good in every country, really popular games are usually really popular in every country. And even when you get to the specific interest games, people outside of those countries still find value in those games. Americans still play Fifa, or Rally racing games.

The Japanese have gaming taste that for the most part is different than the rest of the world, Dating/ life simulators, Horse riding simulators, the dislike of first person shooters.  I just think that it would take way too much effort for Microsoft to completely appeal to Japanese gamers for games that probably wouldn’t sell elsewhere in the world.

3. Japanese game makers are important…but you don’t have to have them

Me personally I think that most Japanese game makers are important for what they represent more so than what they are currently doing for gaming. In the last generation, the biggest game makers were probably Rockstar, Ubisoft, Bungie, and EA. Does that list of companies tell you something? Good, popular games are being made by everyone. Most of the big name games were made outside of Japan this last generation, and other than specific titles made by Japanese developers, namely final fantasy and maybe a few others, there aren’t any reason to spend any more effort attracting Japanese game developers than any other developer. You want to have a good mixture of game types and genre’s so you do try to lure every company that makes good games, but game developing goodness is found all over these days, not just in Japan.

2.  Innovation is greater than imitation

One thing that is happening in this attempt to woo Japanese gamers is that games that are really imitations of other games are being made. Since Microsoft isn’t Japanese, what is happening is that the games they are trying to make to appeal to the Japanese audiences are clones of existing games that are already popular with the Japanese. This strategy only works when you have an audience already, not when you’re trying to attract an audience that already has the real thing available. Example: the game Saints Row, is clearly a GTA imitation, but the Xbox 360 in the rest of the world already has a fan base. So if someone already owns an Xbox360 and a game “like” GTA is released, they will buy it because there isn’t a GTA game on the system at the moment. But if you don’t own an Xbox 360, and let’s say hypothetically the Ps3 is out already, you own it, and a new GTA game is already on that particular system, what about a less popular clone of GTA would make you want to buy an Xbox 360? Nothing…and that is what is happening in Japan. Although there are 2 RPG’s slated for release in Japan on the Xbox 360 that are pretty much Final fantasy clones that seem to be good enough to stand on its own, there will be a lot more than those 2 games needed to sway the Japanese. In this case those 2 games will probably sell everywhere else also, so if it doesn’t work in Japan, it wouldn’t be a total lose. But you cant say the same for some of the other games that Microsoft has had developed for the Japanese market that only saw the light of day in Japan and still hasn’t sold anything. And you have to remember the 5^th reason in this article still plays a big role in thwarting any success from cloning popular, already available Japanese games.

1. Success and money speaks louder than anything else

The only way to attract Japanese gamers to the Xbox is through its developers. If Japanese game makers make Xbox games and enough of them, the Japanese consumers will buy the Xbox. Yea you can court, bribe, try to convince, and do everything you can think of to get Japanese game makers to make Xbox games, but if they don’t like Microsoft, and don’t want to support Microsoft, there’s pretty much nothing else you can do but make sure you provide a good platform for developers in case they have a change of heart, which I think the Xbox 360 is a good platform for that purpose. Concentrate on being as big as possible everywhere else and if you get enough numbers, whether the Japanese market contributes to those numbers or not, the game developers will eventually start to support the console. Yea there’s a lot of Japanese loyalty, yea the Japanese doesn’t like the Xbox platform, Yea there may not be enough Japanese games for gamers in the east, but game makers all want to make money. You put up the numbers and show the potential for big profits, the Japanese game makers are going to want to get in on some of the money making. Once they get in, the rest will fall into place