Why Xbox failed in Japan

It’s a good article. Take a look.

However, the interviewer didn’t catch some mistakes. Take Hayashi’s answer as to hardware design and territories:

I ask the Microsoft in Japan question and he smirks before it’s even been translated. “Sony and Nintendo were born in Japan,” he replies. “They’re Japanese companies. That’s where they come from. Microsoft is an American company. That’s where it has come from.

“Say you go to Germany, you see a lot of people driving Mercedes Bens, BMW. You go to America, you see a lot of people driving American cars. They know American cars. In Japan people are driving Japanese cars.

“There’s just something about the hardware that gets made in each region that works for that particular region, and the people there just know it and they get it. It’s a natural evolution of being created there. That’s one of the things which might have hampered Microsoft or made it one of the challenges to reach the people over here.

Americans don’t buy American cars. I don’t know any American in my circle who has an American car. The only ones that do have Ford pick-ups (in Texas, the pick-up is the equivalent of a Cadillac). I own a Japanese car. Most Americans have owned foreign made cars since the 80s or 90s I think. So I don’t accept Hayashi’s answer here. It is just a cliche answer.

“Of all the countries in the world, the more we understood Japan the more we understood it was going to be difficult,” Ed Fries says with a sigh. “About Japan culturally, about their long history in the video game business. There’s a cultural conformity that happens in Japan. All those things conspired to make it hard for an American product to come in and compete head to head with an entrenched Japanese competitors.

Then why does Apple sell so well there? Oh wait, I forgot we’re talking about Microsoft who pretends that Apple doesn’t exist. Moving along…

In Japan the role-playing game is king. Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Star Ocean, Persona, the list goes on. These games enjoy success worldwide, but in Japan they are nuclear.

But they don’t enjoy success worldwide. When massive advertising money isn’t present, when has Final Fantasy ever sold well worldwide? (Don’t say 7 since since 7 had a massive Sony backed advertising campaign). Dragon Quest doesn’t sell outside Japan (something that has been making Nintendo sad face since the NES Era). I write a video game blog and I’ve never PLAYED Star Ocean or Persona. I didn’t even know they existed!

The release of a new Final Fantasy game in Japan is comparable to the release of a new Call of Duty in the UK.

What Final Fantasy? Certainly wasn’t Final Fantasy 13. 12? I don’t think so. 11? Hah. 10? Maybe. Probably not.

And Eurogamer needs to check their sales numbers again. Skyrim sold like 10 million or so units. That is Call of Duty sales territory. It is why everyone wants to make a Skyrim type game. RPG has always sold BETTER in the West than in Japan. The difference is that JRPGs don’t sell well in the West. Last I checked the MMORPG king was an American company, not a Japanese company.

Those who love JRPGs love their beautiful computer generated mini-movie cut scenes that often punctuate turn-based action.

Those people don’t exist in the West. The question is why is Japan wasting time and money on this crap? Why don’t they make something the international market wants? They used to do this in the 80s and early 90s.