Xbox in Japan

[shirkbot]

Before I begin, some full-disclosure: I'm mostly starting this thread to help me get research together for a marketing class project. I know I could just search Google or Wikipedia, but I like to talk to people and different people might have different ideas.

Okay, so the common knowledge is that the Xbox in all its iterations has been less than successful in the Japanese market, seeming to culminate in the much later release of the Xbone in said market. From what I already know, it seems to be a combination of some pretty stark cultural differences (individualism v. collectivism blah blah) and a the fact that Nintendo and Sony are on their home turf. I've also been told Japanese console buying is much more single-game focused, but that's just hearsay.

One sizable wrinkle in my understanding is that both Nintendo and Sony have a long history of selling quite well in foreign markets. For example, in my experience the PS3 has a noticeably larger European install base than the 360, but this is again just from my life.

So that's my current understanding. Is there anything else I should be looking at or expanding on that I haven't considered? Or am I just wasting everyone's time with all of this?

Thanks in advance everyone. Sorry if I'm rehashing old discussion points.

 

[Yuuki]

Thanks in advance everyone. Sorry if I'm rehashing old discussion points.

Not to worry, this topic is something I haven't seen in a while

I'd consider exclusive games as a factor too. XBox's biggest exclusive franchises (Halo, Gears of War, arguably Fable and Forza) hardly have a fan-following in Japan. I'd also throw Call Of Duty in there because even though it's available on PS3, it has a vastly larger following on XBox seeing how it's pretty much the primary reason why XBox Live has holds it's notorious reputation.
Overall the Japanese gaming community doesn't seem to be attracted to 1st/3rd person shooters very much. A lot of games released on XBox have a US audience in mind...hell forget games, Microsoft kinda made it super-obvious that even their CONSOLE was aiming primarily at US over any other country. Japan wasn't even on their XBox One "supported list" of countries (before they backpeddled on that entire policy).
It's probably a hint that next generation Sony/Nintendo will walk all over XBox in Japan even more than they already did, and Microsoft couldn't care less because that market hardly matters to them.