Do You Think Ms Will Ever Do Well In Japan? Options

[XanTium]

vote/discuss

[twistedsymphony]

They definitely need better marketing over there... most gamers I know who live in Japan don't even know anything about what's available for the 360 over there. Most of the gaming press over there ignores it and there really aren't any TV ads or any major marketing pushes. MS's failure there is their own damn fault.

A lot of people say "screw em" but there are lots of great products in the Americas and Europe that people pass on by simply because they're not marketed well.

[eatingbabies]

japan schmapan stop wasting time

more seriously, step up the game on the marketing, its like MS doesnt care. they need to find a way to the japanese gamer and relate to them.

[Johnwinger]

Japs don't know good videogames.

[avatar1976]

I think they kind of have to keep trying afterall that country I think represents more then half the entire gaming population of the entire world? But yeah japs hate the xbox all american muscle games (halo3, GoW). Someone said something interesting one time, japanese people don't care about realistic graphics they care more for something being stylish. M$ had a good go there but I think there's just a little too much repell the invaders mentality for MS to have to break there

This post has been edited by avatar1976: Nov 2 2007, 06:59 AM

[johnnyrico]

I think there's also a bit of pride and other reasons involved.
if you got the choice between 2 companies from the homeland and 1 company from a land that you were in war with once, what company would you choose?
yes, I know the USA and japan are now very good allies, but still.

indeed, there's also the cultural difference, but really, are sony's games that different from those MS' console has?


I'd say: if it doesn't work out on one market, go to the markets where it does work out and invest in those instead.

[AlexNapo]

Japanese people have always been more "protective" people. When you look in the parking lot of the "Honda" factory, you'll only see honda car.

If you happen to look in US car factory (either GM or Ford) you'll see a lot of Japanese car as well.

They'll always prefer Japanese products over other's. But since they represent such a large market. I think MS has to continue their effort to do well in there.

[justageezer]

It's the games, period, and I'm sure M$ knows that, which is why they've spent so much effort wooing Japanese developers. If the next Final Fantasy, God of War, Devil May Cry etc were 360 exxclusives then they'd shift consoles in Japan.
Japanese gamers seem to like Japanese games - and there just aren't any compelling Japanese games on the 360. And if you've played a representative sample of each platform's games catalogue you'll know what I mean - Japanese games are _different_ to Western ones, the same way that Japanese movies / cartoons etc are different, they not only have their own style but their own values and culture and history - none of which you get from Western games.
Personally I can't stand a lot of these games, so I can appreciate that gamers used to them may not like the types of 'muscle' games that I do like. There are a lot of Japanese games I do like also - and for those again there's just nothing similar on M$'s platform; take Bemani, there's maybe a dozen music / rhythm games on M$ platform, while there are probably hundreds for PS2/3/P, and innovative games like Rez, Katamari, GitarooMan etc etc - while I love FPS and driving games it would be nice to have some of these 'oddities' available without having to buy Sony hardware.

[phiquach]

just get some good japanese RPG's and they would buy the 360

[ChIBoY]

They wont support it because it US made, dumb but they are loyal & that deserves a little respect... Too bad they are missing out.

[Bravo1]

MS will never do well in Japan since the Japanese have such brand loyalty to Nintendo and Sony.

[STICKY_BUD]

mcdonalds does okay over there and i am sure other american products that can be japan-ized do well too, but i highly doubt xbox will ever gain foothold in japan. they are just wasting stockholders money if you ask me(and i own msft). perhaps if m$ buys nintendo, sony goes out of business and no other japanese console maker steps up, but outside of that, japanese gamers are not buying it.

This post has been edited by STICKY_BUD: Nov 3 2007, 03:26 AM

[tristanx]

actually, microsoft is doing a bad thing with trying to get the japanese market this way. this is actually a bad business practice. wasting money in that market, why not push more money in the markets they already have. the bigger the america's and europe will increase, all the while sony & nintendo will decrease in these markets. increase in korea, china and in time (this is not an overnight thing) japan may eventually pull through.

This post has been edited by tristanx: Nov 3 2007, 05:07 AM

[kimnkk]

Japanese people have always been more "protective" people. When you look in the parking lot of the "Honda" factory, you'll only see honda car.

If you happen to look in US car factory (either GM or Ford) you'll see a lot of Japanese car as well.

Totally different reasons, its not because they're protective their car company/brand. Japanese people are generally a lot more 'honourable' than western people. If you worked at GM and drove a Honda, what is that saying about GM? That one of their own workers aren't confident or don't like their own cars? In Japan, if someone from Honda drove a Toyota they would get fired (or at least they did about 20 years ago, don't know about now) because it says a lot about Honda if their employees don't believe in their own product.

[Libtoem]

Well I do know the Japanese dont really like the look of the 360 but other than that most of the 360's games are FPS which is a good thing except in Japan.It really has nothing to do with it being American,it just needs to be appealing to them.