Japan - Just four short months ago we posted an article that quoted Microsoft's goal of one million units for the land of the rising sun.That goal came a little bit closer to reality last week, if only incrementally: 360 has now passed the nine hundred thousand barrier and is just one hundred thousand short of Microsoft's goal.
When the goal was first asserted back in October, the 360 was hovering near seven hundred thousand units. Since then the 360 has seen a two hundred thousand unit surge in four months.
While some scoff at the American entry's attempts at Japanese assimilation, there's little doubt that Microsoft's machine has altered the market forever.
Potentially the most important factor is that Microsoft forced Sony to answer to the 360 before they were done milking the PS2 for long-tail software sales.
Instead, Sony pushed through plans to produce a hardware behemoth that would compete with the 360 in the US. The effects of this have been clearly felt in Japanese sales, where Sony's entry is lagging far behind the third player in the market, Nintendo's Wii.
There are numerous reasons why the PS3 hasn't met expectations (and they've been covered to death), but no small part of that analysis is price which is clearly related to hardware costs...and Microsoft, in whole or in part, can take credit (or blame) for forcing Sony's hand on the issue.
Whether or not Microsoft will translate the paltry-but-not-nonexistent userbase into future profits in the Japanese market is to be determined. But this is a start.
(click to enlarge)
10 comments:
If the 360 doesn't even sell one single unit from today onwards, it's already in a way "won" in Japan. This is the way I see it: The PS2 outsold the oroginal XBOX by a massive 45 to 1 ratio, and by 21 million units. That is just not gonna happen this generation.
Even the Wii will not come close to outseling the 360 by the 45:1 ratio or 21 million units that the PS2 outsold the XBOX by.
Microsoft has done a great job by working really hard with Japanese 3rd parties to move/port a lot of their RPG's to the 360, even paying for the costs of putting them Japanese games on the 360 if that is what it took.
Nintendo and Sony just took Japanese developers for granted, because they are Japanese themselves, and the PS2 owned JRPG's.
Overall, I am gonna expect the 360 to sell at least 2 million units by the time this generation is done. If current trends continue, the 360 could even hit over 2.5 million units, a 5 fold increase from the original XBOX.
No other current gen console is going to hit that.
It's hard to say that they 'won,' but there's little doubt that they changed the marketplace. Moral victories ftw.
I think 2 million units is high for the generation, unless you think it will last another 3 years?
Anon-sign your comments so I know who I'm speaking with. Even if its an alias I'd like to be able to differentiate your comments from other's comments. I recognize your syntax but can't on every post.
This is how I see the 2 million target heppening:
I think the 360 is going to sell at least 400,000 this year, and approx the same number in the next 3 years at least. That gives you 1.2 million. Add in the already sold 900,000 and you have over 2 million, easy.
I don't see Microsft launching another console till 2012 at the earliest(going by Robbie Bach's recent comments, and the sorry state of the world's economies), so that gives the 360 another 4 years of sales at least in Japan. Add in further 360 price cuts in the coming years, plus even more JPRG's and that 2 million target shouldn't be that hard to get to.
LOL, 2 million lifetime sales??? Here's the way i see it:
At this rate it will take the Xbox 360 approximately 3 1/2 years to sell 1 million consoles.
Extending the time frame it would take the Xbox 360 7 years (Maybe a bit less if you leverage in price) to sell 2 million. I seriously doubt the Xbox 360 has another 3 1/2 years left in the tank.
Also, judging from theese figures, it's clear the 360 has already "Lost" Japan, not "Won". LOL. You do realise this isn't golf, right??? Whoever sells the least consoles LOSES......they don't win.
http://xbox.joystiq.com/2009/02/20/japanese-360-sales-squeak-past-900-000-units/
Joystiq picked up this article and called ChartGet, "The internet's most awesomely named chart website."
awesome!
@ David Macphail: "At this rate it will take the Xbox 360 approximately 3 1/2 years to sell 1 million consoles."
Nonsense.
The 360 has already sold 900,000 units, no?
This year alone, the 360 is on track to sell at least 400,000, if not more, no?
To sell 400,000 this year, the 360 would have to sell 100,000 per quarter, yes?
Well, this first quarter alone, the 360 is already on track to sell at least 130,000, given that half way through the quarter, the 360 has already sold 74,000 units, and that is even before SO4 was launched.
If the 360 sells 400,000 this year, that takes 360 LTD to 1.3 million by the end of this year already.
All the 360 would have to do, is sell 400,000 per year in 2010 and 2011, and we have 2 million already. That target should be easy to achieve given that the 360 will probably have more price cuts, and even more JRPG's.
You are probably amongst the same group that swore that the 360 would never hit a million in sales in Japan, and have subsequently been forced to eat your words.
@ David Macphail: "Also, judging from theese figures, it's clear the 360 has already "Lost" Japan, not "Won". LOL"
If the US basketball team with all the all stars, plays against a no-hope Japanese basketball team, and barely manages to win by a squeaker, when they are supposed to have blown the Japanese out of the water, the Japanese basketball team would be considered as having won a moral victory.
No matter how you twist it, the PS3 has lost massively in Japan this generation, given that the PS2 sold over 21 million units, and outsold the GC by over 4 times, and outsold the original XBOX by over 45 times. For the PS3 to be only outselling the 360 by just twice on a weekly basis right now, is a great moral victory for the XBOX already.
400K a year seems extremely ambitious. X360 is an odd one in that it has improved from year to year, but reaching a new high in year 4 and not having it dip back down by year 6 would be really weird. It's more a success than it used to be, but you're expecting it to do better than what any secondary console ever did in their later years, let alone a tertiary one.
@JJS :"400K a year seems extremely ambitious. "
It's already on track to do at least 400,000 this year so far. In fact, if it continued at the rate its done so far this year, it will do more than 400,000 this year, with plenty of room to spare.
JJS :"but reaching a new high in year 4 and not having it dip back down by year 6 would be really weird"
Reaching a new high in year 4 IS already very unusual, yet it's already doing that right now, no?
If it can reach a new high in year 4, why can't it sustain it for another 2 years after that, with further price cuts and even more games aimed at the Japanese market?
So far this year, the 360 has DOUBLED sales from 2008 levels, even while the Wii is down over 50%, and the PS3 is down over 30% no?
And this is despite a pretty deep recession in Japan, no?
@JJS :"but you're expecting it to do better than what any secondary console ever did in their later years, let alone a tertiary one."
Like I said, it's ALREADY doing far better in its third year than it ever did before, even while the first placed and second placed consoles are regsietring very deep drops in sales right now.
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