Oh the surprise! The terror! The black voodoo! Could any of us have seen this coming a bloody mile away? Xbox 360 games don't do very well ... in JAPAN! That's right, try and repair your collective ribcages after your heart exploded out of your chest in astoundment and attempt to comprehend it. Capcom's hugely popular Lost Planet and Dead Rising games sold a bucketload over in the US and Europe, but only 10% of their overall sales came from the land of samurai and sexism.
Sarcasm aside, as unsurprising as it is, the idea of Capcom not even shifting 100,000 units in its home country is, quite frankly, abysmal. I'm no fan of either game, but both have enjoyed huge critical acclaim and popularity elsewhere in the world. When you think that Lost Planet and Dead Rising garnered 810,000 and 730,000 sales in the USA respectively, that's a pretty marked difference.
Whatever reasons you might give for the Japanese ignorance of the Xbox 360 and its games - be it the fact it's basically called The 'No'box over there, the idea that the console's too big or that Japanese gamers are just exhibiting their custom xenophobia and won't put their hands on non-Japanese merchandise, I think most of us could agree on one thing -- they're just being very silly at this point.
[Via Evil Avatar]
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
12:43 AM on 06.06.2007
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Although the PS3 isn't anything special, I wonder if Capcom makes good on their multi-platform claim (I'm aware they have said that they wouldn't make Lost Planet and Dead Rising on other platforms but Lost Planet's on PC soon and it's always possible) and release Dead Rising in Japan. If sales shoot up somewhat, then you can pretty much call Xenophobia and it's their fault and problem for missing out on a couple of good games.
I see the reverse happening where all systems are built in options when you buy super hi-vision monitors, kinda like the panny pro series with slots for upgrades like extra hdmi ports(which it doesn't come with in the first place!)only your game system will be the equivelent of a graphics card with unlockable advances and games obtainable through download.
As far as I can see, the PS2 and the DS Lite still reign supremacy over there. Akihabara shops all have their DS and PS2 koisks displayed prominently in their stores, with the Wii and PS3 being a little bit more downplayed. The 360 is stuck in the back wall of shops, with one of two people browsing it's wares once in a while. The original X-Box is gone. History.
I probably have to stay there longer to get a better grasp on what's REALLY popular in the land of the Rising Sun, but that's what I've seen so far.
Absurdly, cell phone games are a huge rage right now in Asia. Considering the fact that every schoolgirl, businessman, and Buddhist monk has a celly, it's not very difficult to imagine.
I think it's simply because it is a foreign entity and that they will always be loyal to their local brands.
Awesome, now you said it first, I won't worry about cutting loose the next time I post about Japanese gamers. :)
Ask your fellow American and Caucasian who visited Japan, im sure most of them can tell you that they got some stink eye contact.These Pro- Japanese people still exist and probably in a bigger number than all KKK, skinhead, and all king of Pro-White combine. My believe is only based on the statistic that their rape rate is so much higher than almost all western civilizations.
oh god, I hate all pro-race moron. I am an Chinese-American, and I am proud to believe that not everyone is a complete racist frantic.
See: Tag.
Halo 3 is in the top 20 most wanted games in Japan. Gears, an american game, sold better that Lost Planet and Dead Rising. So where is the Xenophobia there?
The 360, and to a lesser extent the PS3, are selling poory in Japan because culturally, the Japanese are generally not into that direction in gaming.
Japan has a different culture than other countries. That's why they call it "Japan" and not "Europe" or "the United States".
So they have the tendency to dig different sorts of games over there. So what?
@Jim - Japan isn't the land of sexism, that's the middle east.
I think it's a big knee-jerk to call this Xenophobia; it's more likely that even 360 owners in Japan are propelled to easier titles. There's no argument that Dead Rising's relentless zombie hordes and unforgiving save system make it a real challenge. I personally think the game is impossible without saving and starting over to advance Frank's skillz. I've read on here more than once that even with the Japanese disposition for super-twitch pew-pews, they by and large prefer easier games than the average american gamer. I'm going to say that the difficulty of these games relative to say, Gears on casual is what's causing the Japanese sales slump.
/end sacrasm
im sorry to go against the little crowd here but some people need to pull their heads waaayyyy out of the horses ass. who cares if they dont play certain games. Those games dont catch my attention one bit, guess what, im not JP. I like to save my 120$+tax on something else tvm.
You say that as if it's a bad thing.
I also submit, BUKAKKE FTW!!!!!!!!!!
It is harder for women to find employment in Japan because of the belief they're all due to get married and will be staying at home. It's certainly more than an uphill struggle to get any kind of promotion, and the idea of them getting any equal pay to a male is laughable. Aaaand that's not even going into the high rate of sexual harrassment, both physical and verbal, that is far more prevelant than in a western society and which is harder to seek retribution for due to the fact that Japan's messed up society is going to criticise the "troublemakers" that report such harrassment.
Now I'm an equalist and as such hold no believe in woman oriented organisations looking out for one gender specifically at the cost of another, but you can't go claiming that the problems don't exist. They do. Japan is an inherently sexist, as well as racist, culture, moreso than western counterparts. It's straight up fact.
Pokemans
"It is harder for women to find employment in Japan because of the belief they're all due to get married and will be staying at home. It's certainly more than an uphill struggle to get any kind of promotion, and the idea of them getting any equal pay to a male is laughable."
These issues are still prevalent in American professional society, as well. It's a non-issue is countries that have instituted Sharia, because women get married whether they want to or not, and are generally not permitted to have a vocation outside the home. Couple that with the genital mutilation, honor killings, and the mandatory wardrobe, and you're going to have a hard time proving (to me, anyway) that Japan is any more inherently sexist than all the countries that use a brutal sexist religious ideal to browbeat women into property.
Look, I see what you're saying about Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, but you can't use them as a comparison here on the basis that we're not talking about them. Answering the statement that Japan is sexist with the argument of "Well they're not as sexist as THESE guys" doesn't refute the truth of the original statement.
I'm well aware of clitoral circumcision and the practices of the Middle East. I've written a lot about Islamic countries and arabic cultures in the past, but just because one culture is more sexist than another, doesn't make it any less distasteful.
For all I know, Sterling could have a wife and 4 kids, but my guess is that he hasn't been with a woman long enough to develope a nice healthy hatred of the female species, like most men.
Seriously, why are game companies so set on trying to conquer the land of the rising sun? When systems like the PS2 and the DS are the most popular forms of entertainment over there its a wonder why MS doesn't just pull out or drop a significant amount of support for the Japanese market, since all the Japanese market does is kick MS in the teeth when they try to go out of there way to do cool and innovative things SPECIFICALLY for them.
Maybe it is Xenophobia, but like most people have been saying... at this point, who really cares? Theres far larger markets with people that love this form of entertainment. The bigger question is, 'Is Japan still relevant to the gaming culture'?
We should all probably stop seeking validation through Japanese acceptance.
If you want to get technical about it, why are we talking about women's rights in a post about Japanese gamers not knowing what's best for them? (Read: Dead Rising and Lost Planet.)
One thing I've notice about the English is a pretty healthy spot of racism towards the Japanese and their culture. I'm not saying that the Japanese don't have some women's rights issues, but so does North America, South America, A LOT of Eastern Europe, and ALL of the Middle East. To single out Japan is ridiculous. TheStripe DOES make valid points because Japan isn't nearly as bad as MOST countries. Just because whitey has created the illusion of equal rights and tolerance doesn't mean it's all encompassing. I live in Canada and I've watched my girlfriend struggle to find work in a male dominated workforce. I work in kitchens, and the amount of blatant sexism in my industry is disgusting, and isn't that where they say women belong?!? Sorry, I know my comments are all over the place and this ISN'T the right place for this discussion, but hey! That's the beauty of talkbacks!!
I always love to insert the revolutionary war into arguments between ourselves and our friends across the pond. It's nonsense but it really enflames the agressiveness of the participants.
Certain things are harder for certain people. Thus is life. There will always be sexists and racists, and no amount of distaste is going to make that go away. I don't have as much of a problem with employment and wage differences, because all of those (Japanese, European, American) women still have their clitorises (clitori?) and don't have to cover themselves in a black towel from head to toe whenever they're not servicing their husband alongside his three other wives. Once the largest problem facing any woman on this planet is limited employment opportunities, expect me to care more about that issue. As long as warlords are brutalizing infant girls, I could really give two shits about the fact that you can't get a job that you want.