Western gamers are often aghast at the sight of Japanese game sales charts. Series like Gears of War, Halo, GTA, and Call of Duty, all sell in the multi-millions in Europe and the United States, but are lucky to move a fraction of that in Japan.
It’s always made sense to me that a culture with no military, a freakishly low crime rate, thousands of years of focus on abstract “cartoonish” fine art, and an overpopulation problem would not immediately gravitate towards games about criminals/marines/space marines with plastic-realistic faces violently interacting with other human beings in crowded virtual cities and/or jam-packed online servers. Games that provide escapism to those living in a Western culture just don’t work for culture with a completely different set of problems, ideals and taboos. Or hey, maybe the Japan is just totally racist. The popularity of American music, movies, and fashion, combined with constant “stylish” use of the the English language in Japan, must all be a series of flukes.
Maybe this is a fluke too. Famitsu, Japan’s videogame super-magazine, has tabulated an average of all its reviews, sorted by system and score. Out of all the current-gen systems, the 360 managed to snag the most games scoring a 32/40 or higher, beating the PS3 by 27 games, and the Wii by a whopping 54 games.
So yeah, Famitsu likes the Xbox 360. Japan hates Western games unconfirmed. See for yourself after the jump.
It’s Official: PS3 has the best library ever [1up, via Gonintendo]
1. PlayStation 3 (77/171, 45.03%)
2. Xbox 360 (104/240, 43.33%)
3. GameCube (87/240, 36.25%)
4. PSP (90/388, 23.20%)
5. Xbox (40/185, 21.62%)
6. Nintendo 64 (38/183, 20.77%)
7. PlayStation 2 (393/1997, 19.68%)
8. Wii (50/257, 19.46%)
9. Nintendo DS (152/887, 17.14%)
10. Dreamcast (62/407, 15.23%)
11. Game Boy Advance (90/618, 14.56%)
12. Sega Saturn (52/930, 5.59%)
13. PlayStation (130/2645, 4.93%)
14. Super NES (55/1407, 3.90%)
15. NES (34/955, 3.56%)
16. PC Engine (22/628, 3.5%)
17. Genesis (11/534, 2.06%)
18. Game Boy (15/1071, 1.40%)
19. Wonder Swan (1/179, 0.55%)
20. Game Gear (0/184, 0%)
