Xbox 360 Userbase in Japan Increases 20% in One Week!

Up to ~215K LTD after selling ~35K this past week (thanks in large part to this game), although it is still behind the PS3 and Wii in terms of sales (both weekly and LTD). Still, it seems like there might be some life in the 360 after all (in Japan anyway):


It would be interesting if they're able to keep this up.

 

Blue Dragon did sell better than the best-selling Wii/PS3 title. Maybe you're on to something...

The DS will go down next week.

 

There's only 2 other games by Mistwalker (Lost Odyssey and Cry-On). I don't think I've seen much hype for Cry-On, but LO should be nice. That said, BD has been highly anticipated in Japan. It has been in the top 5 most wanted list for a while, but LO hasn't ranked nearly as high. Seems like BD is like Dragon Quest, while LO is like Final Fantasy...and DQ games usually sell better than FF games in Japan. Doesn't hurt that BD had Akira Toriyama involved either.

It might change as more of LO is shown...not to mention more people will look forward to LO since BD turned out to be a really good game.

 

I think I said this in one of the other threads, but don't really put much stock in reviews from Famitsu. Gundam and Sonic both got really good scores from Famitsu (like 8s IIRC). Their Metacritic scores are 48 and 35 though. They basically take bribes (good reviews in exchange for future exclusives from the publisher).

Their Blue Dragon score seems to be accurate based on what I've read about the game though. I'm not trying to discredit the game...just trying to say that Famitsu scores aren't really that reliable. I think there are a few other Japanese review magazines (Dengeki for example), although I don't think they're much better (pretty much the same situation IIRC).

 

I'm not playing much at all.

Mostly because of my school work though. I should actually get back to studying for my final for "Intro to Japan" that I will be taking in 9 hours. That's actually what reminded me about the 360 sales in Japan. If only these things were on the test...

 

Kind of hard to say. Generally speaking, I'd guess about a 5-6 year life-span for these consoles (so around 2010-2011 before new consoles start coming out). Using the Playstation approach to business, that's about how long it takes to start getting really good profits.

That said, a number of things could happen that might change that. Nintendo could, for example, release a WiiHD in the next 3-4 years if the market was ready for it (might even be a new enhanced Wii by late 2007). If the 360 fails to really do anything like the Xbox, MS might try to release another console in 4 years again, which would really hurt Sony; if Microsoft wanted, they could probably afford to make Sony bleed by releasing a new system every 3-4 years since Sony couldn't do the same (unless they change their business model). Of course, MS would lose (tens of?) billions of dollars doing this, but they could if they wanted. And, of course, there might not even be a PS4.

It takes a little bit of time to figure these things out exactly. I'm pretty sure we won't really see anything really new in 2-3 years or in 9-10 years, but it is kind of difficult to pin down an exact time frame considering the circumstances (especially those brought by the Wii). I suppose if the market splits somewhat evenly so that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are all making profit (or, in Nintendo's case, a nice amount of profit), this console cycle could last quite a while (in previous generations, at least one company was losing a lot of money and wanted to "restart" things).

It would be better if/when the "one-console future" idea starts to materialize (doubt it would be this soon unfortunately).

Yeah, the visuals were amazing in that demo. I was wondering how RPGs might use some of the new processing power (particularly in regards to physics); that demo was able to show me what to look forward to with next-gen RPGs.

The only bad thing was that the demo seemed kind of boring. The battles seemed really plain and unexciting. The game also has random battles IIRC (unlike Blue Dragon), and I think the visuals were a bit inconsistent at times. I think they were holding back on showing some of their ideas for the gameplay though, so I'll give them a bit of slack. They have 6-12 months to work on those things anyway.

I've heard of them, but they're not too big (especially in the US). I think CVG was a gaming magazine in the UK, but that magazine got "suspended" in 2004. The site still runs though.

They occasionally get some nice exclusive info (which are first reported as rumors) and media, although sometimes the info is hit-or-miss. I think they were the first to state that F.E.A.R. would be coming to the 360 and PS3 (as well as the first with screens).

I'm not very familar with their reviews though. I don't think they review many games based on a few searches I did.

 

It wasn't released in Japan AFAIK.