When the Xbox One was released in Japan on September of last year, it only managed to sell 30,000 systems that month, half the number that the Xbox 360 achieved in its first month. Now the system has hit an all time low with only 300 units sold last week.
Microsoft's consoles has never been the most popular in Japan, with Sony and Nintendo systems always managing to reach a larger sales audience. But not even managing to sell more than 500 systems is troubling. Even the Playstation Vita TV managed to sell over twice as many systems as the Xbox One with 682 units sold. The Xbox One sold a fraction of the 25,299 system sales of Nintendo's New 3DS XL.
It makes sense that sales would be somewhat slower now that the Holiday season has ended. The Xbox One will hopefully make a comeback sometime soon. If not, Japanese gamers might not be able to buy the console in the future, giving Sony's Playstation 4 a larger section of the market.
Because of the large difference between the hardware of the Nintendo Wii U and the Playstation 4, this would lower the number of multi-platform games that were developed for the Japanese audience. Games like Dark Souls or Metal Gear Solid could potentially become Playstation exclusive titles. Though demand from the PC gaming audience might help to keep this from happening.
Microsoft has recognized that they have problems appealing to the Japanese market. When the console failed to meet sales expectation upon launch, they announced plans to get more user feedback, while also improving their marketing strategy. This was at the beginning of the fourth sales quarter of the year, so it's possible that they have yet to finish these plans.
Will Microsoft be able to grasp a portion of the Japanese console market, or will they eventually give it up to Sony and Nintendo? Only time will tell, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Below is a list of the Japanese video game hardware sales of this week (and last week.)
(Source via Genmatsu.)
- 1. New 3DS XL - 25,299 (30,455)
- 2. PlayStation Vita - 16,823 (21,536)
- 3. PlayStation 4 - 15,480 (19,118)
- 4. New 3DS - 9,916 (14,226)
- 5. Wii U - 8,894 (10,803)
- 6. PlayStation 3 - 7,036 (8,216)
- 7. 3DS LL - 4,776 (6,308)
- 8. 3DS - 4,238 (6,685)
- 9. PlayStation Vita TV - 682 (791)
- 10. Xbox One - 300 (563)
