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Hardware Sales Remain Slow In Japan
Nintendo platforms continued to dominate handheld and home console sales in Japan during the week ended June 14.
Total sales fell from 111, 558 units to 109,148. Wii and Xbox 360 recorded weekly sales increases, while all other platforms saw marginal declines, according to data from Media Create.
DSi – 36,872
PSP – 26,904
Wii – 18,442
PS3 – 10,009
Xbox 360 – 8,015
DS Lite – 5,408
PS2 – 3,498
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
That's why consoles cost more in UK/Europe than in Japan and the US. When console sales dip in Japan and the US, the extra money that Europeans pay compensates. This has been going on since the early 1990s. If consoles come down in price in Japan, they won't reduce them in the UK/Europe for months. I heard something about the PS3 in Japan sells for £180, £300 in the UK.
Is this true? I have no idea. I guess part of that will be involved with the ludicrously strong yen though?
The 360 has been dead in Japan for an age now, there's no way of the system catching the PS3 in that market.
Microsoft should rebrand their next system with a Sega logo (not the xbox logo) in Japan when the next gen starts. It's a brand the Japanese trust, plus it's not as if Microsoft could do any worse than they already are at the moment in the Japanese market.
And the Japanese are supposed to be hardcore gamers yet most have ignored the 360. If it's not Japanese, they won't buy it. The 360 has some ace exclusives yet sales are poor. I don't see the point in Microsoft releasing its next console in Japan. The few that want to buy it, they can just import it.
OMG! I never thought of that!
That's a great idea! Sets always gets an advantage as a company everyone seems to want to succeed - brilliant strategy!
The narrow gap between the PS3 and the 360 is strange indeed.
There have been no new games for the 360 since a couple of months, still it almost sells as much as the PS3. One could say, that the new 360 users are buying it because of the SquarEnix exclusive games (StarOcean, etc.) but not even those are in the top30 charts. So they probably sell less than 1000 units per week...
Anybody has a good reason for this situation?
The whole world has been getting their hardware patterns from Japan since the 1980's. You can stay with your current console cycle for 5/10/20 years, but there's a reason for the turnaround time frame. Hardware sales slow around this time, & no company has been doing anything aggressive lately.
Consoles are not a "turn-key" operation. Waiting 10 years doesn't mean everybody on earth will own a video game system. Sure, we could start focusing on games - it's good for consumers & third party developers, but hardware makers will have to expect some kind of slowdown.
360 is definitely beginning to catch up with ps3 here. ~2000 units difference this week, where it was about 6000 a month or so ago.