Why Xbox failed in Japan

[InsaneNutter]

Very interesting read, i've not finished reading it all as I started on my lunch break and never had chance to finish it.

Have a look if your interested on some history about the Xbox: Why Xbox failed in Japan • Articles • Eurogamer.net

 

[Andami]

I read most of it. Basically, the Xbox didn't succeed because of the cultural differences between the U.S. and Japan. Way too many words to get to such a simple conclusion.

 

[HCL.]

The answer is simple. Japanese people are living in small island, where they are close to each others. This has to do much with the fact that they like RPGs. Where RPG games will ask you about each step on what you want to do next and how you want to execute orders...etc Being more attracted to RPG style is related to the fact are more social tend to care and more friendly due to the already explained "island effect" . The xbox games are less RPG and gives the player more freedom in exploration. In conclusions Japanese people would like to see more menus, dialogue clouds ...etc

 

[Rockman]

Microsoft tried to always gain the Japanese audience attention but they just don't seem open to foreigners, so they'd rather stick with their Japan made consoles companies, i.e, Nintendo and Sony.

The problem wasn't Xbox but that Japanese people weren't willing to give them a chance.

 

[The Eyes of Another]

Surely there were just no games the Japanese audiences wanted to play.

The West wasn't set up to create games Japanese audiences wanted and Japanese companies couldn't be convinced to invest in the Xbox when the PS2 was already entrenched.

In a pretty awesome 1UP video, the founder-type-dude of Q Games mentioned Japanese game design focused on attention to detail. Pretty much the opposite of US development at the time, where ugly game design was almost encouraged as long as more polygons could be pushed (especially on Xbox exclusives and ports where MS was trying to better the PS2).

Saying Japanese gamers dislike Western games just because they are from The West is hard to prove/disprove. It's not as if Microsoft or any other western game company has invested significantly (to the same extent the Japanese do) to capture the Japanese market. They aim for the US market and hope Japan comes for free.

Also, this is the same group of execs who thought Rare failed because people didn't want to play the type of games Rare made. Nothing to do with being forced to rush out port after port and wafer thin launch titles then...