Why Did Xbox 360 Fail in Japan?

The Xbox 360 has been a failure in Japan, which is strange when you consider how much it dominates the North American market, as well as parts of Europe. The console is unlikely to cross the two million sold mark in Japan (which is how much the original Xbox sold there), and has been soundly outsold by its competitors in the form of Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s PlayStation 3. It continues to see terrible sales, and many stores in Japan carry neither the console or games for the console today in 2013.

In a conversation with IGN, famous Japanese game creator Keiji Inafune – the mind behind Mega Man, Onimusha and the upcoming Vita game Soul Sacrifice – commented on why he thinks Xbox 360 failed to catch on in Japan.

“When I was working at Capcom, I supported Xbox 360 all I could,” Inafune told IGN. “I love PlayStation, but I also enjoy Xbox and I think it’s not a bad console personally. I understand Japanese users don’t prefer Xbox 360, but if I was asked why, I wouldn’t be able to put a finger on it.”

Inafune proceeded to touch on something interesting. “Probably one of the reasons is because PlayStation is a domestic brand in Japan,” he continued. “As a Japanese [person], I think it’s only natural you feel closer or attached more to domestic products and I find myself being that way too. When you see two products with similar features and one is from your own country and the other is from foreign countries, it’s easy to pick the one from your own country.”

He concluded: “From this perspective, Xbox is made by Microsoft in the US, so it’s not a domestic product. It’s only natural that you want to support your domestic products. If there were more Xbox-exclusive games out there, things may have been different, but usually a title is developed for multiple platforms so that’s not the case.”

The question now – with two failed consoles in Japan – is if Microsoft will bother to launch its yet-unannounced third generation Xbox console, codenamed Durango, in Sony's and Nintendo's home territory. Hopefully, we’ll find out soon.

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.

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