Four days after its Sept. 4 release, the Xbox One has sold only 23,562 units in Japan, a giant low in comparison to how their consoles have done in the past and how their competition—Nintendo and Sony—have gone far beyond their numbers.
Judging from the history of Microsoft console sales in the land of the rising sun, it has become very clear that these two things simply do not mix. According to various sales records, the Xbox 360 sold only 60,000 units during its first-week launch in 2005. The original Xbox console didn’t do well either, as it struggled to a $2 million mark during Microsoft’s apparent move to releasing the Xbox 360.
PlayStation and Nintendo consoles have done far better. The Nintendo Wii U sold 308,570 of it’s units in two days, while the PlayStation 4 sold 322,083 units in two days, as well. These numbers, however, are still low in comparison to how consoles do in the United States and in countries all over the world, which further begs the question of why the console gaming market has been such a dark and slow time in Japan.
Whatever the case may be, Japanese game developers aren’t too hasty about moving titles into the development stage for the system due to the negative stigma. It’s also important to note that developers like former Final Fantasy producer Hironobu Sakaguchi have abandoned console gaming altogether to pursue better horizons in the mobile gaming market.
Check back on the site later for a more in-depth look into the relationship with between Japanese role-playing games and how one developer sees console gaming as a lost effort in the future.
