Microsoft beats one-week Wii sales in Japan
Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 8:51am by Derek
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 outsold Wii in Japan for the week ending Sept. 14
On the strength of an aggressive price drop and the release of the popular RPG Infinite Undiscovery, Microsoft sold 28,681 Xbox 360 units in Japan, Famitsu reports. These figures were just enough to pass Wii, which sold 27,057 units.
Sony moved 8,050 PS3 units.
Microsoft has struggled to capture a Japanese audience since joining the console business. The company sold 24 million original Xbox units worldwide before discontinuing the system in late 2006, but only 473,000 were purchased in Japan.
Microsoft has sold approximately 720,000 Xbox 360 consoles in Japan since launching in Dec. 2005. By contrast, Sony has sold more than 2.3 million PS3 consoles in Japan since Nov. 2006, and Nintendo has sold more than 6.7 million Wii consoles in Japan since Dec. 2006.
September 18th, 2008 at 10:55 am
So with the recent Tales of Vesperia release, that makes two decent RPGs on XBox in the last little while… add in a nice price cut, and it’s no surprise they’ve captured some extra market share. Job well done.
(That said, I still can’t wait for Tales of Symphonia 2 to arrive on Wii this fall. Not sure if it will impact the sales chart, but it’ll impact my wallet.)
September 18th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Repent, sinners! The apocalypse has come!
September 18th, 2008 at 11:38 am
This price drop is def a important for M$ this holiday season, in all regions though, not just Japan. This is its bid to keep PS3 from gaining momentum in the race for 2nd. And it’s prob delayed b/c of the extra costs from production problems.
September 18th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
YAY!!! apocalypse now I get to try out my super ghoul and ghosts skills along with my battle toad skills!
September 18th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I could be wrong but I don’t think the famitsu numbers are the official tally. I think we wait for the media create numbers to see what really happened. They’re usually pretty close though so who knows.
September 18th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
well this news got me to roll to the other side of the bed…but i fell back asleep.
September 18th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Lets just say that in no way will america understand the japanese market more than japan, in other words
Microsoft will not beat Nintendo in japan
Over the years we have seen a very different taste of japanese over the bulky big killer games+ machines from america. Compare Original xbox with gamecube. heck even compare CD size. Japanese are different market to cater for, and its the superior.
My arguement is that far more people in America play japanese made games and japanese imports, than japanese wanting to play american games and american imports. You can compare it any way you want. Japan wins in Japan.
This of course, does not keep microsoft from obtaining a significant market share in Japan, it will just never beat japanese games with gears of war, COD4, NFL, and so on…While Japanese can beat these games with stuff like Mario, Final Fanasy, and Metal Gear.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:01 am
I called it. The 360 wasn’t able to pass the Wii in Japan.
http://kotaku.com/5052044/xbox-360-the-best-selling-console-in-japan-media-create-says-no
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