The Xbox 360 Slim has made something of an impact in the Japanese market; last week sales of the console hit 17,370 units, with 15K of those being the new slim model. The redesign has helped boost sales of the Xbox 360 by over 800%, a figure not seen since the release of Ace Combat 6, which helped bring console sales to 17,673 units the first week of the game’s release.
Andriasang provides a translation for the news, stating that the numbers of sales from the Xbox 360 the previous week only numbered 2,060 units. The new hardware launch also coincided with the launch of a major exclusive 360 title in Japan, Monster Hunter Frontier. Monster Hunter hit the top of the sales charts at 93K units.
Though these sales figures are a major improvement for the console, sales still lacked behind the other consoles. The PS3, PSP, DSi and Wii all outsold the console, with the PS3 hitting 19,578 units, PSP hitting 23,257 units and the Wii netting 19,115 units. The DSi however, took the top spot at 41,676 units sold last week.
Though this is a success in the Japanese market for the Xbox 360, it represents a minor bump in sales, as the 360 has rarely been a success in the country that Nintendo and Sony hail from.
3 Comments
July 3, 2010
Thats interesting. The price drop of xbox360 in the past made it go up but not 800% (i'm not sure on that ). Japan has never been stuck on console quality just look at ps1, and ps2 sales! They had the read disc error to the point that they had a little worse fail rate in Japan. I think it is because they played RPG's, and when you played for over 45 minutes according to Sony (support) that was abusive. Most RPG's have you play more than a hour to finish a boss fight or a dungen, or town. So why the fuss about a Monster hunter exclusive, and a xbox360slim. Is that game that big there? Or just a perfect combination of the two?
July 6, 2010
Monster Hunter is huge in Japan. It's become one of Capcom's biggest franchises in the region, despite never having taken off in the West as much. So clearly, customers were attracted to the game and the new hardware form, but I doubt its a sign of things to come - those two things weren't able to lift the Xbox 360 past the PS3 in weekly sales, so why should it change the trajectory of the system in Japan?
July 8, 2010
take a shot every time he says blog