Microsoft's Xbox 360 has enjoyed some success in North America, Australia, and the UK but Japan continues to remain elusive. Despite offering exclusive games from Japanese developers and multiple 360 pack-in bonuses, the new Xbox console is having difficulty gaining traction in the Land of the Rising Sun.
According to a Famitsu Marketing data survey, 113,000 Xbox 360 units have been sold in Japan this year. Over the past 11 months, Sony has sold 1.4 million PS2s. The new releases of PS3 and Wii have already trumped Xbox 360 yearly sales in just a handful of weeks. Even the Game Boy Micro, a niche collectible, managed to sell 150,000 units this year. To be fair, Xbox 360 outsold GameCube in 2006 as Nintendo's now-defunct console sold under 100,000 units.
"Following a great event in November of last year, DevGAMM Lisbon is coming back to the beautiful and sunny Cascais region to catch up with old friends, connect with game developers from around the world, hear from seasoned professionals, and have a great time all around." - DevGAMM.
A look into the sad trajectory of indie games from high successful releases to complete irrelevancy in just a few weeks or months.
That's the thing with gaming there's always new experiences to have why spend months or years playing a single game when there's a new experience right around the corner.
Indie or AAA if your building your game expecting long term player counts you'll probably be disappointed as gamers often enjoy something for a few weeks and move on only to return if it's truely a classic.
Out of all the generations I've experienced there's games from 30 plus years ago I still dust off and play like super Mario bros, earthbound, vice city and san Andreas being games I treasure and revisit every few years but I'm not going back to play a game designed to keep me engaged for months on end because it's also designed to milk my wallet in most cases.
Build a great game that people love make it playable offline and ask does it matter if the concurrent player count is under 100 a year post launch more often that not it doesn't
The price of entry is too high to take chances like I used to. Was looking at V Rising and that ranges from $50-$130 CAD. That’s a lot for an indie imo. By the time it goes on sale, the player count might be dwindling. But that’s the trade-off, I guess.
GL: "Staff writer Shaz reflects on his small library of physical games he's kept throughout the decades, and how a recent move made him nostalgic."
I lost my drive for collecting physical games due to many discs lacking the whole complete game. Instead, of collecting games I started collected figurines.
I am a collector have a room dedicated with a couple original arcade cabinets, physical game library, old and new consoles and controllers backlit with LED lighting. It’s very cool to have but with emulation being so strong and prevalent, I sometimes feel foolish because the hobby is expensive and like another said, the full game is not always on the disc. Could probably spend more wisely but I enjoy it.
Most games are usually on disc still. Of course you got you publishers that are hit and miss, Activision, ubisoft, ea, Microsoft, where the rest of the game needs downloaded.
But Blue Dragon has changed chances
Just wait for the months to come
WHO CARES!? All the news is anymore revolves around Japan, I don't live their, I don't care how well the 360 is selling their, I would love to see Microsoft sell well their, but honestly, story after story day after day about how it's not selling is a little overboard people, quit posting these stories, we know it's not selling by now. Also, yes Mart Blue Dragon will help, but it wont make an impact like Microsoft hopes, if it was released in the summer and not 2 weeks after the PS3, it'd be a bigger difference
They have a slow month for news, so they repeat the same sh1t for the 50th time about how MS is fairing in Japan. However, they do so, right as Japan is starting to show interest in the 360, because of Blue Dragon and Lost Planet. If at the end Feb. '07, MS still hasn't sold 200k units in Japan, then this might be news....but it's pointless right now.
Indeed, why should I care. The Xbox 360 is a great console and is doing well world-wide. If the Japanese don't want it, thats fine to me. It's their problem, not mine.
More interesting is to look at the reasons. Lower price, better online service and exclusive games aimed specially on the Japanese market. Maybe they're just racists who'll only buy their own goods.
Im so tired of hearing about Japan seriously! 360 is by far the best console created to date and it looks like certain people will continue to miss out on this really great experience! For the next couple of years it's going to be all about the games on 360 whether people want to believe it or not!