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Post by Ex on Oct 1, 2020 22:39:20 GMT -5
I'll try to the enjoy the medium until my last breath and go down with the ship. I don't know in which dark waters that ship may sink, but there's so much old stuff to play back at port, I'm not too concerned. the history books will show that MS didn't really do anything good for this medium Microsoft certainly killed true PC gaming with the Xbox. I highly doubt Japan would ever go crazy over a western based console, let alone western game designs in general. I don't think you have much to worry about in that regard. It's okay man. We've all had enough of 2020's shit.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 1, 2020 22:50:04 GMT -5
Hang in there, Xeogred. Definitely take comfort in the fact that we're all in this pretty rotten boat that has been 2020. And even when things suck, try to find the good things in your life. A lot of us (especially me!) tend to forget about the blessings we already have.
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Post by Xeogred on Oct 2, 2020 13:09:19 GMT -5
I'll be seeing my family next weekend for my birthday, so hopefully that's fun and levels me out again. It'll be short though, as my dinner time is lunch for them and everyone else right now. I highly doubt Japan would ever go crazy over a western based console, let alone western game designs in general. I don't think you have much to worry about in that regard. Yeah. Some of us probably remember how there was "talk" of Sega and Xbox teaming up originally back in the day. Recently there were silly rumors again that they were maybe going to team up and rebrand the Xbox Series X as a Sega related product in Japan.
But yeah it's been beyond repair for Xbox in Japan. I heard jokes about this last week again on a podcast. Lifetime sales of the One in Japan are 100,000 units. Lifetime. The Switch sells close to that in one week, probably even more during some special big releases/holidays. Think they mentioned how one week recently there was like 30 One's sold, lol. Ouch. Also, when I'm on a kick, I play a lot of modern stuff too, Xeogred , so if you're number one, then I'm probably number two on that front around here. This year has felt like an exception - I've tilted heavily retro - but most years I'm looking at a pretty even split timewise. I was actually surprised by my 2020 numbers recently: First: 33 Replay: 18 Modern: 13 Retro: 38 Definitely a slower year for some modern releases that interest me. But this never really bothers me. Gives me time to catch up with other current games and just play more retro stuff.
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Post by toei on Oct 2, 2020 13:50:59 GMT -5
Xeogred And I wonder how many of these Japanese Xbox sales are actually to Japanese people. Lots of US military bases there, "expats", etc. I always picture guys named Brad grabbing X-Boxes with Madden and some kegs for the weekend or whatever. All it takes is 29 Brads and one diehard Japanese FPS fan ("Burado") and you got your weekly sales. Yes, I am stereotyping X-Box owners
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Post by Sarge on Oct 2, 2020 13:53:31 GMT -5
I find it interesting how a lot of Japanese players ignore Western-style games, but there are a ton of Westerners that really love Japanese games (as well as Western). But then there's stuff like Wizardry, obviously a Western series, or the Souls stuff which also feels very "Western" as well.
I do think the issue Microsoft has is a lack of compelling exclusives that appeal to the Japanese market. They tried pretty hard in the 360 days with a very solid slate of JRPGs, but it wasn't enough.
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Post by toei on Oct 2, 2020 13:58:09 GMT -5
I find it interesting how a lot of Japanese players ignore Western-style games, but there are a ton of Westerners that really love Japanese games (as well as Western). But then there's stuff like Wizardry, obviously a Western series, or the Souls stuff which also feels very "Western" as well. I do think the issue Microsoft has is a lack of compelling exclusives that appeal to the Japanese market. They tried pretty hard in the 360 days with a very solid slate of JRPGs, but it wasn't enough. And wasn't Tecmo favoring them as well? The problem with that strategy is that you can't win with just a little bit of what your competitor has a lot of. Trying to appeal to Japanese gamers with a decent amount of RPGs won't work if your rival has more RPGs and bigger ones anyway. Also, RPGs aren't as popular in Japan as they once were, as a whole. Lots of RPGs released in the past decade, maybe 15 years, are niche feeders.
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Post by Xeogred on Oct 2, 2020 14:02:14 GMT -5
Which is funny, since when they do a spin on popular Western genres, like you mentioned with Souls... it often resonates with me so much more than it ever would normally. I've never been super hardcore on fantasy like that in general. Souls seems closest to Berserk in ways, which also seems kind of Western influenced.
To be fair, are Japan kind of like this about everything in general? I imagine a lot of Asia products, Korean, Chinese, etc might cycle through there on the regular. But maybe Japan ignores a lot that stuff too and they just stick to their own brands and products? I could see that. Nothing wrong with that either honestly.
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Post by toei on Oct 2, 2020 14:24:35 GMT -5
Which is funny, since when they do a spin on popular Western genres, like you mentioned with Souls... it often resonates with me so much more than it ever would normally. I've never been super hardcore on fantasy like that in general. Souls seems closest to Berserk in ways, which also seems kind of Western influenced. To be fair, are Japan kind of like this about everything in general? I imagine a lot of Asia products, Korean, Chinese, etc might cycle through there on the regular. But maybe Japan ignores a lot that stuff too and they just stick to their own brands and products? I could see that. Nothing wrong with that either honestly. Nah, that's a myth. People sometimes want to call Japan xenophobic for not liking American games, but American movies are very popular there just like everywhere else. In general, they dominate the box office. K-Pop and K-Dramas are huge. Hong Kong kung-fu movies were huge in Japan in their heyday, and most Japanese are aware that a lot of traditional Japanese culture is from China. Lots of foreign foods catch on, foreign music, foreign fashion, etc. There's a lot of xenophobia there from what I've heard, don't get me wrong, but that's not how it expresses itself. Although nationalists complain about these things all the time (ie "what's with all the Korean dramas on TV? Is this Japan?") - but they complain because these things are widely accepted and they're mad. Japanese just don't like Western games cause most Western consoles games sucked for the longest time and now they have that image. (And they still kinda suck lol) Plus they've had a strong gaming industry and gaming style for decades. It doesn't leave a lot of room for other games to catch on. Remember Japanese games got big in the West partly because the US video game industry had crashed and Nintendo seized that opportunity. If Atari had remained dominant, that might have never happened.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2020 14:31:23 GMT -5
I don't think a MS and Sega alliance is unlikely, but that's just going to mean more PC ports - or 'Windows 10' exclusives if you will - there's nothing that's going to reverse the downward trend of Xbox consoles in Japan at this point. However, the very first Xbox and 360 had quite a number of exclusive Japanese games on them. Breakdown, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Otogi, SMT Nine, etc.
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Post by Ex on Oct 2, 2020 15:10:51 GMT -5
the very first Xbox and 360 had quite a number of exclusive Japanese games on them. Breakdown, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Otogi, SMT Nine, etc. I was going to mention that, glad you already did. There's a fair amount of Japanese-only Xbox brand games. Army Brad wasn't buying those. (Actually given that the Xbox and 360 were region locked, I highly doubt Army Brad was buying a Japanese-region Xbox anyway, more likely his Xbox and games were shipped from the USA to the base.) Plus loads of western Xbox games got Japanese localizations, and some you mightn't expect... like a western FPS: So clearly some Japanese players were buying Xbox games. That said, the shit pile amount of money Microsoft dumped into the Japanese gaming market, hoping to crack the paradigm and become a serious console contender there... ended in absolutley paltry results. It's clear Japanese gamers by and large don't care about Xbox.
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