Those crazy Japs
We all know that the Xbox 360 has been, more or less, a colossal failure in Japan. Relatively, that is. Speculative stat-conjurers VG Charts reckon it’s sold 590,000 which, I guess, isn’t a total write off. I mean, try and imagine 590,000 things. Any things will do. If you struggle to be imaginative with your reality-TV-addled brain and need a bit of direction – I dunno, try and picture 590,000 garden gnomes in a field. Picture ten. Then a hundred. Then ten hundreds. Then ten of them. Then ten of them. And then six of them. Is that right? Either way, think of that many Xbox 360s in Japan. A little more than a drop in the ocean, I would have thought. If I made something and 590,000 Japanese people bought one I’d be dead chuffed.
All of which is besides the point. Pat’s VG247 recently published a list of the top-rated games of 2007 according to Japanese weekly games bible Famitsu. Ten of which, surprisingly, are for Xbox 360:
1. Phantom Hourglass (DS) Nintendo – 39/40
2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360) - 38
3. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 38
4. GTA San Andreas (PS2) - 38
5. Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360) - 37
6. Call of Duty 4 (PS3) - 37
7. Minna no Golf Portable 2 (PSP ) - 37
8. God of War 2 (PS2) - 37
9. Halo 3 (Xbox 360) - 37
10. World Soccer Winning Eleven 2008 (PS3) - 36
and then from the next 20…
11. World Soccer Winning Eleven 2008 (Xbox 360) - 36
15. Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360) - 36
16. Assassin’s Creed (Xbox 360) - 36
17. Ace Combat 6 (Xbox 360) - 36
20. Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (Xbox 360) - 36
22. Forza Motorsport 2 (Xbox 360) - 36
23. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas (Xbox 360) - 36
Well, it shouldn’t be that surprising – 360 easily boasted the strongest software lineup last year. By quite some stretch. But I’d kind of presumed this fact had passed those crazy Japs by. Seemingly not.
And look at some of the games on that list – Oblivion, COD4, Halo 3, GRAW, Assassin’s Creed (and San Andreas on PS2). A very Western-centric lineup.
But this does beg the question – if Famitsu is coming round to the ways of the West, why is the Japanese gaming public not? I’m not sure if it’s simply commercialised anti-Americanism. Though saying that, the Japs genuinely do hate the Yanks – what with all that bomb-dropping business a few years back. Maybe they’re just too busy playing Wii Fit, Nintendogs and those odd rape-simulators on PC?
Mind you, I guess it’s the same as how no matter how many clever Western people like me tell you to buy great games like this, this or this, less clever Western people seemingly refuse to buy them.








