Slow Xbox sales to trigger further Japanese price cut?
Latest sales figures and rumours inside.
Rumour from some credible Japanese sources is hinting that Microsoft is poised to further reduce the price of the Xbox hardware set-up for the Japanese market.
Apparently, MS is looking to bring the retail price-point down to 19,800 yen from 24,000 yen. This new price sets the machine at about $165, which, non-coincidentally, is the same asking price Nintendo has its steady-selling GameCube at.
The rumours also state that Xbox games will see a reduction in price to 5,000 yen.
As this news comes in, we can reveal that Microsoft has seen a bit of a leap in the Japanese hardware sales charts, something that will come as welcome news to the firm’s ongoing eastern gaming push.
In the week July 22-28, the Japanese gaming public bought 6,047 Xbox hardware units, double the amount sold in the previous week. This follows a concerted marketing campaign by Microsoft that has seen the Xbox division push its upcoming 3D fighting games Kakuto Chojin and Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus. The strongest sales enjoyed by the Xbox was when Tecmo’s Dead or Alive 3 was released and it seems that the firm now believes 3D fighters to be the future. We say that’s no bad thing.
In the second week of Super Mario Sunshine’s release, the GameCube is still selling at a steady rate: 14,258 units sold in the week ending July 28. This is not the big spike in sales Nintendo will have been hoping for and many were predicting, but it does demonstrate the machine has a fair level of consistent support on its home turf.
As ever, the best selling machine in Japan was the unstoppable force that is PlayStation 2. With apparent ease, Sony Computer Entertainment sold 87,644 generating a sales pattern that is unsurpassed by any gaming machine ever. It is also worth remembering that, with this week-on-week life cycle comparison with the PlayStation, the PlayStation 2 is selling at a stronger rate. We can only guess at what its final installed user base will be.
Other sales figures from Japan include those for the Game Boy Advance which, steady as ever, shifted 49,128 units, and the PSone which sold 3,630 units.
As a point of interest, this is only the second time in the past eighteen weeks that the Xbox has outsold Sony’s PSone.
We’ll keep you updated with how our Japanese friends see fit to spend their gaming budgets every Wednesday.
Apparently, MS is looking to bring the retail price-point down to 19,800 yen from 24,000 yen. This new price sets the machine at about $165, which, non-coincidentally, is the same asking price Nintendo has its steady-selling GameCube at.
The rumours also state that Xbox games will see a reduction in price to 5,000 yen.
As this news comes in, we can reveal that Microsoft has seen a bit of a leap in the Japanese hardware sales charts, something that will come as welcome news to the firm’s ongoing eastern gaming push.
In the week July 22-28, the Japanese gaming public bought 6,047 Xbox hardware units, double the amount sold in the previous week. This follows a concerted marketing campaign by Microsoft that has seen the Xbox division push its upcoming 3D fighting games Kakuto Chojin and Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus. The strongest sales enjoyed by the Xbox was when Tecmo’s Dead or Alive 3 was released and it seems that the firm now believes 3D fighters to be the future. We say that’s no bad thing.
In the second week of Super Mario Sunshine’s release, the GameCube is still selling at a steady rate: 14,258 units sold in the week ending July 28. This is not the big spike in sales Nintendo will have been hoping for and many were predicting, but it does demonstrate the machine has a fair level of consistent support on its home turf.
As ever, the best selling machine in Japan was the unstoppable force that is PlayStation 2. With apparent ease, Sony Computer Entertainment sold 87,644 generating a sales pattern that is unsurpassed by any gaming machine ever. It is also worth remembering that, with this week-on-week life cycle comparison with the PlayStation, the PlayStation 2 is selling at a stronger rate. We can only guess at what its final installed user base will be.
Other sales figures from Japan include those for the Game Boy Advance which, steady as ever, shifted 49,128 units, and the PSone which sold 3,630 units.
As a point of interest, this is only the second time in the past eighteen weeks that the Xbox has outsold Sony’s PSone.
We’ll keep you updated with how our Japanese friends see fit to spend their gaming budgets every Wednesday.
Companies:
Microsoft
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