The Xbox is struggling in Japan, only selling 122, 565 units through the first half of a year. Thus said, it's ironic that Peter Moor, Microsoft's Corporate VP of Interative Entertainment took a little swipe at Sony. When GameDaily BIZ asked Moore about the 360 in Japan and how bad it's doing, he turned to tide and talked about Sony's problem, getting outsold 6 to 1. He said that Sony's plan in Japan is failing and their business is "crumbling" over there.
The 360 isn't doing so hot in Japan, but Microsoft's Peter Moore says Sony should be more worried about the PS3's performance in Japan than Microsoft should be about the Xbox. The Xbox exec said that Sony's plan in Japan is "crumbling" right now in the face of Nintendo's Wii.
There's no question that the Xbox business has struggled from the get go in Japan. According to the Famitsu Marketing Data Service, the Xbox 360 has only sold 122,565 units through the first half of the year in Japan. With this data in mind, therefore, it's a bit ironic that Peter Moore, Microsoft's Corporate VP of Interactive Entertainment, should comment on Sony's recent success or lack thereof in the land of the rising sun.
But comment he did. In an interview conducted at E3 last week, GameDaily BIZ asked Moore about the state of Xbox in Japan and he decided to turn the question on its side, taking aim at his competition. When asked specifically about the importance of Japan to the global console battle, he fired back, "That's probably a better question for Sony who's getting outsold by what, 6-to-1? You can bet that Sony built a long-term business plan about being successful in Japan and that business plan is crumbling."
He added, "I built a business plan [for Japan], but I don't think my expectations in Japan were anything close to what Sony's expectations are. They are failing. They're missing their plan by much more than I'm missing my plan."
Of course, we wouldn't be so bold to say that Sony's business in Japan is "crumbling," but the numbers do show that the Wii (as alluded to by Moore) outsold the PS3 by 6-to-1 during the month of June. The disparity isn't quite as great on a first-half basis. The Wii has sold around 1.78 million units in Japan during the first six months of 2007 compared to just 504K for the PS3. Still, the expectations for the Xbox and Xbox 360 have always been somewhat low in Japan, and certainly Sony could never have thought that their new console would be outsold at such as clip by Nintendo's new Wii.
Speaking of business plans, Sony has talked up its so-called 10-year plan for the PS2 and now the PS3 on many occasions. Moore questioned their approach, however.
"I'm not sure what their 10-year plan is," he said. "It's like they just said, 'We have a 10-year plan' [and that's it]."
Moore envisions the Xbox 360 sticking around a lot longer than the original Xbox, which was abruptly cut off after about 4 years. "I think the plan we have built, that calls for cost reductions in hardware, clearly gives us an advantage in price that actually allows us to get to [lower] price points much sooner than Sony will. They can have a '10-year plan' all they like, but it's executing that plan and getting to the mass market with price points [that matters], and I feel a lot closer to being able to do that than they do right now."
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I think it is not so much Sony's failing in Japan, it is just that the Wii is massively successful, more so than anyone could have foreseen.
I remember before Japan loved the PS2 more than anything, they hated the X-Box to an extreme.
Not trying to take Sony's side but Moore's arguments are irrelevant.
Did you even bother reading the article?
"I built a business plan [for Japan], but I don't think my expectations in Japan were anything close to what Sony's expectations are. They are failing. They're missing their plan by much more than I'm missing my plan."
While I agree that it's definitely ironic for a Microsoft exec to be discussing another company's failures in Japan, what he said is pretty much true.
That's just a cleverly worded statement to make it seem like the only planned on selling a couple units in Japan, and hey, it absolutely sounds good in this case.
But the fact remains, even with the longer amount of time that the 360 has been out the PS3 has managed to sell more than double that in Japan.
The PS3 is even bigger than the 360 and we all know how the Japanese like their small consoles so what does that tell you?
They're not as opened minded as other parts of the world, which is why it's not so surprising to see the Xbox 360 not sell well... but it's totally unexpected to see the PS3 flop there. They did account for like 25% of all PS2's sold.