The Xbox One was launched in Japan on September 4th of this year. There was no real excitement from the Japanese for the system before launch and we saw anemic lines for its various midnight launches when it was released. Because of this, we shouldn’t be surprised that the system now has one of the worst launches in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Microsoft’s current-gen console only managed to sell 23,562 units during its first week in Japan. For the sake of comparison, the last-gen Xbox 360 managed to sell 62,135 units in half the time it took the Xbox One to sell 20,000 consoles.
As for how this launch stacks against other recent console launches in Japan: Sony’s PlayStation 4 saw sales of 322,000 during its first two days while Nintendo’s Wii U managed to sell 308,000.
Microsoft has always had a hard time with the Japanese market so this news isn’t surprising in the least. Some may say that MS shouldn’t even bother with Japan. They tried to cater to Japanese audiences when the Xbox 360 launched with exclusive JRPGs like Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, and Infinite Undiscovery but those failed to make any significant impact. With that said, we can’t blame MS for trying.
Source: Polygon
