Mod: If this thread already exists, do what you must and close this.
Quote:
A recent article quoted Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter as saying, “PS3 will likely outsell the 360 in Europe by 20-40 percent, and will kill 360 in Japan” in late 2008. As if it’s been enjoying a life of luxury in the land of the rising sun the headline read, “PS3 will kill 360 in Japan” by year’s end. This struck me as misleading because the 360 has essentially never been “alive” in Japan to begin with. I think what Pachter meant was that the PlayStation 3 would “kill the Xbox 360″ in sales figures. In fact, Xbox 360’s death in Japan has been widely known to the Japanese as soon as it hit the street. When the Xbox 360 first released in Japan in November 2005 (concurrent with the U.S. release), you could walk into any given Japanese electronics store and find shelves full of unsold units sitting alongside a few returned units for sale at discounted prices. This was despite the fact that the initial price offering for the system was 39,999 yen brand new, approximately equivalent to over $60 cheaper than the U.S. price at the time. Stores couldn’t give the units away because most Japanese gamers simply were not interested. Japanese game developers seem far more comfortable supporting Sony and Nintendo’s consoles to release their roleplaying and casual games towards the Japanese market, and so that is where their customers will follow. This is a battle where Microsoft will always be the outsider on very foreign soil, and they will likely never gain any ground.
Vgcharts.org shows that to date, sales figures in Japan indicate .59 million units for the Xbox 360, 1.97 million units for the PlayStation 3, and 5.5 million units for the Wii.
Nearly 11 months ago, in April of 2007, the PlayStation 3 and Wii had only been around for 5 months, while the Xbox 360 had already been available for 17 months. At that time, the sales figures were .38 million units for the Xbox 360, .87 millions units for the PlayStation 3, and 2.12 million units for the Wii.
These figures illustrate that despite the Xbox 360’s year long head start, it owned only a meager 11% of next-generation console sales in Japan as soon as Sony’s and Nintendo’s offerings joined the war. Since then, sales for both the PlayStation 3 and Wii have aggressively more than doubled there, leaving the Xbox 360 now with only 7% of the pie.
If that’s not dead, I don’t know what is. I think even Toshiba would have given up this particular battle by now. It was reported that Microsoft really made a strong attempt at winning over a Japanese market share with the Xbox 360 and yet they have failed horribly for a second time. Maybe Microsoft will throw in the towel and Japan will never see an Xbox 720? What do you think? Does the Japanese market matter? Is there a compelling reason for Microsoft to continue releasing their products there?
thats pretty quick on the heals of its predecessor. just a 2 year gap. and as of now, Levine is not working on it.....
anyways, im not really sure what the heck they would do for a sequel without it being just stupid. you wrecked the city and killed damned near everyone (and by the time anyone could go back down there, anyone left would most certainly be dead.) what i DO like the idea of is a bioshock prequel. think about being some average joe in Rapture when all the shit is starting to hit the fan. help take down fontaine, then perhaps even help fight for atlas against ryan before escaping from the city or something. could make for a pretty go game i think, tho it would certainly play different.
thoughts?
and we really need a working, usable news system.... Comment (22)
March 10, 2008 - If you live in Japan or America, you already have access to Wii's most anticipated game, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The chances are therefore very good that you're already playing with the 35 different fighters across dozens of unique, stylized stages. And Nintendo itself is planning to deliver even more levels your way in the future by way of WiiConnect24 – the publisher will send you a handpicked user-created fight stage per day, every single day. Still, there's one big limitation: you won't be able to save these user-created arenas.
This, dear readers, is where IGN comes in. Introducing Super Smash Bros. World, your one-stop destination for a never-ending stream of user-created Brawl content. Looking for spectacular new user-created Smash Bros. stages? Maybe you'd prefer to upload some of your own creations? We've got you covered. If you've got a Wii, a copy of Smash Bros. Brawl, an SD Card and a PC or Mac, you're in business. Super Smash Bros. World enables you to very quickly upload the stages you've created to the site, and you can just as effortlessly download the soon-to-be-thousands of user-created stages to your PC or Mac, transfer them to an SD Card, pop it into your Wii and get ready to fight.
You can even rate the stages featured on Super Smash Bros. World so that they rise or decline in popularity and status, making the selection process for all users more intuitive.
Even better, you'll be able to download and upload stages compatible with either the U.S. or Japanese versions of the game – just select which build you have, upload or download, and it'll all work seamlessly.
The rest is up to you. IGN invites its Smash Bros.-loving readers to get busy creating stages so that our new hub will be populated by a huge selection of fight arenas, created by the gamers for the gamers, as it were.
Pretty flippin awesome if I do say so myself. Comment (8)
