Xbox 360 in Japan?

I have been learning more about Japanese culture for when I can go to Japan and was curious about something, are there many people who have an Xbox 360?

I am in the UK and here Xbox and Sony are the big consoles, but why is it in Japan the are not that popular? I read somewhere that only 1.5 million consoles have been sold in Japan in the last 6 years so was not sure.

I am in the UK and here Xbox and Sony are the big consoles, but why is it in Japan the are not that popular? I read somewhere that only 1.5 million consoles have been sold in Japan in the last 6 years so was not sure.

I'm an xbox owner, and this is just theorizing, but it seems that Sony, as a Japanese brand, has far better localized to the market. Its their home turf, and they have far more Japanese games and accessories than xbox.

Not only is localization a problem in Japan for the 360, the games on it are just not that interesting to the Japanese public. They're very American style with lots of shooting games and not that many RPGs at all (which the Japanese prefer over FPS games). Microsoft just aren't appealing to the Japanese all that much and has continued to treat the market as a 'deadzone' for their produce.

The only game I've heard that has recently been a huge hit in Japan that's NOT Japanese is Skyrim.

Another reason is how Tomonobu Itagaki, who works for Microsoft in producing games like Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden, explains the reasoning:

"Yeah, there's nothing that can be done about that. Things like economic policies, the fact that the size of the size of the population of children in Japan is dwindling, people are moving away from console gaming �\ there are a lot of factors involved, it's not just Xbox 360 doesn't do well in Japan because it's Xbox; there's a whole load of societal factors involved there. It's not as though the hardcore would make a big difference. This all goes back to decisions that politicians made like sixty years ago."

So yeah, there's the localization problem AND kids not enjoying console gaming like they used to. People enjoy their handhelds a lot more over there.

I've noticed that. I've seen many people walking around with handheld consoles, especially the PSP and the DS (3DS, recently). Could it be due to the fact that people are more "on the go" now?