Xbox 360 gets 30 percent cut in Japan

Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 03 September 2008 06:53

Your IT - Entertainment

The cuts are on as Microsoft up the ante in Japan, cutting the price across the range of Xbox 360 consoles.  Will making the Xbox 360 cheaper than the Nintendo Wii garner a larger slice of the Japanese console market?

Microsoft have been going ok of late in the Japanese game console market – well we should qualify that somewhat.  The Xbox 360 has always, for its entire life, been bottom of the pile when it came to Japanese sales.

There have been occasional blips on the sales radar as Microsoft attempted to pander to Japanese game tastes.  The release of Blue Dragon saw a spike in sales, and more recently Tales of Vesperia saw stocks of the Xbox 360 dwindle away from shelves .

But the overall tale is one of commercial failure in the Sony and Nintendo homeland.

Not the most reliable indicator, especially when talking about Xbox 360 sales, but vgchartz.com has the total Xbox 360 sales in Japan sitting at almost 700,000 units.

Compare this to the 6.7 million Wii’s and 2.3 million PlayStation 3’s currently sitting in Japan households and the picture is clearer.

So what to do?  How about a good old price cut.  Next week sees the following price reductions across the Xbox 360 console range in Japan.

The 120GB HDD equipped Elite will receive a modest 17 percent price cut to 39,800 yen. 

The Arcade Xbox 360 (sans HDD) will now be cheaper than the Wii (as it is in most regions of the world now) by virtue of a 30 percent cut to 19,800 yen

And finally the new standard Xbox 360 (now with 60GB HDD) checks in for 29,800 yen.  A saving of 5000 yen over the 20GB HDD model it replaces.

Couple this with a more Japanese flavoured software release schedule, and barring any inherent market bias, Microsoft should expect a boost in Xbox 360 sales leading up to the important holiday period.