New info on the Japanese hardware sales. It appears that Microsoft STILL hasn\'t sold its initial shipment of 250,000 Xbox\'s in Japan. Thats what, 4 months? Man..... I can\'t help but laugh. Sony sold that many PS2\'s in 4 hours... On the Nintendo side of things, it appears that they are still the biggest money making 1st party developer. Check the article out.
http://www.planetps2.com/news/#PQN378650The launch of Xbox in Japan and the time since then has been an uphill struggle and, in a report from Reuters, the struggle was really put into perspective. According to Enterbrain, publisher of Famitsu and other Japanese magazines, Xbox sold 236,372 units from its launch on February 22nd to June 30th. In contrast, PlayStation 2 sales totaled 2.08 million for the period of January-June, a number that surpasses both Xbox and GameCube as the two systems combined sold 478,202 units during the period.
Analysts have attributed low sales to lack of games that appeal to Japan and, despite the May 22nd price cut down to 24,800 Yen, the system hasn?t moved its full launch shipment of 250,000 units in the region. Enterbrain?s report continued by stating that the top title for the first half of 2002 was Konami?s World Soccer Winning Eleven 6 on PlayStation 2. The game sold 974,605 units and, although boosted by the World Cup, Capcom?s Onimusha 2 followed closely with 963,529 units. Furtermore, it was revealed that Nintendo ranked in as the top developer for the first of half of the year in Japan with total sales of 2.55 million. Konami and Sega closely followed with 2.45 and 1.68 million respectively.
Enterbrain concluded it all by revealing that game console sales shot up 10.6 percent year-on-year to around 97.89 billion yen for the first half of the year. Software also saw an increase of 18.2 percent to 144 billion yen. The full report can be found by hitting the link above.
