Xbox 360 sold out...in Japan

[Queasy]

Kotaku

Remember when we thought the Xbox 360 was sold out at one Japanese store? That's not all. It's sold out across the whole damn country. Like, sold out sold out. It's so sold out that Microsoft Japan actually put out an official statement about the situation in The Land of the Rising Sun, apologizing for the lack of consoles. Since demand has eclipsed supply, Microsoft's supply has gone totally dry. The company is ramping up production, and the console will not be shipped to stores until next month.

We've translated the full statement after the jump.

LOL Who'd a thunk it? It actually makes some sort of perverse sense though. Tales of Vesperia hit and sold like gangbusters at the same time that MS is trying to clear out all the 20GB 360s to make way for the 60GB 360s. Chalk it up to bad timing for unexpected demand.

 

[mugs]

No worries, Major Nelson can fit a week's supply in his carry-on luggage.

 

[randay]

i guess tales is gonna be the hawtness. cant wait!

 

[CasioTech]

Sold out due to this one game??? Did the price drop there already? Why is this bad timing? They get to rid themselves of the hundreds of thousands of 20gb consoles.

anyway by the time they ship consoles, the demand may die off. Can the 360 ever win the hearts of the japanese when most of them have a wii and ps3?

 

[Dumac]

Nail...coffin...etc

 

[DivideBYZero]

Well if there were only 2000 of them in the country...

 

[Bateluer]

You're excited about the 360 selling out in Japan? Hasn't the Wii outsold the 360 in the US, Japan, Europe, and Asia every month since its release, excluding September 2007 in the US for the Halo 3 launch? I'd be more impressed if they reported actual sales figures, as both the Wii and PS3 likely outsold the sold out 360. As a side benefit, 1/3 of the 360s will be shipped back to MS for repair.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: CasioTech
Sold out due to this one game??? Did the price drop there already? Why is this bad timing? They get to rid themselves of the hundreds of thousands of 20gb consoles.

Yes. Tales of Vesperia sold over 100,000 units in one week and resulted in 24k 360s to be sold that same week. That's something that has never happened before. The 360 is already sold at a bargain price in Japan.

It's bad timing because Tales came out at the same time they were clearing out 20GBs but hadn't gotten the 60GB in the retail supply chain yet. Because they underestimated demand they aren't prepared to restock the supply chain for Japan.

anyway by the time they ship consoles, the demand may die off. Can the 360 ever win the hearts of the japanese when most of them have a wii and ps3?

Sure, if they come out with a game like Tales of Vesperia every month.

Originally posted by: Bateluer
You're excited about the 360 selling out in Japan? Hasn't the Wii outsold the 360 in the US, Japan, Europe, and Asia every month since its release, excluding September 2007 in the US for the Halo 3 launch? I'd be more impressed if they reported actual sales figures, as both the Wii and PS3 likely outsold the sold out 360. As a side benefit, 1/3 of the 360s will be shipped back to MS for repair.

This being a humorous post go over your head?

 

[CasioTech]

$199 or 199 million yen or whatever the conversion is, is dirt cheap.


I never thought that the 360 would be cheaper than the wii or comparable to the psp in pricing especially with all the loses on repairs.

Only MS could pull something like that off.

I'm going to look into this tales game. I assume it's a namco game similar to tales of symphonia, which was boring as hell.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: CasioTech
I'm going to look into this tales game. I assume it's a namco game similar to tales of symphonia, which was boring as hell.

A demo for Tales is up on Live. It's a RPG but with a real-time combat system instead of turn-based. I didn't get into it but that was mostly because I missed the controls explanation and didn't know what the hell I was doing.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Bateluer
You're excited about the 360 selling out in Japan? Hasn't the Wii outsold the 360 in the US, Japan, Europe, and Asia every month since its release, excluding September 2007 in the US for the Halo 3 launch? I'd be more impressed if they reported actual sales figures, as both the Wii and PS3 likely outsold the sold out 360. As a side benefit, 1/3 of the 360s will be shipped back to MS for repair.

This being a humorous post go over your head?

:laugh: Fanboyism clouds judgement

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
Well if there were only 2000 of them in the country...

Well it sold around 25,000 in Japan in the week ending Aug 10. Ps3 sold 9,673.

 

[Sniper82]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: CasioTech
I'm going to look into this tales game. I assume it's a namco game similar to tales of symphonia, which was boring as hell.

A demo for Tales is up on Live. It's a RPG but with a real-time combat system instead of turn-based. I didn't get into it but that was mostly because I missed the controls explanation and didn't know what the hell I was doing.

is this a sequel to Eternal Sonata? I played the demo to Tales of Vesperia the other day and it was ALOT like it in looks and gameplay. I am pretty sure same ppl who made Eternal Sonata made Tales of Vesperia so that might be what it is.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Sniper82
is this a sequel to Eternal Sonata? I played the demo to Tales of Vesperia the other day and it was ALOT like it in looks and gameplay. I am pretty sure same ppl who made Eternal Sonata made Tales of Vesperia so that might be what it is.

Nope. Tales of Vesperia is actually the tenth game in a series of 'Tales' JRPGs. Even though Tales and Eternal Sonata both were published by Namco Bandai, they were developed by different teams.

 

[CasioTech]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: CasioTech
I'm going to look into this tales game. I assume it's a namco game similar to tales of symphonia, which was boring as hell.

A demo for Tales is up on Live. It's a RPG but with a real-time combat system instead of turn-based. I didn't get into it but that was mostly because I missed the controls explanation and didn't know what the hell I was doing.

that's how symphonia was. THe combat is satisfying but the story is really slow and boring and the worst part is the world map in that game never told you where to go. If you didn't listen carefully you would get lost very quickly and the map expands fast so I would travel for two hours at a time fighting hundreds of useless battles and I was unable to get the story to progress.

I guess I should have read a walkthrough.

 

[CasioTech]

Originally posted by: Sniper82

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: CasioTech
I'm going to look into this tales game. I assume it's a namco game similar to tales of symphonia, which was boring as hell.

A demo for Tales is up on Live. It's a RPG but with a real-time combat system instead of turn-based. I didn't get into it but that was mostly because I missed the controls explanation and didn't know what the hell I was doing.

is this a sequel to Eternal Sonata? I played the demo to Tales of Vesperia the other day and it was ALOT like it in looks and gameplay. I am pretty sure same ppl who made Eternal Sonata made Tales of Vesperia so that might be what it is.

Tales of Vesperia (???? ?? ??????, Teiruzu obu Vesuperia?) is the tenth mothership title in the Tales series.A special, limited edition is also being released in North America. The special edition will include a metal case with unique cover art and a 25 track soundtrack.[4]

The game's first trailer confirmed that the character designer is Kosuke Fujishima, the chief director and producer is Yoshito Higuchi (who previously worked on both Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss), the game was developed by Namco Tales Studio and its animated movies were done by Production I.G.[5] It was confirmed on GameSpot that Vesperia will be exclusively for the Xbox 360.[6] Bonnie Pink sings the main theme song for both the Japanese and North American release of the game.[7]

Tales of Vesperia uses an improved and evolved version of Tales of the Abyss's battle system, called the "Evolved Flex-Range Linear Motion Battle System" (EFR-LMBS).

Returning from Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss is the "Overlimit."

yeah it's a namco (bandai) game. Nobody really knows about symphonia because it was on the gamecube only.

I wonder how MS landed this exclusively.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
You're excited about the 360 selling out in Japan? Hasn't the Wii outsold the 360 in the US, Japan, Europe, and Asia every month since its release, excluding September 2007 in the US for the Halo 3 launch? I'd be more impressed if they reported actual sales figures, as both the Wii and PS3 likely outsold the sold out 360. As a side benefit, 1/3 of the 360s will be shipped back to MS for repair.

Wow that was an informative report. And if you read any of Queasy's other posts, you'd see that the 360 outsold both the PS3 and Wii for at least the first week in Japan, but guess you didn't bother to read.

 

[techwanabe]

I wonder how MS landed this exclusively.

So Tales of Vesperia is not coming out on the PS3? Wow, how Sony has fallen not to be getting the Japanese RPG's that used to be their kingdom!

I do hope Sony recovers because the PS3 is a nice system.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: techwanabe

I wonder how MS landed this exclusively.

So Tales of Vesperia is not coming out on the PS3? Wow, how Sony has fallen not to be getting the Japanese RPG's that used to be their kingdom!

I do hope Sony recovers because the PS3 is a nice system.

I think a lot of JRPG developers stuck with the PS2 longer rather than switching over to PS3 development early. Vastly larger audience + lower development costs + graphics aren't all-important, especially for JRPGs = PROFIT.

Meanwhile Microsoft is probably giving assistance to companies to get good JRPGs on the 360, which is probably an exercise in futility. I think MS would need to drive Sony and Nintendo out of business before they'll have a shot in Japan.

 

[Baked]

Originally posted by: techwanabe

I wonder how MS landed this exclusively.

So Tales of Vesperia is not coming out on the PS3? Wow, how Sony has fallen not to be getting the Japanese RPG's that used to be their kingdom!

I do hope Sony recovers because the PS3 is a nice system.

LOL, you have no idea.

 

[mlm]

Originally posted by: techwanabe

I wonder how MS landed this exclusively.

So Tales of Vesperia is not coming out on the PS3? Wow, how Sony has fallen not to be getting the Japanese RPG's that used to be their kingdom!

I do hope Sony recovers because the PS3 is a nice system.

It's exclusive for the moment, but there have been signs showing it will head to the PS3 eventually.

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: mlm

Originally posted by: techwanabe

I wonder how MS landed this exclusively.

So Tales of Vesperia is not coming out on the PS3? Wow, how Sony has fallen not to be getting the Japanese RPG's that used to be their kingdom!

I do hope Sony recovers because the PS3 is a nice system.

It's exclusive for the moment, but there have been signs showing it will head to the PS3 eventually.

Thats good. I may or may not eventually get an Xbox460 (at least after a die shrink), but I'd like to see this go to PS3 too.

LOL, you have no idea.

Clue me in when you get a chance.

 

[bullbert]

Yes, but think of the backlash. Those release version systems have been sitting there, unsold, for three years. Remember those? The ones with a 30%++ failure rate within the first 30 days (retailer reported initial return rate due to infant failures). The ones with the power brick which caught fire. The ones with the RROD after a few hundred hours (aka 360 hours) of intense GPU usage. Those Tales of Vesperia players are going to be majorly PO'ed and maybe there will finally be a class action suit.

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: CasioTech
Sold out due to this one game??? Did the price drop there already? Why is this bad timing? They get to rid themselves of the hundreds of thousands of 20gb consoles.

Yes. Tales of Vesperia sold over 100,000 units in one week and resulted in 24k 360s to be sold that same week. That's something that has never happened before. The 360 is already sold at a bargain price in Japan.

It's bad timing because Tales came out at the same time they were clearing out 20GBs but hadn't gotten the 60GB in the retail supply chain yet. Because they underestimated demand they aren't prepared to restock the supply chain for Japan.

anyway by the time they ship consoles, the demand may die off. Can the 360 ever win the hearts of the japanese when most of them have a wii and ps3?

Sure, if they come out with a game like Tales of Vesperia every month.

Originally posted by: Bateluer
You're excited about the 360 selling out in Japan? Hasn't the Wii outsold the 360 in the US, Japan, Europe, and Asia every month since its release, excluding September 2007 in the US for the Halo 3 launch? I'd be more impressed if they reported actual sales figures, as both the Wii and PS3 likely outsold the sold out 360. As a side benefit, 1/3 of the 360s will be shipped back to MS for repair.

This being a humorous post go over your head?

The 360 does not sell at a bargain price in Japan.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: CasioTech
Sold out due to this one game??? Did the price drop there already? Why is this bad timing? They get to rid themselves of the hundreds of thousands of 20gb consoles.

Yes. Tales of Vesperia sold over 100,000 units in one week and resulted in 24k 360s to be sold that same week. That's something that has never happened before. The 360 is already sold at a bargain price in Japan.

It's bad timing because Tales came out at the same time they were clearing out 20GBs but hadn't gotten the 60GB in the retail supply chain yet. Because they underestimated demand they aren't prepared to restock the supply chain for Japan.

anyway by the time they ship consoles, the demand may die off. Can the 360 ever win the hearts of the japanese when most of them have a wii and ps3?

Sure, if they come out with a game like Tales of Vesperia every month.

Originally posted by: Bateluer
You're excited about the 360 selling out in Japan? Hasn't the Wii outsold the 360 in the US, Japan, Europe, and Asia every month since its release, excluding September 2007 in the US for the Halo 3 launch? I'd be more impressed if they reported actual sales figures, as both the Wii and PS3 likely outsold the sold out 360. As a side benefit, 1/3 of the 360s will be shipped back to MS for repair.

This being a humorous post go over your head?

The 360 does not sell at a bargain price in Japan.

It sells for $183 at the current exchange rate (arcade model that is), $280 for the 60GB Premium (based on Wikipedia prices and Amazon.co.jp for the 60GB Premium).
PS3 is $350 for the 40GB (according to Amazon.co.jp)
Nintendo Wii is $230 (amazon.co.jp).
PS2 is $135. (amazon)

If $50 less than the Wii for the base model isn't fairly bargain, I don't know what is.