It transpires that Bioware’s hit cover-shooter Mass Effect 2, which sold millions of copies and became the recipient of innumerable perfect scores and game-of-the-year awards, sold a pathetic 8,864 copies in Japan, being outsold by such blockbusters as Arcana Heart 3.
The translated version was finally released on the 13th of January 2011 as an Xbox 360 “exclusive.” Unfortuntely, in its first week it managed only 8,864 sales, coming 15th in the weekly charts, just behind Wii Fit Plus and narrowly beating Mario Kart Wii.
All this despite the Xbox 360 supposedly being the preserve of what few western game fans there are in Japan.
In fact, although there are apparently more Xbox 360s in Japan than ever before, sales for anything not involving gropeable anime girls are falling off into insignificance:
08/12/18 36,085 360 Fable 2
10/10/28 25,448 360 Fable 308/12/04 33,412 360 Fallout 3
10/11/04 24,146 360 Fallout:New Vegas09/12/10 43,103 360 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
10/11/18 30,279 360 Call of Duty: Black Ops09/05/21 17,502 360 Mass Effect
11/01/13 8,864 360 Mass Effect 2
Meanwhile the likes of IdolMaster and Dream C Club manage 50,000-100,000+.
Mass Effect 2’s pathetic sales have been attributed both to the all but complete death of the Xbox 360 in Japan, and to the increasingly inexplicable resistance of Japanese gamers to the hit games the rest of the world seemingly can’t get enough of.
Understandable when ME2 changed so much of what they liked from the original.
I too, loved the original but didn’t buy ME2 and merely pirated it. It wasn’t worth my money.
the Japanese seriously dont know what they are missing out
Mass Effect 2 is a good game. Not perfect but good.
I live in Japan, and can tell you that the reason the 360 is useless in Japan is because relatively nothing is actually localized to Japan, and the Xbox Live service in Japan really blows, and the cost of MS points in Japan is more than the US cost. (100 MSP = $2.00 US)
Yeah, sure 80% of the content in US is available in marketplace, but it’s essentially _all_ in English, which is a turnoff for Japanese gamers. Think about it in reverse – do you want to pay $15-20 for a game that you cannot read in your language? The import crowd in America exists, but it’s certainly not mainstream.
And focusing on Mass Effect, the entire game is in English, with Japanese subtitles here. Sure, it’s “true to the original script” or whatever, but again, this is a real turnoff to Japanese gamers. (In reverse, if the damn audio is all in English, why the hell can’t I change the text to English as well? Halo lets me do it, for f♥♥k’s sake.)
Also couple that the original xbox in Japan didn’t bother to even offer Japanese text for 80% of the games (‘international’ editions of stuff like Mechassult, x-men legends, etc that are literally the English game without a region lock) has left a really shitty image for the console in general.
That and how many Japanese people do you know that play FPS games often? I think the only thing that’s actually a ‘hit’ in the Japan 360 is monster hunter – a MMORPG…
Why don’t you bitch about reverse numbers – like how weird-ass JRPGs do great in Japan, but do s♥♥t in the States? (Star Ocean, Tales, etc.) I fail to understand what the hell is so fucked up about culture differences with games.
no Gackt hair in the character creator options
of course they weren’t going to buy it
Its possible that companies like SE are Japan’s “Oprah”. When they bash on WRPG or western games in general the majority dont bother.