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Xbox One Console Sales Are Abysmal In Japan
Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Knight recently released in Japan but was outsold by a game about a ghost-busting cat. Even more surprising is how terrible Microsoft’s sales of the Xbox One have been.
Gematsu recently got their hands on last week's video game sales numbers for the Japanese market. Batman: Arkham Knight has actually sold pretty well in the country, but was still beat out by Yo-kai Watch, a Pokémon-like RPG about ghosts developed by Professor Layton developer Level-5. Check out the top five games in Japan for the week of July 13.
- [3DS] Yo-kai Watch Busters: Red Cat Team / White Dog Squad - 220,998 (Lifetime sales - 914,536)
- [PS4] Batman: Arkham Knight - 48,802 (New entry)
- [Wii U] Yoshi's Woolly World - 31,158 (New entry)
- [3DS] The Great Ace Attorney - 23,917 (Lifetime sales - 159,607)
- [Wii U] Splatoon - 22,557 (430,869)
More interestingly is a look at Japan's hardware sales. Below you can see that the PlayStation 4 is still going strong, selling over 15 thousand units in a week. By contrast, the Xbox One didn't even sell 150 units. Even Sony's Vita is selling better than the Xbox One.
- PlayStation 4 - 24,266 (Last week - 15,779)
- New 3DS XL - 19,432 (21,069)
- PlayStation Vita - 13,190 (13,632)
- Wii U - 11,028 (10,789)
- New 3DS - 5,437 (5,551)
- PlayStation 3 - 2,947 (2,979)
- 3DS - 1,376 (1,184)
- 3DS XL - 726 (899)
- PlayStation Vita TV - 618 (613)
- Xbox One - 242 (149)
[Source: Gematsu via GamesIndustry.biz]
Our Take
Considering that Japan is a much smaller market than the U.S., it shouldn't be surprising than all of these numbers are smaller than we'd likely see over here, but the Xbox One's sales are really sad. Microsoft doesn't seem too worried about making a splash over in Japan, so it is partly to blame here. If this trend continues, we wonder if Microsoft will even bother to release future consoles in the country.
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