Posted on: Friday, February 22, 2002

Xbox marks new spot in Japan

By Yuri Kageyama
Associated Press

Atsushi Ishizaka bought an Xbox on the first day of Japanese sales of the video game console and received his $260 purchase from no less a Microsoft fan than Chairman Bill Gates. The Japanese version of Xbox comes with smaller hand-held controllers than the 1.5 million-plus U.S. models sold since November. Associated Press

TOKYO — Amid streaming green ribbons and cheers from the crowd, Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox console went on sale today in Japan, challenging video-game giants Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. right on their home turf.

Hours ahead of time, long lines waited for sales to begin. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was on hand for the event, playing an Xbox car-racing game with a Japanese rock star at one major sales outlet.

Daisuke Nakamura, a university student, was among the first to buy the $260 Xbox. He asked Gates for his autograph when the tycoon handed him the machine.

"This is worth it," Nakamura said, clutching a bag with the Xbox inside. "I wanted to see Bill Gates."

The U.S. company is confident about the appeal of the machine, which targets dedicated game fans with its superior graphics and built-in hard drive and Internet capability. More than 1.5 million Xbox machines have been sold in the United States since they went on sale in November.

Gates played down the domination of Sony and Nintendo and pushed the Xbox as the "new leader."

"The key is what people experience in playing the games," he said.

Microsoft is not saying how many of the Xbox machines it wants to sell in Japan. Gates said only that the company has prepared 250,000 machines in the first shipment and is ready to send in more.

Analysts, however, warn that the Xbox should be expected to start slowly, given the dominance of the $220 Sony PlayStation2, which nearly 9 million Japanese already own.

Many of the youngsters lining up to buy the Xbox already owned a PlayStation2. But they said they still wanted the Xbox, too.

It remains to be seen whether the Xbox will go the way of American brands that have met huge success in Japan — like Coca-Cola, Disneyland and Starbucks — or end up a big flop like Ford cars and U.S.-grown rice.

Worldwide, Sony Computer Entertainment has shipped more than 26 million PlayStation2 machines.

Nintendo says 2.7 million GameCube consoles have been shipped worldwide, about half of those in Japan. The GameCube sells here for about $190

Yukie Saito, an analyst with Lehman Brothers in Tokyo, believes that the Xbox doesn't have enough strong games to convince Japanese — many of whom may already own a PlayStation2 — that they need to buy an Xbox.

"If the games aren't attractive, people are going to wonder why they should bother buying it," Saito said.

About 100,000 Xbox machines should sell in the first week, with sales reaching a disappointing 200,000 or 300,000 by May, she said.

Going on sale with this week's launch are 12 Xbox game titles, including "Dead or Alive 3" from Tecmo, Konami's "Silent Hill 2," and "Nezmix," "Project Gotham: World Street Racer," and "Tenku — Freestyle Snowboarding" from Microsoft.

PlayStation2, on sale for nearly two years, offers a lineup of 400 games in Japan. The machine can also play the more than 3,900 games out for the original PlayStation.

GameCube, meanwhile, has 13 games out so far. It went on sale in September in Japan and two months later in the United States.