IGN

Still a low number . but i guess Microsoft must be happy with the sales . With LO around the corner things are looking atleast a little good for Microsoft .

Did the original Xbox even cross that mark at the end of its lifespan in Japan?

Perhaps with the release of " Virtua Fighter 5 Live Arena" for the Xbox 360 in Japan,
many Japanese pro VF players will get a X360 and
that title just for showing their skills to US & European VF players....
and having fun with the others.

BTW Virtua Fighte 5 Online(X360) could receive a 10/10 from 1UP.com
+IGN' s editors choice award!

Well done AM2, well deserved, now it' s time for
The Green Box:Including Shenmue I, II and III....

Regards-Alimn

In addition to passing the 500,000 mark; the other interesting bit of news comes from Magic Box: http://www.the-magicbox.com/gaming.htm

Here are the latest Japanese hardware software sales for the week of Oct 29 - Nov 4, 2007. This week Xbox 360 sales have surpassed PS3, due to the price drop.

1. NDS Lite - 78,552
2. PSP - 59,714
3. Wii - 37,617
4. Xbox 360 - 17,673
5. PlayStation 3 - 17,434
6. PlayStation 2 - 10,209
7. GBA SP - 206
8. GameCube - 155
9. GB Micro - 113
10. NDS - 45

I don' t think Virtua Fighter 5 Online will be released in Japan. Sega is afraid it will damage their arcade revenue. I' m surprised Japan even gets the PS3 version! I remember that they purposely made the Genesis/Mega Drive extra weak so it wouldn' t damage their arcade revenue, making me very angry at the time. That' s what Sega of America told me.

That' s ridiculous... the Genesis version couldn' t have done anything near the quality of the original arcade version of Virtua Fighter. There would be no reason to intentionally make it " weaker."

That' s ridiculous... the Genesis version couldn' t have done anything near the quality of the original arcade version of Virtua Fighter. There would be no reason to intentionally make it " weaker."

The Genesis hardware

LOL yeah. But the Genesis Virtua Fighter 2 was the bomb!

Anyway I' m referring to the Genesis vs Sega arcade hardware back in the day (System 16 board, Super Scaler, etc).

System 16 board, Super Scaler, etc

Genesis had nowhere near the Sprite-pushing power of Scailing Capabilities of System 16.

Im sure if it did, it would of cost a Bomb, probably even drawf the rocket-high Prices of Neo geo. Megadrive would of been a rare console for Rich people.


Speaking of system 16, check these amazing Outrun Arcade skillz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIpWBFzR2VA

It wasn' t just the sprite-pushing power and scaling that was a bit weak in the Genesis, the color palette also sucked donkey boolz too. At the very least they could have made the color palette comparable to that of the PC Engine/Turbografx-16. I also find it laughable that the Genesis had even less sprites than the Atari 7800 ProSystem which predated it by about 2 years ;).. I consider the Genesis to be a Master System on diluted steroids cause on paper there didn' t seem to be a huge difference between the two in a few areas. The Master System could display 64 sprites whereas the Genesis could display 80 sprites, not much of a leap in my opinion. The other funny part is that the sprite size of the Master System was 32x32, same for the Genesis. Sounds like R&D was being a bit lazy .. It would have been nice to see them address those limitations with the Sega CD but all it seemed to add was scaling, rotation, as well as CD Audio. Sprites remained the same as well as the color palette. The Super Nintendo had some solid specs, crippled only by its slow CPU.

Nevertheless there was a significant leap in quality and capabilities from the 8-bit era. And I' m pretty sure the Genesis had a larger color palette (512 to 64) and could display more colors onscreen (64 to 16) than the Master System.

SMS could display 32 colors simultaneous out of a total of 64. That' s half it' s palette. The Genesis could only do 64 (actually 61) out of 512 and could only use assigned palette configurations, and those choices were pretty bad and did not allow much use for the smooth gradients that could have been achieved otherwise if there were more 16-color palette choices available. The TurboGrafx/PC Engine, which was designed before the Mega Drive/Genesis, could do 241 out of 512 (also near half its palette). Not only that, but I think The PC Engine' s 512 colors were more vibrant than the Genesis' 512. It was not the exact same 512 colors.

Also remember that System 16 is not the same as the Super Scaler. System 16 could scale stuff, but it was much " lower end" . When you think of System 16, think of Shinobi and Golden Axe. When you think of Super Scaler, think of Out Run and AfterBurner.

I don' t think Virtua Fighter 5 Online will be released in Japan. Sega is afraid it will damage their arcade revenue.

No, maybe you think that I was joking about Virtua Fighter 5 Live Arena!
but I should confirm that it exists, SEGA showed it at TGS 2007, it had a nice little booth for itself and it will be released on Dec 06, 2007 for the Xbox 360 in Japan.

For those who are interested, here you can even order it right now!

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-br-77-2-49-en-15-Virtua+Fighter+5-70-2b11-43-f5.aspx

You can also check http://virtuafighter5.jp/xbox360/index.aspx for more info.

So, I should say again that with the help of Virtua Fighter 5 Live Arena aka Online
Xbox 360 will do even better in Japan.

And Oh! BTW I think that Arcade is still the best choice for Japanese
if they want to play with each other, so hopefully this can' t harm to SEGA' s
Arcade revenue,...Arcade can bring people together in a real place
(I mean eye to eye fighting among other people who are watching
you is still fun!).

Therefore, I think those Japanese who like to show their skills to the rest of the world would defiantly need to play the X360 version, but those who like to play
with other Japanese will continue playing the LINDBERGH version of VF5.

Regards-Alimn

I was randomly surfing the other day and saw this site linked to;

360 gets ahead in Japan (Japanese),

so I translated it using babelfish.. here

Were you guys aware of this? I' ve been away for a bit, thats why I didn' t give it it' s own thread! Still, in line with the thread subject - seems there is life in the old dog yet!

Good! I' m glad VF5 online is being released in Japan. I' m glad I was wrong. It will help at least a little bit, and there' s no reason to keep good games from players just because of their region. That' d almost be like not releasing an Xbox version of Shenmue 2 in Japan, though VF5 is surely a bit more popular.

Yeah, I saw that the 360 sold more in Japan than the PS3 last week or whenever it was. Not by much, but still interesting to see.

If I' m reading that article that Ikashiru posted correctly, the PS3 is getting a price drop in Japan this week.

If Im reading Joes posts correctly, my mind was just blown.