Microsoft has traditionally struggled to sell Xbox consoles in Japan, but a new report from Weekly Famitsu magazine and spotted by VGC revealed that the company has been making positive progress lately.
The combined sales figures of the four generations of Xbox consoles sold in Japan now stand at around 2.3 million units in total, with the lion’s share of that number going to the Xbox 360 generation. Xbox Series X consoles | S have already outsold the Xbox One generation after being available for over a year after its original worldwide release, an impressive feat thanks to factors such as the ongoing pandemic and semiconductor shortages. Technically, this currently puts the Xbox Series X and S consoles on par with Sales of Nintendo Virtual Boy in Japan as well as.
With over 142,000 units sold to date, the Xbox Series X|S still has some way to go before it beats the sales numbers of either the original Xbox or the Xbox 360, the latter having been boosted by games exclusives such as The Last Remnant and Blue Dragon when initially available.
According to Famitsu, console sales for each generation are:
- Xbox — 474,992 units
- Xbox 360 — 1,616,128 units
- Xbox One – 114,831 units
- Xbox Series X|S — 142 024 unités
And the best-selling Xbox titles in Japan are:
- Dead or Alive 3 (Xbox) – 271,149 units sold
- Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope (Xbox 360) — 208,521 units sold
- Tales of Vesperia (Xbox 360) – 204,305 units sold
- Blue Dragon (Xbox 360) – 203,740 units sold
- The Last Remnant (Xbox 360) – 154,493 units sold
Sony and Nintendo still dominate the Japanese gaming market, with the Nintendo hybrid console having sold more than 20 million units in that country alone since its launch five years ago. The PS5, which also faced out-of-stock issues, predictably did much better than the Xbox Series X | S, having sold over one million units so far.
Globally, Sony has sold 17.3 million PS5 consoles as of December 31, 2021, while Microsoft is believed to have sold around 12 million Xbox Series X consoles | S so far.