Signs that the Xbox 360 is making some inroads?
IGN articleBlue Dragon Hits Japanese Charts
Mistwalker's first RPG makes top 10 chart in Japan.
by Douglass C. Perry
December 15, 2006 - Following its major showing at this year's Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft and Mistwalker's first joint game, Blue Dragon, is off to a good start in Japan. Mistwalker's Blue Dragon secured a place as the number four best selling game for the week, having sold 80,348 units.
Blue Dragon is only the second Xbox 360 game to make the top 10 Japanese charts, selling nearly twice as many units as Tecmo's Dead or Alive Xtreme 2. Given the number of new Xbox 360s sold in the recent week, 35,343, Mistwalker's game appears to have compelled many new users to buy an Xbox 360 solely for the RPG itself.
Microsoft has admittedly done poorly in Japan with its highly touted Xbox 360. The company knows that few of its games have been appealing to Japanese tastes thus far, but Blue Dragon is exactly the kind of game the Japanese market has a large appetite for, and Microsoft has pinned many of its hopes on Blue Dragon and next year's Lost Odyssey, both made by former Square-soft President Hironobu Sakaguchi.
Number four? Not bad.
