Kinect off to "rough start" in Japan
Sold a quarter of Move's tally.
Kinect's Japan launch has failed to replicate the system's success in Europe and the US.
Japanese gaming blog Hachimaki, as translated by 1Up, reported that Microsoft's new peripheral got "off to a pretty rough start" at one of the country's biggest retailers.
A merchandiser for retail chain Tsutaya wrote in the Mainichi Shimbun that Kinect was selling around "one fourth" of the PlayStation Move controller, despite the fact that Sony's add-on had been on sale for a month.
Unsurprising news perhaps, given Japan's general lack of enthusiasm for the Xbox 360, but more worrying for Microsoft is anecdotal evidence that it's not even selling to its intended demographic.
Matsuo went on to claim that although Kinect is "targeting light [videogame] users" most buyers weren't newcomers but "existing [Xbox 360] owners."
Still, we can't imagine Microsoft will lose an awful lot of sleep. Kinect is absolutely flying off the shelves everywhere else.
