Will Xbox 360 fail in Japan?

Gates-Zilla 1up.com has an uber-thorough write-up in which it puts forth 20 reasons why the Xbox 360 might fail in Japan.

Many factors surround the release of the Xbox 360 console in Japan later this year. Microsoft has got on-board every Japanese publisher to jingle to the beat of 360 and we will be seeing some much-loved and highly anticipated titles coming to Bill’s latest box. Has Microsoft done enough though, to ensure that the Japanese public will also jingle to DJ Gates and team MS? A question that will be answered sooner rather than later.

But why should you care whether Xbox 360 succeeds in Japan? Well, it’s important if you like diversity in your Xbox game collection – a range of developers are working on games in an even more varied set of genres. In short, there’s a reason why Japan-powered games like Viewtiful Joe and Resident Evil 5 are on PS2 and GameCube (and not Xbox) – it’s not worth releasing an Xbox version in Japan when only 500,000 have one in their homes.

There are enough reasons (we have ten) to believe things will be different next round, and Xbox 360 will eat away at PlayStation’s dominance in Japan. Yet there are those who still believe Japan will never embrace a non-Japanese game console (and we’ve got ten reasons why these arm-chair analysts are correct.) Warm up your typing fingers as we give you ten reasons why Xbox 360 could kick ass in Japan, and ten reasons why it could bomba bomba in Kutaragi’s backyard.

20 reasons why Xbox 360 will fail in Japan (or not)