Xbox outsells Dreamcast in Japan!

The scale of the Japanese Xbox disaster is clear from figures published at SPONG, which give the Xbox a miserable 1.6% market share for the past six months: it is trounced by the GameCube and even the Sony PSOne. Apart from the Japanese buyer's antipathy to most American consumer electronics products, the Xbox's shortage of local games software is probably the killer. No wonder Microsoft had been angling to buy the number one Japanese games company, Square. (In 1999, Square was reportedly willing to sell 40% of the company to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, but two years later sold 19% to Sony for $125 million.)