Cultural aspects

Being a games student I have prior knowledge into the cultural aspects of Video game consoles. Most of the students have either an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3; a select few have both consoles.

The Digital games community is roughly separated into 2 main rival sides, people who prefer The Xbox 360 and people who prefer the Playstation 3.

The main reason for the allegiances seems to be…

• Choice of game (some games only are released on one console)

• Hardware vs. Price (The Xbox is cheaper and has slightly less Hardware than the Playstation 3 as this link explains http://uk.gear.ign.com/articles/111/1116182p1.html

The website also describes the rivalry between the 2 consoles as a “war”

• What console your friends have (friendship groups sharing consoles also contributes to the rivalry)

The Xbox 360 is not very popular in Japan, I feel this may be due to cultural reasons, it seems the Japanese are very loyal to their homegrown Sony Playstation and Nintendo Wii consoles. This website posts up to date sales figures world wide and separated into different categories.

http://www.vgchartz.com/#Japan%20Totals

These graphs show that the Xbox 360 is very unpopular in Japan in comparison to the Playstation or Wii. Comparing the figures world wide, the Xbox is ore popular that the Playstation, the only constant is the popularity of the Wii, constantly being the most popular console to buy, despite the region.

The Wii is the most popular because it taps a key demographic that the other consoles don’t as well, the family.

It could be viewed that the Xbox is not popular in Japan because of its national heritage, being a product of Microsoft, which is based in North America.

The same can not be said about America, as its most popular console is the Japanese Nintendo Wii, however, the Xbox 360 is more popular than the Playstation 3.