In Japan, Microsoft struggles to connect with Kinect
Of all the Tokyo Game Show attendees who visited the Kinect booth, one salaryman in a button-down shirt stood out. He jumped into the Dance Central game with gusto, busting out crazy moves in his patent-leather shoes, literally going leaps and bounds beyond what the dance game required.
A small crowd gathered to watch his moves. At one point, he did a handstand in front of the Xbox 360 camera controller. He was making Kinect look like barrels of fun. But did the man, who gave his name as Yoshida, plan to buy the upcoming game and do “The Humpty Dance” at home?
“No,” Yoshida said. “I don’t have an Xbox. There are no games I want for it.” A few months from now, Microsoft will celebrate its 10th anniversary of not being able to sell many videogames in Japan. The company is enjoying record-high sales in the United States and Europe with its redesigned Xbox 360 and the Kinect motion controller. But it remains locked in a struggle to make its console appealing to one of the world’s biggest markets for gaming.
