Kotaku
Stupid, stupid me. With all that crazy Halo 3 hype in Tokyo, I thought I could just waltz into a store at 6PM tonight and walk out with a copy of Halo 3. Know: My neighborhood is wall-to-wall rad game stores. From my house, I can skip (yes, skip) to a Super Potato. But Super Potato doesn't sell Xbox 360 games, so I had to go elsewhere. Feeling confident, I didn't think it was necessary to get on a train and go to either Den-Den Town or Umeda. Surely, I could pick up a copy in my neighborhood. Who owns an Xbox 360? Me, and that's about it.
Wrong.
See those little white cards with blue writing on those Halo 3 copies? That means "sold out." You can check the copy of Fatal Inertia below it with red writing. That game, sadly, is not sold out. (Sorry Koei!) I actually was so not expecting this that it did not dawn on me that I should've asked the clerk how many copies were sold until I was driving home. Unwilling to admit defeat (c'mon this is Halo 3 in Japan!), I stopped by another totally tubular shop, which had Halo 3 copies coming out the whazoo. It even had imported versions! The store, though, didn't take credit cards, I didn't have cash, so fuckles.
So, proof positive that Halo 3 sold out in at least one store. In Japan, even. Congrats Microsoft!
Eds Note: Added big version of the pic for those who can't fathom Japanese people buying Halo 3.
Comments
Is that Warriors Orochi I see sold out also? :D
So Japan isn't a total loss.
Nooo don't go comment! The deceit!
But yeah, just re-read. Aww.
Grats to Halo. :P
sweet
What is wrong with Japanese people?
Easy to sell out when you order 2 copies
I am sure its mostly Americans who live in japan who baught it.
I mean c,mon, only 1 store?? give me a break.
Its a good 1st person shooter, but not game with a lot of depth.
Blue for sold out and red for available?
How odd...
So do Japanese cross the street when the light is red?
@Kyle81:
Two copies with four display boxes? Interesting logic... you must be a Blockbuster employee.
I wandered into a local EBGames yesterday and tried to pick up Halo 3. They were the only store in the city who NO one had lined up for. Canada>Japan? :o
@Heliophage: ZING!
Another odd thing...
in the picture you can see seven "sold out" copies of Halo 3...
but why is there only one so-called "available" Fatal Inertia copy?
Ashcraft, please explain?
so was this first store a pretty small place? by the looks of it they dont have any much shelf space to advertize what with 4 copies jammed together. I will take the obvious and say yes ... 4 copies sold in a store where 4 copies were ordered.
i make a correction there are aparently 7 ... 7 boxes
Oh! Those are totally empty boxes, yo. (They don't look like Xbox 360 game boxes, do they?) The actual games are behind the counter, so the number of boxes there means, well, jack snot.
Hope that helps! :)
Yeah... Looks like that neighborhood store only stocked the amount that people pre-ordered. Guess they didn't want any excess games sitting around.
How can you not carry cash? It's Japan!
@ashcraft:
I think you meant "imported" versions in your title post.
Ah, yes, seven boxes. I didn't notice those at first. Strange, though, there there are seven boxes, stacked on top of each other, with blue tags, while there is only one with a red tag -- a color commonly associated with a warning, as an out of stock message would be.
Are you sure you didn't get it backwards? >.> Not to challenge your grasp of Japanese, of course, but that's really, really strange.
Umm...all stores have layouts like that. And all stores have tons of copies behind the counter. Why do you think they had the red label/green label system if that was all they had? The case would be gone...
@Heliophage:
Nevermind :P
the store probably had about 3 copies to begin with, not exactly hard to sell out.
How sad would it have been if Fatial Inertia was sold out but not Halo 3. Although while it would have been sad it wouldn't have been surprising given Japan's track record for like crappy games over good ones, so long as those good ones came from the west.
@SleepyBum:
So it's common for stores in Japan to not accept credit cards? Even in stores where the average cost of an item is so high? I would have assumed credit and debit cards would be more commonly used in Japan because the population is generally more tech savvy. I guess it's never safe to assume.
@SuperMaxZero:
I find it odd that they are using red (a warning colour) for "available"
Well, uh, Xbox 360 might be getting its ass kicked by PS3 and Wii in Japan, but tens of thousands of the thing have still sold. And people in Japan who bought the Xbox 360 are probably people who like the kind of games that are available on Xbox 360. Maybe they even liked the first two Halos, eh? So I don't think it's much of a surprise that Halo 3 has sold out in some stores.
Xbox 360 in Japan is like the Saturn was in the US. A distant third, sure, but it's not like the people who are buying it are turning right around and tossing it in the trash.
i can't believe i bought a regular version when i could have bought an "important" version. glad to see some people in japan are buying the game regardless.
Things I will never get:
Why everything always priced at something.99 in the US.
Why they can sell things on TV that say stuff like "This will boost your immune system" and say in the fine print "This product is not meant to treat, prevent or cure any disease." (This is probably also US-centric)
Why game stores need to have multiple fake, empty boxes to show they don't have a product in stock. This is apparently international!
@FelixLighter: Small stores no dont usually take credit cards.
The larger stores / chain stores will usually accept credit cards. But there are times when you can run into stores that accept Japan only credit cards and then they have to call in your credit card to confirm it. Its so stupid / kinda defeats the purpose of credit cards. XD
@Ashcraft man that sucks not being able to find it. The little store in my town still has copies left. Tommorow Im gonna go to akiba to pick up my US version and see how things went, since it looks like the Kotaku crew already hit the streets in the morning. :)
@Kyle81: For christs sake, quit fucking trolling.
@Heliophage:
Posting bigger pic. Also changed the title from "Halo 3 Japan Sell Out Shocker" to "Halo 3 Japanese Store Sell Out Shocker" to avoid nerd freak out.
@jive238:
Thank you kind sir!
fuckles is a good word.
fuckery is good too.
This only proves Japan is not immune to hype.
Ah, you took the pic @ GEO I see.
I was just in my local GEO today (in Shima) and, while they still had several copies of Halo 3 in stock, I noticed they had the CE on sale for 6080 yen.
It retails for 7140 yen so its a pretty decent discount, considering the game just came out today.
3 red halos of death...
@Heliophage: Boxes like that in Japan don't mean squat, they can have one box for a game out and have 20 copies in stock or vice versa. They are merely empty boxes to promote a game. Notice how you go to gamestop and they got stack of Wii boxes yet no actual Wii's in stock?
@ashcraft:
I don't have a problem believing that Japanese people would buy Halo 3, I just have a hard time contemplating the color coding of the tags. It's just different is all.
The bigger pic is nice, though I still can't read it. XD
I was at EB in Buffalo, NY yesterday and they had a mountain of copies. I was at Target too but didn't think to look. Neither had Wiis.
@shawnpfiore:
Master Chief isn't androgynous enough for them.
Perhaps they would care about Halo 3 if MC sported long, spiky hair, a leather body suit with random pieces missing, illogically and inefficiently placed chains and belts, and a back story that would put any lyrics of Death Cab For Cutie or My Chemical Romance to shame.
Bungie should get to work on that download content.
Yeah it sold out, but what they fail to mention is there was only like 5 copies anyway, so yeah... =)
I'll 2nd a previous poster. How can you not be carrying cash in Japan?
@Kreean:
They also wear red at weddings, and white at funerals.
Wee, cultural diversity. :D
@Wren:
Not a lot of depth? Really. I'd love to see another FPS (especially on a console) with a good single player campaign (with 4 player online co-op, meta-scoring, hidden skulls and terminals plus gameplay that changes considerably on higher difficulties), the best matchmaking system in existence (on consoles), awesome multiplayer (with customizable, unlockable armour permutations, incredible stat tracking and community features on bungie.net), tons of weapons-vehicles-equipment-levels, forge, saved films, etc etc. Yeah, no depth there. Keep trying dude.
Is this Geo?
@Lethal_Dosage:
"Master Chief isn't androgynous enough for them."
How do you know? Did you see his face?
@Lethal_Dosage:
...and do they cross the street when lights are red?
@Ashcraft
Actually, I just freaked out when I say the "Halo 3 Japan Sell Out Shocker" headline in my feeds. Then I thought "It's Kotaku. Of course it's a pun of some sort".
Could you, by any chance, try to find out at a later stage how many copies the store had? Is it by any chance close to the american embassy?
i wouldn't put it past microsoft to have people paid to buy the copies in japan. to show that a store is sold out
@Billqvist: You know, they usually put the embassies in foreign capitals.
@Wren:
Not a game with a lot of depth? Have you even played the game? This iteration is the very defition of depth, between the huge battles, the saved films, the co-op, regular multiplayer, campaign scoring, and the forge editor. But, oh yeah, it's Halo, so people have to hate on it.
@Kreean:
He doesn't have a girlish, annoying voice, so I'm going on the assumption that he's going to be one of those rough and rugged, manly types.
That will come back and bite me in the ass, I'm sure.
Don't know about crossing the street. Sadly, I've never been to Japan. Maybe Bash can answer that for you.
An X360 game selling out in Japan.
Now I've seen everything.
I can finally die.
Ahhh, looks like someone shops at Gero, eerrro Geo. Bastards were open until 2am last night, but would they sell me a copy of Halo 3 once the clock struck midnight? No sir :(
@landu13:
that has to be the stupidest conspiracy theory i have ever heard.my head hurts trying to figure out why you came to this conclusion.