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Xbox Japan CEO resigns in light of poor Xbox One sales in the country

• Egon Kilin
• November 28th, 2014

Xbox Japan boss Takashi Sensui has announced that he is abandoning his position, but will still remain at Microsoft as Interactive Entertainment Manger in the U.S. Sensui was the head of Xbox Japan since 2006, so it’s strange to see him leave even though he stated that he will still support the Japanese division from abroad. This decision presumably came in light of the very poor Xbox One sales in the country, which lead Microsoft to consider a much needed reorganization. Replacing Sensui will be both Yoshinami Takahashi, Consumer and Partner Group General Manager and Nobuyoshi Yokoi, head Consumer and Partner Group Retail Business according to Kotaku. As for Sensui, from now on he will work under Xbox Vice President Mike Nichols.

The Xbox One launched in Japan back in September and was looking like it might become relatively successful, or at least that’s what Microsoft was hoping for. The console managed to sell 23,562 units in its four days, which is not too shabby all things considered. However, this figure is much lower than what its predecessors were able to sell back in the day. Moreover, the Xbox One hasn’t sold much since then and can currently account for a total of only about 38,461 units. As you can already tell, things are not going great at all, especially lately as last week Microsoft was only able to sell 776 Xbox One consoles in Japan.

While the Japanese public doesn’t seem too impressed with the Xbox One, the rest of the world is actually growing more and more fond of it. The console already shipped more than 10 million units worldwide according to the company and sales are expected to increase by quite a bit during the holiday season. In fact, some speculate that the console may even finally close it the gap with the PS4 soon, but we’ll just have to wait and see.