Head of Xbox Japan Steps Down After Poor Xbox One Sales

Xbox heads back to the drawing board as the head of its Japanese division steps down amidst abysmal sales of the Xbox One system in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Kotaku reports that Takashi Sensui is stepping down from his role as the head of Xbox Japan. Sensui has had years of experience when it comes to executive positions at Microsoft, becoming the head of Xbox Japan in 2006, but he was unable to pull the Xbox One out of its rut when it came to its lack of a success in the east. Sensui has been relocated to work at Xbox's Redmond headquarters as the General Manager for Interactive Entertainment Business.

Takashi Sensui will be replaced by Yoshinami Takahashi, the Consumer and Partner Group General Manager, and Nobuyoshi Yokoi, the head of Consumer and Partner Group Retail Business, as a part of reorganizing Xbox Japan. This means that Yokoi and Takahashi will both be co-leading Xbox Japan together. Sensui will be working under Xbox Vice President Mike Nichols and focusing on helping Xbox Japan from Microsoft's stateside headquarters.

Just to put the Xbox One's sales numbers into perspective, Media Create reports that only 776 Xbox Ones were sold in Japan last week, while Sony sold 12,400 PlayStation 4 consoles and Nintendo sold 9,600 Wii U systems. Unfortunately, the Japanese video game market seems like it will always prefer the homegrown names of Nintendo and PlayStation over the gaijin (foreigners), from Xbox.