September 15^th, 2005 (1:34pm) - A recent recent poll held in Japan amongst five-hundred male and five-hundred female gamers, regarding their interest in the next generation of video game consoles, revealed that only 5.8 percent of those questioned were interested in the Xbox 360, with Microsoft’s console lagging behind Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Revolution game console by a significant margin. However, Robbie Back, Microsoft Game Studio’s Chief Xbox Officer, made a statement at the Reuters Technology and Telecoms Summit in Tokyo this week slamming the poll, claiming that "none of that is worth anything".

Bach addressed that the original Xbox’ fault was not offering a line-up of games that appealed to the Japanese audience. "Ultimately if we had great games, people would have put a big, black Xbox in the living room," he added. Fortunately, Microsoft has taken a number of steps to try and solve this issue and appeal to the Japanese audience by signing games such as Final Fantasy XI, Ninety-Nine Nights, and Blue Dragon to the console. However, it’s too early to tell if these games will have much of an impact on Xbox 360 hardware and software sales in Japan.

The real question is if whether or not Robbie Bach and Microsoft would have used this poll as a sign of Xbox 360’s upcoming success in Japan if the number were more in their favor.