Xbox 360 Launch Schedule: Japanese Systems not before December 10th at Lik Sang

News from Lik Sang

While the western world is all warming up with only 40 days ahead of the Xbox 360 launch, we receive regular enquiries from customers asking us when we will start taking preorders on the bad boy, or even sometimes, there are forum threads where we are accused of being Sony fan boys (!) because we already take preorders on the PlayStation 3 [and on the Nintendo Revolution, for that matter - double fanboy combo in your face], yet we do nothing about the great Xbox sequel despite the tremendous momentum it has built in the US and European market places - has Lik Sang turned into an anti-americanist place of some sort? Well, no.

The reason for us not jumping up and down about the 360 has nothing to do with its potential, its qualities or any kind of bias. It's more simple and pragmatical than all that: the product comes out in Japan last. What hardcore gamers have learnt to know is that Lik Sang is always first to get nextgen systems. Xbox 360 will prove this belief wrong for the first time. This was always true for Japanese systems from Japanese manufacturers and releasing in Japan early. This time around, Microsoft is releasing in both Europe and the USA within November, while Japan will not play the nextgen stuff from MS until 10th of December. We won't be first and we don't want to confuse consumers by letting you believe we could be. Hence, no preorders taken for now.

Shipping bulky systems from USA to Hong Kong then back to the western world wouldn't make a lot of sense and wouldn't make our offer competitive for our customers, who we strongly encourage to shop locally for this one. Exceptionally, it will turn out cheaper for your wallet. We prefer to be honest about it rather than building high expectations in the public on which we could not possibly deliver, seeing the circumstances.

Import Gamers who like it hardcore and want their Japanese games played on a Japanese system don't have to worry about a thing. Lik Sang will be stocking Xbox 360 Japanese systems from launch day (December 10th of 2005) as well as all Japanese launch titles exclusive to the land of the rising sun. All generic accessories, innovative gear and specialty peripherals to be released here in Asia - whether they come from China, Korea, Japan or Mongolia - will be stocked and sold here as fast as they are assembled together.