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Xbox only sold 2.3 million consoles in Japan in 20 years. But it wants to do better. Xbox VP of gaming ecosystem Sarah Bond explains how the company plans to win gamers over with more Japanese titles.
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U.S. video game console maker Xbox has never made its mark on Japan in terms of sales, but after two decades and several missteps, it has no plans to give up.
Last week, Xbox shared news on upcoming games at the Tokyo Game Show, and said that more Asian titles would be added to its subscription service Game Pass over the next year. It announced that “Deathloop,” which was a timed PlayStation exclusive, is available for Xbox as of Sept. 20.
Bond said Xbox is betting the company’s investment in a slate of Asian titles will pay off and show Xbox is more than just Halo and Forza. Typically, Asian players have preferred to buy PlayStation and Nintendo devices, where they can find more Japanese role-playing games and narrative-based games.
Bond said there are over 250 developers in Japan building over 150 games to date, including titles like “Tetris Effect: Connected” and “Craftopia.” Those titles will get to live on the Xbox platform, even if many are not exclusives. During the Tokyo Game Show, Xbox announced that preexisting PlayStation mainstay titles like “Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony Anniversary Edition” and “Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch” are now available on Game Pass. It has plans to bring “Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes” and several Persona titles to Game Pass over the next year.
“While Xbox Series devices are not predicted to sell anywhere near the level of Sony’s PS5 over the coming years, Microsoft is now more competitive than it has been for at least a decade [in Japan],” said Piers Harding-Rolls, an analyst at Ampere Analysis. “That shows that Microsoft’s approach to the market is paying dividends.”