The Xbox Games Showcase had the support of important Japanese developers, such as ATLUS, Capcom and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, is pleased with this support; however he believes they still have a long way to go in the region.
During a recent interview, he accepted that Xbox is far from being a strong brand in Japan. Despite this, he believes that the situation has improved quite a bit over the past few years. Even so, he believes that developers in the country still have reasons for not bringing their games to Xbox, so they are working to change this in the future.
Xbox won't give up and will look to gain more ground in Japan
Speaking to Giant Bomb (via IGN), Spencer acknowledged that Xbox is far from being the strongest brand in Japan. He accepted that PlayStation and Nintendo are significantly ahead of them and that, in addition, the mobile market is massive and they are nowhere near their numbers.
Despite this, the executive believes that the situation has improved quite a lot over the last few years. He thinks that the Xbox Games Showcase is proof of this, as they had the support of ATLUS with several projects and, in addition, Capcom decided to reveal a new IP at their show. As he had previously mentioned, Spencer suggested that they can talk to Square Enix to improve their relationship.
From his perspective, it is important for Japanese developers to see the global market and what Xbox represents in it, as this way they can build relationships built on trust. Spencer knows that some developers have reasons for not bringing their games to Xbox and he understands that.
The executive spoke in particular about commercial agreements, the difficulties to develop more versions of the same game or decisions that seek to reduce the risks of a project. For this reason, they want to improve their presence in Japan, so that more Japanese creatives will take them into account.
"Every platform you add adds more work to the dev team," he continued. "And sometimes it's just a team that does not have a lot of connection to Xbox and they don't necessarily see it in their local game store when they walk in. That's why presence on the ground is so important, even if they don't sell a lot. Because the teams at the base level can know that Xbox is a game platform and it's something they see in their day to day lives," Spencer concluded.
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