I think that if Microsoft can’t buy Studios or even Publishers in Japan for whatever reason(mostly I would think Japanese devs not wanting to sell to a foreign company) or not get any good deals in place because of Sony’s influence(like with Elden Ring), expanding Tango into a multi team studio making different types of exclusive games for Xbox would be a good start.
It only needs one word and it needs to be shouted:
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Yeah. Eiyuden Chronicles I believe. MS managed to get a small foothold in Japan gaming was back in the day with the MSX. It wasn’t branded as a Microsoft platform though and co manufactured by companies like Panasonic and even Sony. I often wondered if MS had purchased Sega back in the day and simply branded the Xbox as a new Sega console would things have gone better there.
I still think they should look to startups like Hajime Tabata’s new studio similar to what they were doing with Mistwalker in the beginning. Heavily invest in the studio. Maybe even building a few of their own Japanese studios.
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I wanted to ask, would a series S chip made on 4nm be power efficient enough to be turned into a 1080p hand held with at least 3hrs of battery life? And how well does everyone think it could do in Japan if Xbox where to start making deals for dev suppoeof the console there?
depends on how much XSS Can draw wattage, handheld need under 20 Wattage for long battery life.
they need ARM chip it’s the future of handheld
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Already had discussion with tech specs etc:
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Thanks
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Get persona
End strategy.
The realistic strategy is to keep selling consoles there like they currently are and to invest in new Japanese game exclusives from the studio they already own (tango) and third parties through Xbox global publishing. They won’t get games that missed the Xbox platform to release onto Xbox until they get more Xboxes in Japanese households and increase the popularity of xcloud in Japan.
.Japan as a market is dwindling. They’re going more portable. Which sucks for both Sony and MS. But ms can take advantage with cloud.
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I agree with you on this; however, while xCloud is definitely one of the ways of going about it, it won’t work if it doesn’t have the content that Japanese haners want to play. Which means they either need to find a way for those PS Japanese exclusives to fond their way on Xbox and xCloud, or to invest on Japanese exclusives for Gamelass with Xbox Games Publishing.
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Yeah, without exclusive content it does not work, expecially where your platform (even if not physical) is a hard sell.
Games leaving Game Pass = also leaving Xcloud is a massive problem for this… Yakuzas are starting to leave and there is no powerhouse Japanese IP entering to replace them. This also means you can’t play Yakuza on Xcloud anymore.
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The thing about “just acquire Sega” or the Sega Series X thing is how important was (and are) Sega to the Japanese market? If you look at a list of the top-selling games in Japan (physical only) here it takes until #174 to find a single Sega game, and that game is Virtua Fighter 2 for the Sega Saturn. Continuing on that point you probably saw headlines about Japan’s top 100 games of all time, from what I can see there are only five Sega games on the list. (four of them are Persona games and the other is Puyo Puyo. Strangely, both Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal are here, with vanilla P5 being like fifty places higher)
would be interesting to see how Atlus would react if MS did acquire Sega. Can’t give xbox the shaft when they own your asses.
Regarding Sega in Japan they are definitely not selling on the same level as Nintendo or Square games. Its more that Sega has been such a traditionally strong partner with MS. And Sega game sales and active users are pretty good albeit not the best.
Sega has 6.5 million PSO2 registered players in Japan, it might be just under or really close to FF14 and Monster Hunter world with registered players in Japan. I Will not be surprised to see it at 10 million by the end of the gen. a PSO2 themed xbox would sell or adding PSO2 perks to Gamepass would get people to subscribe.
Yakuza 7 had the highest digital game sales in Japan for a Yakuza game
Judgment was one of the highest selling new IP games for the PS4 in Japan.
Atlus games sell well. Persona, SMTV5. Sega messed up really bad by not making Sakura Wars and Demon Slayer on Switch. Switch versions would have tripled sales.
Then they still have a lot of brand recognition with the arcades. I think for sure an acquisition or partnership with Sega would help just with PSO2 alone.
Sakura Wars not being on Switch was a massive mistake and is suspected to be part of a reason Nagoshi had a bit of a falling out with Sega (the man just hated the Switch for some reason). They had Sakura Wars on Wii, even.
What a weird time to hate on Switch when the franchise is clearly asking for it.
From what has been said, Tango is currently a 300 + dev studio with 3 games in development. 2 AAA and 1 small game.
Also yeah, I would like to see further expansion. Make Tango into a powerhouse 750+ dev house that cranks out exclusives.
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From Microsoft’s perspective, whatever they choose they would need to invest as long term return
Whatever they do, they will lose money for long a time.
Now, how much they would lose?
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Whatever JP ips they buy, make them exclusive. They will lose the most money here but will gain the market share the fastest. Risk will be pretty high.
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Whatever JP ips they buy, keep them multi-platform. They will invest the same money as the first point, market share will grow at a slow pace but risk would be minimal. This seems non viable option to me. Games will be available on Xbox and western gamers would bee happy but not much for gaining market share in JP
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Invest significantly (whatever devs want) to bring ports of JP games to Xbox. They will invest less then the previous points. Market share will grow at similar pace of point 2. Risk will high. Again, western gamers will be happy. Not much for JP gamers. But good for JP devs.
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What they are currently doing. Negotiating own there own terms rather then what devs says first. Even slower pace then option 3. Least risky of all the option. Good for all the gamers and devs who agreed to the deal.
So yeah, problem is, without pumping money with huge risk the pace will be very slow.
The solution of above problem is… Partnership with the most suitable gaming company in Japan. They will have to share there hardware with the company and let them manage console sales and promotions in JP. The partnering company could launch there own store and control it within Japan and world alike. Microsoft Store will still exist along side. Microsoft will get experts within the JP to manage and grow xbox. This will reduce the upfront investment from Microsoft. Risk will be medium, pace will be medium. Only the return will be slow.
Microsoft will get more gamers in JP with less investment overall at the expense of brand/consolee sharing and low revenue share from the partner store. Partnering company will get benefits of associating with a console hardware, there own store with worldwide presence at the expense of porting there games and whatever games they publish with other JP devs on the Xbox console.
And besides, Sega Series S has a nice tune to it
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