So, this goes back to what I’ve said in this thread one year ago, about Sony having a “censorship policy” on Japanese games and how MS should not follow that… The thing you are talking about, niche games, visual novels, anime games often come with this “baggage” called fanservice. If MS were to want these games, they can’t try and dictate them around, because like we’ve saw with Gal Gun, and more lately, romance visual novels from Gamuzumi (which even Playstation are getting without altercations for the most part, Switch of course is not requiring any altercations, while the devs stated Xbox was telling them to cut “50% of the game”, which the devs saw as ridiculous and scrapped Xbox), some eastasiasoft titles, etc. they will just cut the Xbox version altogether.
Last year one of my highest playtime Switch games was “Mary Skelter 2”. A great first person dungeon crawler (DRPG). It’s become one of the more popular recommendations for this genre on Switch because it’s pretty good. It’s a niche anime game. When they were localizing it, Sony was making it difficult (or banned it?) because they didn’t like the content (Yes it’s got fanservicey imagery at times), so the West got the game as a Switch exclusive. The only person who benefited here was Nintendo. It’s speculated that this is what happened with Disgaea 6 as well, (it’s outright confirmed in Mary Skelter’s case) as it too is mysteriously a Switch exclusive in the West. Right now I feel Xbox’s stance would lean towards banning Mary Skelter (also fun fact, you’re not allowed to talk about this game on Resetera, for the sole reason of Sony deeming it unacceptable)…
I’m not even saying for Xbox to seek out those types of titles specifically, I would just like for them to stop chasing them away if they approach Xbox. It’s a bad message for these devs IMO. Nobody but Nintendo is benefiting from these bans/blocks. They all still release on Switch because Nintendo is just cool with anything not rated AO now. I say specifically seek out the more “acceptable” titles like Ys, Persona, and stuff, but don’t chase away Japanese games that are approaching the console themselves for… being too Japanese. This just causes trust issues with fans of these genres (which absolutely happened on Playstation) and just hurts Xbox’s library for no apparent reason (I assume they fear outrage, though I think Nintendo Switch welcoming such stuff and still being viewed as the Family Console proves that is nonsense)
The Xbox 360 was the house of the smaller japanese games, its disastifying to know that console could have been the firestarter of this type in the west rather than the PS3/4/Vita.
With today’s Game Pass addition of Danganronpa I have reason to believe this. Some of those dating sim VNs ID@Xbox denied from Gamuzumi (who said ID@Xbox was telling them to cut out 50% of the dialog and alter clothing) are far less “offensive” then the stuff Game Pass subscribers are gonna be seeing in Danganronpa.
That or ID@Xbox deemed those games too “low quality” though I’m not what constitutes that for a VN… They think the writing was bad ?
I want to continue seeing them bring games that haven’t been on the platform before to xbox. Really hoping to see it continue with Trails, older Dragon Quest games, Final Fantasy 1-6 and tactics, Mana, Persona, Atelier, Bravely and more.
I’m really, really hoping this is the year for Trails and Ys. This is probably my 100th time saying it now but Stadia got them, so Xbox can get them. Trails is my all time favorite JRPG series. To see it on Xbox would be awesome.
Atelier should also be possible. Koei Tecmo is otherwise a good partner, and the Ryza series in particular struck newfound popularity for the series.
Dangaronpa proves devs/pubs with no Sony ties are doable, so I’m expecting more and more middle/indie devs, unfortunately entities like SE and Atlus are clearly on Sony’s camp, it isn’t an objective thing anymore imo, considering the nonsense of certain moves.
Between Yakuza, Dragon Quest, AI: The Somnium Files, Kingdom Hearts, Octopath Traveler, and now even Danganronpa it’s easy to see Microsoft has been pushing into getting more Japanese games.
Hell, even when deals are made, it still takes time to port a game over to a new platform anyway, so things could be in the works that we don’t know about (just like how AI, Octopath, and Daganronpa were surprises).
Mhmm. It’s good to see. What some people don’t realize is pretty much all of these JP studios who aren’t Square make PS exclusives for free (Switch has shrunken that number down to nothing though lol). MS is starting to get a major WRPG hold through acquisitions, but Sony’s JRPG stronghold isn’t through acquisition or deals, it’s just out of lack of interest from these devs for Xbox. MS can go for the jugular a little bit here and have BOTH of these types of RPGs by continuing to work with JP devs like this (provided the job listing actually bears something for us)
They don’t even need to make the xbox version as a support. I’m sure regarding Japanese developers, MS are willing to handling the xbox version themselves as long as they are allowed and dev being cooperative.
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