I don’t think there is a Sony pressure on smaller Japanese devs either, because wouldn’t Sony also be pressuring them about the Switch too? 2 and 3 weeks ago respectively not a single PS4 nor PS5 game charted in the top 30 weekly Japan game sales. And even last week of the 30, the only PS one was Tsushima directors cut. If Sony was serious about trying to keep JP devs under their wing, wouldn’t they be doing something about this? Focusing on trying to keep them from getting interested in Xbox seems like a complete wrong priority.
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I agree, there is also the fact we are seeing more and more small Japanese games not skiiping the platform this time around, so there is definitely some efforts there.
Yep, Sony efforts in Japan are only related to get big games for western audience. Full stop.
I would even argue that Sony wants smaller JP devs to LEAVE PS 
, with their “censorship policy”, one dev spoke about how they had to answer a bunch of questions from Sony about their game… Thing is the questions were being sent from California, in English, making this a bit of a nightmare for the dev. They had to hire a translator. This game was never even planned for an English release
“To make matters worse, the platform holder is asking all the questions in English, forcing the studio to go through a translator to get its answers across.”
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MS has had deals with Bamco for Dark Souls 1 to 3 iirc, Sekiro debuted during Xbox E3…so why would Bamco all of a sudden care what Sony thinks?
Definitely expect some gamepass announcements.
Ninja gaiden isn’t that popular in Japan. But you’re right that period between 2007 and 2010 360 got
- lost odyssey
- blue dragon
- star ocean 4
- tales of vesperia
- enchanted arms
- the last remnant
- eternal sonata
- infinite undiscovery
- maga Carta 2
Every single one of those games was a full exclusive or timed exclusive.
360 sold over a million consoles in Japan and looking back that’s impressive.
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Unfortunately most of those games were plagued by the weak technical (ans also artistical) prowess of japanese dev scene of the time, if MS would have spent that kind of money during like 2015-2020 instead of 2005-2010, they would have got much better games and results, if we consider GP effect, it could have been huge. This is the reason they need big exclusives from there, if you see the results of that era before the Kinect pivot, it’s almost sure they would succeed now with a better infrastructure and business model.
Nowadays it’s more difficult because of a dev scene largely consolidated into big publishers mostly geared towards multiplatform development, bad blood/insecurity about MS commitment and actual MS budget for the endeavour in the region (who knows how much they want to spend over there).
I don’t think MS could have done that in 2015 to 2020. Or it would have cost them a lot more money. BAck then Devs would actually favour 360 over PS3. Mainly because the 360 was easily doubling PS3 sales in the west and it was a much easier platform to develop for.
The Xbox One was sort of a lost cause in Japan. It sold 10x less than 360. Thats shockingly abysmal.
MS don’t need that level of support. It needs some exclusives that people can play again.
And you say weak but those games were reminicent of PS2 era JRPG’s just in HD. Lost Odyssey was one of the best JRPG’s that gen and games like Vesperia were solid.
Xbox’s 2020 showcase had:
- Cloud gaming coming to Japan;
- Series X|S release date and prices in Japan;
- A Japan-focused World Update for Flight Simulator
- Trailers for Balan Wonderworld, Samurai Shodown, RE Village, Pragmata, Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, Tetris Effect: Connected, Bright Memory, R-Type and RPG Time.
Temper your expectations.
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Even if the Xbox show is a bust… Keep an eye on the other showcases. We just got this announcement from an event called Bitsummit. Xbox is peeking it’s head in more and more in Japanese showcases.
Kojima suppose Xbox Game will be announce here calling it now.
You know, that list is actually good if you don’t consider those trailers were already old when they showed them. If this time they’ll show at least new trailers it could be a substianl improvement. XD
I think the Xbox stage for TGS will be the good time to showcase many indie Japan games and the next games coming to Game Pass like The Good Life and update about popular Xbox franchises in Japan, like Minecraft.
I still think a “J-RPG style” Minecraft game could be a game changer has an exclusive for Xbox on this market, there’s definitely something to do about it 
But yeah, the show will be like last year, but it’s a good thing that Xbox has a real presence in Japan right now, with a 5K Xbox series consoles per week basis, Xbox could make a niche in Japan that will help developers to make port even if Xbox don’t ask them.
I think it’s time the title of this thread was changed lol
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Just changed it to fit Greenberg’s tweet
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My only guess is Persona, makes sense with the Anniversary celebrations this month
That would be announced on a Western event with far more eyes on it I feel
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I doubt it. Atlus can be weird like that. Makes sense to announce something but doubt it’s related to xbox. Huge rumor of a persona 1 remake but 0 chance of it coming to Xbox. Persona 5 arena also rumored.
At best we’ll get a persona 5 strikes port. If we’re lucky.
Also I don’t buy this let’s focus on Japanese market only thing from ms. They have something up their sleeves. Everyone watches the event. This notion that the event only applies to the Asian territories is silly. E3 isn’t western focused they showcase jpn games. A lot of the jpn games they show apply to Western markets too.
A lot of eyes will be on TGS as well.
Musou game
I sleep