NEWS - Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Xbox and Japan
Despite continuingly woeful sales of the Xbox and its games in Japan, Microsoft’s hopes for success in this massive gaming market remain unabated, so explained Microsoft bigwig Peter Moore in a recent interview for the official Xbox Japanese website. Apparently, new long-term strategies are currently being devised for the territory, even as Xbox sales lag even further behind competitors Sony and Nintendo. "I believe that the video game market in Japan last year was stagnant not only for us, but for Sony and Nintendo as well. We’re looking into a long-term strategy towards Japan, so while our current situation may not be ideal, we’re planning to change that. In six to nine months from now, we will be announcing specific strategies that we’ll be focusing on to start off with. The video chat and the Xbox Live Arcade that we’ve announced during the [E3 expo] briefing are some of the examples of those strategies. We’re looking towards a long-term strategy of 10 or so years, rather than being concerned about the short span, like this week or the week after," Moore reportedly commented (thanks GameSpot). Moore also brushed aside talk of new third-party developers creating games for the Xbox in Japan, instead drawing attention to new in-house creations aimed at tempting players in the region: "We currently have a developer team in Japan named Microsoft Game Studio Japan, which has been releasing a number of great titles such as Magatama and Phantom Dust. There are a number of plans under way to continue doing so in the future."Source: http://www.ferrago.com
