Sarah Bond, the VP of Xbox’s gaming ecosystem, suggested that Microsoft might be working with Japan to bring more Japanese games to Xbox consoles during a recent IGN Japan stream. VideoGamesChronicle transcribed her statement as follows.
One of the things that I’m super excited about is that we have over 250 developers in Japan developing games for Xbox right now. 150 games have shipped already, 100 are available on Game Pass and we’re working on more. [recently] 15 titles were made in Asia, and 13 in Japan. So much has come, but there’s even more that’s going to come in the future and I can’t wait to reveal it to you all as it starts coming out.”
This aligns with recent comments by Phil Spencer, Xbox chief, during the 2022 Tokyo Game Show. Game Watch interviewed Spencer to discuss the Xbox team’s awareness of the need for more Japanese-developed games, both in Japan and on the west coast. He cited Xbox’s collaboration with Kojima Productions—whose studios Spencer visited while attending the Tokyo Game Show—to bring a new Hideo Kojima game to Xbox.
Phil Spencer pic.twitter.com/Cbkla87dsf
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 17, 2022
Famitsu also spoke with Spencer in a separate interview.
We have listened and received feedback from Japanese game developers. Trust has been built through the ability to improve, which has in turn led to more games being released on Xbox. I think that feedback loop will lead to many more Japanese games in the future, and I am happy about this trend.”
According to VGChartz, all this happens as the Xbox Series S outsold the PlayStation 5 in Japan three times during the week of September 9-18.
For the third consecutive week, the Xbox Series outsold the PS5 Japan.
14.077 Xbox Series units sold!
PS5 was sold 11,180 unitsWith 127k units sold, Nintendo Switch is still Japan’s best-selling console. pic.twitter.com/KFfYoZpexr
— Genki✨@TGS (@Genki_JPN) September 22, 2022
You can see that the Series X sales were far lower than its smaller sibling, as well as the PS5’s two iterations, for the week. S line had sold over a quarter-million units at that time in Japan.|S line had sold over a quarter-million units at that time in Japan. Could this mean that the Xbox brand is finally making a dent in this market. This could mean that we will be seeing more Japanese games on Xbox.
