Has Steam been gaining traction in Japan? That's good news, but I was under the impression it wasn't well liked.
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NIS America - "Microsoft's not very supportive of Japanese Games"
- Thread starter Rymuth
- Start date
Has Steam been gaining traction in Japan? That's good news, but I was under the impression it wasn't well liked.
To get that Dragon Ball Z Fighters trailer first.
It's nice to want things and take steps to get there, it's another to be Capcom and consistently miss sales projections.
GhostTrick
Banned
Their lack of good will is about their lack of interest to court these developpers or even making their task easier (the minimum print for physical copies)
When Microsoft had good will, it meant Tales of Vesperia, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Star Ocean 4, Ninja Gaiden 2.
It didn't in Japan, but it gained traction from Japanese publishers which consider it an important pair with PlayStation for western releases.
And he's such a nice guy and "for the gamer".
He probably bought them all and used them to raise his bed off the ground. His lumbering western body couldnt get up off the tatami Mat.
I guess they are more interested in buying timed exclusive indie games from ID@Xbox
kinda joking lol
Jawmuncher
Member
"Microsoft also has a minimum order quantity for their games"
This needs to go
This needs to go
And these games still bombed because japan just wouldn't buy 360s to play them
how is this their lack of good will again
GhostTrick
Banned
MosquitoSmasher
Member
So it seemed that MS was doing their best to get Japanese games but now things seem to be a bit different. Although not supportive could be said about Japan towards Xbox as well. Goes both ways.
Vesperia bombed in the west too
Primethius
Banned
Wow, it's like the thing that people have been saying all along but now from the mouths of Japanese devs.
WHO WOULD'VE THOUGHT
Aside from Xbox fans who think Sony's out to get them of course.
WHO WOULD'VE THOUGHT
Aside from Xbox fans who think Sony's out to get them of course.
Soul of the Beast
Member
And Japan is not very supportive of Xbox, at all.
Japanese devs don't care about Xbox either, actually USA is the only country that gave a shit about Xbox, but Americans still act like their Xbox is a big deal in gaming.
Japanese devs don't care about Xbox either, actually USA is the only country that gave a shit about Xbox, but Americans still act like their Xbox is a big deal in gaming.
Yup they got me with them too. I believed them and bought into a 360. Then the Japanese support disappeared like a fart in the wind suddenly and I was left with shooters and Kinect. Went back to Sony and have yet to see a reason to consider going back that wasnt cancelled. It is what it is at this point and most people know the libraries they are buying into when getting a console at this point.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
What were their sales?
Heartskips
Banned
To be honest, while Xbox doesn't get niche japanese games (that would sell terrible anyway), it has a bigger Capcom and Bandai Namco support than Nintendo - king of sales in Japan. It's not that bad.
Falcom is talking about xbox performance in japan quite clearly as a reason
Vesperia bombing in the west too, if anything, show that microsoft's "good will" was wasted on nothing.
wapplew
Member
This. They got support from SE, Bamco, Konami, Sega, KT, Fromsoft and Capcom. I think fans miss nothing much with NIS or Falcom.
And things might change since Spencer now VP of MS.
To be fair, 5pb, Experience, and to some extent CAVE, were treated pretty well given their feedback about Microsoft of Japan. The later even had Microsoft convince them to release their, then latest, Dodonpachi to the 360 (my personal swan song for the console); preventing it from being arcade only. I feel the first two (CAVE is pretty much done with console ports in-house atm) would know more than most whether to stick with Microsoft or not. And Experience still has an exclusive XB1 game coming, don't they?
They barely have SE support. They havent announced a game for the system since Type 0
DarknessTear
Banned
If you like Japanese games, you probably own a PS4 anyway. There are far too many Japanese games that are exclusive to the console to not have one. I really wish Microsoft would have tried more with Mistwalker though or something. Even if it was a little futile.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts are about the only big mainstream IPs Square has. Everything else is pretty niche.
Dougieflesh
Member
Probably because the Vita audience has different purchasing habits than the Xbox audience? I mean, I doubt any of these smaller Japanese pubs expect to sell more copies of a visual novel or a game like Neptunia on Xbox when the audience of those who would be likely to purchase is smaller than the Vita.
They released numerous remasters of FF that outright skipped the system
LukasTaves
Member
The minimum print quantities is a known problem, but just get rid of it altogether and release digital only?
GhostTrick
Banned
Not good, but at least microsoft was courting that audience ?
Falcom is only taking care about their release in Japan. Although NISA/XSeed/Aksys are currently publishers taking care of Falcom releases in West. And if you want an Xbox SKU in West; you need to convince these publishers, which handled themselves the Steam SKU or their localized Falcom titles.
By what standards?
#sorrynotsorry
Member
What's up with people citing DBZ as some huge get for Xbox? That was obviously going to come. DBZ is a huge property. Easily the most popular anime in the US. Probably the only one with any can of basic recognition for the average millenial. Of course it's going to release on all platforms.
Where's FF12/WoFF on XB1?
Where's KH2.8/KH1.5+2.5 on XB1?
Where's DQXI on XB1?
The only reason the system got FFXV and KH3 was because Square Enix had no idea if the system was going to be a success or not back then.
When you factor in how much digital probably sells for these games, they probably wouldn't end up making much if any profit porting to the Xbox One.
Jaguar Victory
Member
Rumors say No No Kuni 2 coming to XBOX One digital... That's cool.
you could argue for most of these games "where are the non-sony versions"
which should tell you a thing or two about them
digital for them in the rest of the world would probably easily outsell physical for japan (speaking of xbox one only)
Primethius
Banned
By normal standards?
Digital in the rest of the world outselling physical in Japan still doesn't mean they'd make a profit after porting it though.
But if you're using the minimum print quantities as the excuse for you not releasing your game on the platform, it makes no sense.
And this is not 1993 anymore.Console architectures are extremely similar. Porting a PS4 game to PC/Xbox is nowhere as complicated nor costly. Not that i'm saying it would still be worth porting though specially in the case of very niche games with barely an audience in the west as a whole and specially not considering only X1 users
Then the vast majority of Tales games have been bombs in the west, including a few of the post-Vesperia ones.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
I look at side games and remasters as cutting the fat. It's useful, especially for KH, but overall isn't really essential. And Dragon Quest is not huge in the West. If the next main entry in FF isn't coming to Xbox then we will know that Square has no further interest.
I agree to some extent their excuse makes no sense if we're merely talking about print quantities being the key issue.
But I do think for Japanese games, it's usually an "out of sight, out of mind" thing.
They aren't big enough for people to know the game is available digitally so they want to have the shelf space in stores in some form.
Primethius
Banned
I mean, yes? The series has been in decline for a while now. No thanks to Vesperias exclusivity. The PS3 Tales did much better than Vesperia despite them being on a less popular platform in NA and not being as good.
I think what the Falcom president said is the more pertinent comment. Its very niche therefore its it really viable to such a western centric audience.
Disgaea 2 sold 57k copies worldwide to a potential audience of over 125million active steam accounts , so what chance in hell would it stand on Xbox anyway?
GrantDaNasty
Member
It's an uphill battle that's been getting steeper the longer Xbox has been in the marketplace.
Xbox doesn't sell over there cause it's well-established it doesn't have a place, and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy of "Xbox can't sell cause MS needs more japanese games" > "MS management says no to subsidies/covering costs of porting games/moneyhats to Xbox because the audience isn't large enough" > "Xbox can't sell cause..."
If those rumours of MS thinking about acquiring SEGA had come through (before the original XBOX was announced), I think that would've given them a legit foothold in that region, but again, as years go by, MS is less-inclined to burn money on a department they aren't even confident in with regards to returns.
It doesn't matter if Xbox gets Final Fantasy or Tekken, because a few high-profile titles means nothing when the majority of japanese games are almost-automatically going to be developed for PS4/Switch/PC.
Xbox doesn't sell over there cause it's well-established it doesn't have a place, and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy of "Xbox can't sell cause MS needs more japanese games" > "MS management says no to subsidies/covering costs of porting games/moneyhats to Xbox because the audience isn't large enough" > "Xbox can't sell cause..."
If those rumours of MS thinking about acquiring SEGA had come through (before the original XBOX was announced), I think that would've given them a legit foothold in that region, but again, as years go by, MS is less-inclined to burn money on a department they aren't even confident in with regards to returns.
It doesn't matter if Xbox gets Final Fantasy or Tekken, because a few high-profile titles means nothing when the majority of japanese games are almost-automatically going to be developed for PS4/Switch/PC.
Toadthemushroom
Member
I wonder if small print runs have something to do with the move from DVDs to blu ray, and if so, why? The Xbox 360 played host to lots of boxed games that had small print runs, particularly those exclusive to Japan.
Kondo's reasoning for ignoring Nintendo when they transitioned to consoles is comically poor. It makes no sense that PC owners who play Falcom games would be interested in the latest and greatest tech considering they've always ran on almost anything available from years' past. I wish they'd just be honest and say Sony offered them technical and marketing support.
Kondo's reasoning for ignoring Nintendo when they transitioned to consoles is comically poor. It makes no sense that PC owners who play Falcom games would be interested in the latest and greatest tech considering they've always ran on almost anything available from years' past. I wish they'd just be honest and say Sony offered them technical and marketing support.
I imagine Microsoft mainly wants to court A. The AAA publishers/developers or B. The smaller ones who WANT to go all digital. As a lot of them are in between (smaller devs who don't want to be too small and stay physical) there probably isn't much room for them if they're not already multiplatform developers/publishers.
Nah, it was a problem in the later days of the 360. Microsoft probably didn't find it economically feasible to do them, or just kind of blanked out on bothering with the smaller runs.