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Xbox Gears Up For Tokyo Game Show

Posted by simoniker on from the still-trying-in-japan dept.

Thanks to TeamXbox for their round-up of the new Japanese-developed titles Microsoft is showing at this year's Tokyo Game Show, which starts September 26th. They include first-party titles like Phantom Dust, which Gamers.com describes as "...an action game in the Devil May Cry mold [from] Yukio Futatsugi, who in a past generation was the director of Sega's Panzer Dragoon", as well as Magatama, portrayed as "...a 3D action game set in a fantastic version of ancient Japan - comparisons to Onimusha wouldn't be too far of a stretch." A notable non-Japanese Xbox title that will also debut at TGS is BioWare's Jade Empire, "an action-RPG from the creators of Star Wars: KotOR [in which you play] a young martial arts student, trying to gain the respect and admiration of your teacher and the townsfolk."

18 comments

  1. Clinging to life by OMGWTFBBQ · · Score: 1, Troll

    Like a struggling fish out of water, the Japanese Xbox just won't give up.

  2. Big deal by BigChigger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    XBox is practically non existent in Japan. I guess MS can pay enough kids to show up and make it look interesting, but sales are only a small fraction of PS2 and GC.

    Amazing how things work when there's open competition.

    BC

    1. Re:Big deal by superultra · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh good god. I guess this is technically slashdot, but I thought this had all but disappeared on games.slashdot.

      Of course it's non-existent in Japan. But that's hardly the work of an open market, of which Japan most definitely is not. It is open but only within the context of Japanese developers. Any Western company that attempted some kind of video game console infusion, be it Microsoft, GE, Coke, or whoever - it would inevitably fail because the Japanese have been influencing video games far longer and more extensively than Americans have. In fact, any kind of American video game software traditionally has done extremely poorly. They're two different words, Japan and the West, and to blame it on the fact that - surprise! - Microsoft is suddenly faced with an "open" market is just cutting and pasting from most of the other slashdot posts pre-1999.

      There's open competition here in the United States in the video game console market, and yet the Xbox is doing better than the Gamecube. Is that because Microsoft is going around playing mafia with potential Nintendo allies?

      No, it's for completely seperate reasons, and I won't insult your intelligence *that* much by going into obvious details as to why. Suffice it to say that while Nintendo has generally had some fantastic titles for the Cube, their third party support - like the N64 - has sucked ass. It has absolutely nothing - *nothing* - to do with an "open" or "closed" market.

      I can't believe this got modded up. Sheesh.

    2. Re:Big deal by Guppy06 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "But that's hardly the work of an open market, of which Japan most definitely is not."

      That point is arguable (and I'm not altogether sure as far as the console market is concerned), but nowhere (and I mean nowhere) in your post do you back that up. Neither the words "tax" nor "tariff" appear anywhere in your post.

      The phrase "free market" refers to artificial barriers to entry into a given market. Such barriers for foreign companies include (but are not limited to) tariffs and excise taxes layed on the import process. However, there is nothing in your post that can be labelled that. In fact, what all of your arguments end up supporting the position that the Xbox is failing in a free market. Neither Sony nor Nintendo can be said to weild monopoly powers in the Japanese console market (ie. none of them are telling stores "You can't carry my console if you carry Microsoft's"), and everything you said points to Japanese consumers freely choosing not to buy the Xbox. There are all sorts of reasons why they aren't, but none of them are "There aren't any Xboxes to be found to buy."

      I'm about ready to accuse you of using Microsoft-esque FUD for that post.

    3. Re:Big deal by superultra · · Score: 1

      You're right. I should have clarified. Are there policies that dissuade the Xbox from succedding in Japan? No. Are Nintendo and Sony involved in activities to prevent the Xbox from being available for sale? Most certainly not. The Xbox is doing so poorly in Japan that that's probably the last thing on their corporate minds.

      What is creating a difficult, and consequently very closed, market for Microsoft is a sort of "cultural tariff." Microsoft is American, and therefore they have absolutely no idea either how to market the Xbox to the Japanese, nor even how to create games worth playing for the Japanese. In that sense, in the cultural sense, Japan is very much closed to not only Microsoft, but I would contend *any* Western based company. Are Sony and Nintendo telling retailers NOT to carry the Xbox? No. But they are part of a culture which is very much closed to American video games. I believe it was the rather arrogant but slightly visionary head of Team Ninja who said in an interview that in Japan it was all about contacts. Of which Microsoft, of course, has next to null. If they had any, they fired them all a month or two ago.

      Japan is very much a closed social and cultural video game market.

      In the context of BigChigger's original post, his intent was obviously to imply that the only reason the Xbox does well is because they exist without competition, and any failure on behalf of the xbox is due solely because competition exists. That's not the reason for the dismal failure of the Xbox in Japan, and it's no more faulty logic than saying anyone who pees standing up is male. It's a coicindence, and it happens to make a for a witty, modable post on slashdot. Nor does it explain Nintendo's failure in America with the Gamecube and Microsoft's relative success in the same region.

      So you are right Guppy, on a technical sense. But certainly not an overreaching broad cultural sense. Fanboys are annoying, be they Xbox, Nintendo, Sony. By diametrical association, so to are anti-fanboys, who, around here, are most often anti-Microsoft. I felt that BigChigger's post was reflective of that.

    4. Re:Big deal by bigman2003 · · Score: 1

      The Xbox isn't popular in Japan.

      Dried seaweed 'treats' aren't very popular in the US.

      Maybe we're different.?

      --
      No reason to lie.
  3. Re:Booooring... by gnovos · · Score: 2, Funny

    Are you trying to imply that American propaganda is subtle? I take offense at that! Our propagada is about as subtle as a hydrogen bomb in a Pyongyang parade.

    --
    "Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
  4. Panzer Dragoon director. by La+Temperanza · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Did he also direct Panzer Dragoon Saga?

    Because that was probably the single most awesome game of its type I have ever played.

    --

    --
    est modus in rebus
  5. They're still trying? by M3wThr33 · · Score: 1

    Seriously, there's like a whole 10 people left in Japan that want an XBox. That's die-hard fan appreciation there!

  6. Never going to happen by tprime · · Score: 2

    The Playstation 2 and GameCube are going to have to go belly up before the xbox takes over there. As it is with other products in Japan, their "Made in Japan" designation is a source of pride for their country. Japanese Citizens support Japanese products. Even if the xbox wins over #1 in the USA (a realistic possibility in 5 years), they will never own the Japanese market. The other thing that Microsoft is going to have to do is regionalize their games even further, they still have an American slant.

    --
    http://www.tomandemily.com
    1. Re:Never going to happen by lidocaineus · · Score: 2, Informative

      omg, you know NOTHING about japanese culture or attitudes regarding brand loyalty (you've simply stated a very dumb, american-popularized pov). The fact is that nobody buys the Xbox because as you said, there are hardly any games tailored to Japanese video gamers' tastes. The poor sales of the Xbox in Japan being and end with that simple reason, not blind love of japanese companies.

    2. Re:Never going to happen by M3wThr33 · · Score: 1

      I could give a 1,000 reasons why it failed in Japan. Seeing articles here like "Balmer to introduce more American games" makes it even more clear. Aside from a much-needed-but-still-unrefined-retooling of the controller, they've done everything they possibly could to insult Japanese gamers from the TV commercials, to keeping the recall underwraps and simultaneously insulting them by saying they care too much, on top of treating their employees at their XBox branch in Japan like criminals.

      Doesn't anyone remember the comments MS made during the recall?

  7. Xbox is dying! by macdaddy357 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Xbox is dying, just like BSD. That is why no one is posting on this thread.

    --
    How ya like dat?
    1. Re:Xbox is dying! by bigman2003 · · Score: 1

      Okay...BSD comment aside-

      Nobody is posting here because the original story is about two incongrous subjects.

      Xbox

      Japan

      If you care about one, you probably don't care about the other. (Reason for crappy sales?)

      It's like opening a Vegemite shop in the US. We have peanut-butter...we don't want vegemite.

      --
      No reason to lie.
  8. "gear up"?! don't you mean: by andrewleung · · Score: 1

    GIRL up!

    I've been to the Tokyo Game Show for the last 3 years.. and every year, the XBox booth has had a LOT of scantily clad women... (not always hot, but they're just going for quantity over quality) way more women than stuff on display.

    at the end of the day, they get them to line up for photos and it's like a miss universe contest... it's pretty sweet.

    i don't care for what "gear" is at their booth, just bring on the girls!