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Xbox Gears Up For Tokyo Game Show
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."
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.
"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.