You may not know who Mages is, but they are an extremely prominent and important developer of visual novels, one of the most engaged niche audiences in Japan; indeed, in recent years, visual novels and shoot em ups have found a home on the Xbox 360, and it appears like Mages was looking to continue that trend by releasing three visual novels exclusively to the Xbox One. Except it also seems like the Japanese are having none of that, if DualShockers is to be believed.
The announcement, which was on Nico Nico (Japan’s premier video streaming service, was met with a staggeringly negative reaction- 66.5% of the viewers responded negatively to the news of the games, presumably because of their exclusivity status.
Of course, this does beg the question- unless Japanese companies are being moneyhatted by Microsoft (and there is no way Mages was moneyhatted, since visual novels may be an engaged niche, but a small niche nonetheless), why do they bother making Xbox One exclusive games at all, especially given the country’s historic antipathy to the brand?
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