Last month, we reported that Xbox head Phil Spencer was taking trip to Japan, where he was hoping to talk to some local developers and publishers to enlist Japanese games for the Xbox One- the situation for Japanese support on Xbox may be dire now, but not too long ago, the original Xbox and Xbox 360 were both host to some killer, quality exclusive content from Japan.
Apparently, Spencer wants to have Japanese games on Xbox, too. And he has said on Twitter that there was a lot of interest in Xbox One and Scorpio from Japanese developers, though he didn’t share any specifics. “A lot of dev interest in Scorpio/XB1. Previewed a lot of new games. Can’t share 3P specifics but Japan was a great trip,” Spencer said in response to a fan’s question.
It makes sense that Spencer would want Japanese games on Xbox- not only is that a demographic that Xbox currently completely fails to hit, but it is a market that Xbox does not appeal to, and a lot of games that Xbox outright concedes to PlayStation and Nintendo at the moment. With how great Japanese games have become of late – Final Fantasy 15, Dark Souls 3, Metal Gear Solid 5, Tales of Berseria, Yakuza 0, Resident Evil 7, The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush 2, Pokemon Sun/Moon, Nioh, Nier Automata, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – it’s clear that Xbox is now missing out on a lot of quality content by not going after Japanese developers. Hopefully this is a sign that things will change now.