NIS America: Microsoft not 'supportive' of Japanese games

"There's still a very niche element to them."

The Xbox has never really been known for its Japanese popularity, nor its Japanese titles, and even though this is looking up these days, with their E3 conference highlighting titles like Dragonball FighterZ, the president and CEO of NIS America Takuro Yamashita claims there's still a lot more to do.

"Honestly speaking, Microsoft's approach to Japanese games hasn't been very supportive," Yamashita said in an interview with MCV. "Microsoft, you know, for Japanese games, there's still a very niche element to them, no matter what it might be."

"Microsoft also has a minimum order quantity for their games, and their whole structure isn't really geared toward niche games or smaller games like Japanese titles, so they're not really supportive of Japanese games or developers."

"We always try and pay attention to demand and see where our fan base is," senior associate producer Alan Costa added, so it seems the publisher isn't averse to the Xbox One itself. "We're obviously not opposed to trying new things. Disgaea 5 on Switch was one of those and it paid off, which is why we're definitely moving forward with that. I think that if the right game presented itself - a game that already had a certain level of awareness for people - we'd definitely be interested in giving it a chance, but it's a chicken and egg problem."

Nihon Falcom president Toshihiro Kondo agrees with NIS America, saying: "Falcom is obviously a Japan-focused developer and looking at the situation in Japan, the Xbox has had a difficult time. Because the market isn't there, we have to take a 'if things improve' attitude and just pay close attention to what's happening. However, I want to point that out we're always paying attention to the market particularly in terms of the foreign market, so if the Xbox was to have a sudden rise in the west, we'd obviously be open to considering it in that situation. I'd really like that to be the case."

Do you think that Microsoft needs to do a lot more to support Japanese games?