Minus the great generation cycle that was the Xbox 360, Microsoft has never managed to get a foothold for Xbox consoles in Japan. And with the Xbox One, the tech giant barely even tried initially. During the last few years, however, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has regularly visited Japan and has actually succeeded to get more games for Xbox One like Nier Automata, the Yakuza series and Phantasy Star Online 2.
In a new interview with Jeux Video, Spencer talks about the increased efforts to get Japanese developers onboard the Xbox train, and says that Xbox has announced several big Japanese titles during the last few years at E3 like Devil May Cry 5, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Elden Ring. So does this mean we'll see Japanese titles on the Xbox Games Showcase on Thursday? This is what Spencer had to say on this topic:
"Our Xbox team in Japan is working very hard to build relationships. We know players around the world are clamoring for amazing games from some of the best creators on the planet. We also know many of those are Japanese developers. We want to be a platform of choice for these games. I am proud of our progress over the past four or five years. At E3, we've had a strong presence of Japanese games on stage. We know that we are not a Japanese platform company, we know that we must work to rebuild a climate of trust with Japanese designers. We believe that will happen over time, continuing to listen to what they need to reach a large audience around the world."
Spencer then went on to state the following:
"I'm proud of what we're going to show on July 23, I like our roadmap for working directly with Japanese creators to build great Xbox games, you will hear more about that in the future. We know it's vitally important in our strategy to make sure we have compelling Japanese developers, and that they know Xbox is a platform they can be successful on."</em>
This does make it sound like there will be Japanese games shown on Thursday, doesn't it? We're keeping our thumbs up for Elden Ring which has been missing since E3 last year.